SHOW REPORT By RichardCadena Cadena Where’s the Whiz? Where’s the Bang? If you went to PLASA 2009 at Earl’s Court in London looking for that whiz-banghallelujah got-to-have-it-life-changing product on the show floor and you didn’t find it, maybe you aren’t looking hard enough. If the Next Big Thing (NBT) didn’t seem to materialize, it’s probably because the last NBT — LEDs, media servers and networking — are still unfolding before our very eyes. To be sure, there were lots and lots of very cool new products at PLASA this year in every category of the industry. There was a plethora of LED color mixing wash fixtures, including those from Martin (MAC 301, MAC 401), JB Lighting (A7), GLP (Impression 120 RZ Zoom, Volkslicht), iPix (BB1, BB7), Studio Due, Chroma-Q Color Block 2 and Color Force 72 and many more. One of the new categories that is filling up fast are the <strong>com</strong>petitors to the Color Kinetics ColorReach, including the PixelRange Sky- Line, the Robe CitySkape (that’s not a typo — it’s spelled with a “k”) and CitySource 96 and the Griven PowerShine D. Among the most unique LED products is the Coemar Stage Lite LED, which is a two-cell cyc light with three automated tilting LED bars per cell (you can focus the light narrowly or spread it wide, depending on your needs) and the DTS XR300 Beam, a continuously rotating pan and tilt automated luminaire. Also very unique is the Vari-Lite VLX, a 630-watt LED color wash moving yoke fixture, although GLP is working a similar version, the Meisterstuck, and showed a prototype of it. Several new automated lights made their debut, including Robe’s Robin Plasma Wash (which uses plasma lamp technology), ColorBeam 700, Robin 300E Beam, Spot and Wash and a new ColorSpot 1200E AT. Clay Paky has a new range of Alpha 1500 fixtures including a Profile, Spot HPE, Wash, Beam and Wash LT, and Vari-Lite showed new versions of the VL 500 and VL 1000, both with the new Philips CDM300 ceramic discharge lamp. Martin demonstrated the MAC 250 Beam with its pencil beams while Novalight showed a new Nova Flower. This list is certainly not inclusive, as many more automated lights were seen around the show floor. On the control side, MA Lighting was showing the now-shipping version of the grandMA2, while Martin was very busy demonstrating their five Maxxyz modules, which can be arranged in custom configurations. Avolites had two new console offerings: the Tiger Touch, which is <strong>com</strong>parable to the Pearl 2004, except it has an integrated touch screen, and the Expert Touch W i n g , which adds a touch screen interface to the Pearl Expert. ETC showed the Element console, which is more of an entry-level console for the theatrical sector, and they introduced new software versions for the Conga and Eos consoles. In Hall 2 there was a buzz around the LSC Clarity console. It has a well-designed GUI and lots of features. There is a PC and a Mac version and two optional wings: a small wing and a big wing. The software includes a pixel mapper and integrates media servers through CITP. Compulite showed their entire range of consoles including the new Violet and Ultra Violet, both of which have RDM capabilities. And speaking of RDM, the RDM Pavilion has <strong>com</strong>e a long way since last LDI. Peter Willis of Howard Eaton shepherded the interconnection of various Remote Device Management tools, controllers, splitters and devices that discover, configure and monitor lights, dimmers and scrollers over wired and wireless networks, including products from Doug Fleenor Design, Pathway Connectivity, Robe, Enttec, Artistic Licence, Goddard Design, Howard Eaton Lighting, Luminex LCE, ELC, LSC, City Theatrical, Zero 88, LED Team, iPix, Wybron, City Theatrical, Barco/High End Systems, PR Lighting, Martin, QMaxz, CDS Advanced Technology, Lumen Radio, LEDTeam, Novalight, Tempest Lighting, LDR, Ocean Optics and ETC. Paul McMaster of Zero 88 was on hand to demonstrate the RDM capabilities of the new Jester software. It can discover lights and automatically create a fixture profile for it using the information the fixture sends to the console. It then allows the console operator to identify the fixture by making it flash so you can set its DMX address from the console. Marcus Bengtsson of Lumen Radio demonstrated their wireless RDM transmitters and receivers, which includes some software to monitor the network and the status of the connected devices. Over in the Martin stand they were demonstrating their own implementation of RDM called Radar. It was developed in conjunction with Wybron and uses Wybron’s InfoGate processor along with Info- Store software. The Radar software is run on a <strong>com</strong>puter and it <strong>com</strong>municates with RDM-enabled lighting fixtures and devices like scrollers through the InfoGate processor and an RDM splitter. The software polls the fixtures and if there are any status messages to report back to the console, then the operator can spot them on the display screen and pull them up. It also stores them on a remote server and keeps a record of the values. The system is Internetenabled, and you can monitor systems the world over. Martin is working on writing code that will enable users to update existing fixtures and all of their new fixtures will <strong>com</strong>e with RDM capabilities. After what seemed like a millennium of delay, it appears as if RDM is finally catching on. And when it really takes hold, watch for the whiz that will soon follow the bang. For more photos and info, go to www. psln.<strong>com</strong>/PLASA2009. 28 <strong>PLSN</strong> OCTOBER 2009
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS Vari-Lite’s new VLX in a translucent housing for display. Coemar displayed their latest offerings including the Infinity Spot, Wash and ACL fixtures. The ETC stand. Compulite launched the new Violet and Ultra Violet consoles. The stand for AC Entertainment Technology, parent <strong>com</strong>pany to AC Lighting in North America. Clay Paky introduced an entire range of Alpha 1500 and 700 fixtures. The MDG Fog stand at Earls Court 2. The PRG stand can be seen in the background. City Theatrical was showing the new Lightwright 5 software. Milos Structural Systems showed a new crowd barrier system, among other aluminum structures. Lycian’s stand between Earls Court 1 and 2. The Martin stand was among the busiest at the show. The PixelRange stand. Their new SkyLine is on top of the column of PixelLines. 2009 OCTOBER <strong>PLSN</strong> 29
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