The Donnas opened for The Hives last Friday night at NYC’s Terminal 5. I know, I know, I’ve been going there way too much lately, but what can you do? They certainly had a lot happening there last week…

Gear was provided by BML and included 12 MAC 700 Profiles, 8 MAC 2000 Profiles, 2 Atomic 3K strobes, 2 full size grandMA, and 2 Spot lights. Leftover video gear was used to film the show.

In-house LD Luciano Savedra lit the ladies, while The Hives LD “Cheese” did a great job lighting the band’s super charged set. My apologies for the crap pictures. I only had my phone camera with me that night…

The Donnas

The Hives

Another year, another trip to Frankfurt. While the show doesn’t start until Wednesday, I’m lucky enough to be here early so I can be whisked away by our friends at MA Lighting to see the headquarters (more on that tomorrow).

For now, I just thought I would share a few products picks—ones I’m looking forward to checking out on the show floor Wednesday. There will be lots of gear shown for the first time, so here are a few I’m anxious to see (again, more as the week wares on):

Martin is unleashing its MAC 2000 Wash XB™, an extra-bright 1,500W Fresnel with CMY color mixing. Its 1,500W Osram lamp outputs over 60,000 lumens.

Enttec is showing its recently released Open DMX Ethernet Node, the single universe DMX-to-10/100 Ethernet conversion node that translatea between standard DMX protocol and Art-Net. It also supports the Enttec Show Protocol (ESP) for Ethernet.

Coolux is launching its long awaited version 4.0 for Pandora’s Box here in Frankfurt. According to the manufacturer, the upgrade features a load of user requests and some features include new software features as well as three new hardware configurations, with variations in video and graphic layer options and RAID space storage.

Gefen will show two new recently launched products, as well: a 1:5 Splitter for HDMI v1.3 and a 1:10 HDMI v1.3 Distribution Amplifier. The splitter accepts one audio/video input and transmits the same signal to five displays. The distribution amp transmits one HDMI source to ten displays.

ETC is showing its new version of Congo (v5.0, to be exact), promising over 100 new features, although the manufacturere has been keeping the details under wraps for the moment. We’ll hear more this week.

Coemar’s Cyc LED is rolling out in several versions in its strongest official showing since its preview at LDI. The cyc has 96 LEDs, and a single-cell version has 48 (dubbed the CycLite LED SC, “single-cell,” no doubt). Both white and RGB LEDs provides color mixing or full white. An outdoor IP65 version is also available.

www.icd-usa.com in the US or www.coemar.com worldwide.

Turbosound has announced a several European debuts this week. Of particular note is Flex Array, what the manfacturer is calling a “one-box-fits-all loudspeaker product suitable for a huge variety of venue types.” It takes elements of Turbosound’s point-source system and allows one enclosure type to be used in either line-array or point-source configurations. The company is also showing a sound-contracting loudspeaker addition to the TCS Series.

Soundcraft’s Vi Series™ digital live sound consoles now support multiple stageboxes, a new feature being launched at Pro Light + Sound. The Vi Offline Editor is also a new addition, and it can now be downloaded free at www.soundcraftdigital.com.

The third annual PLUG Awards ceremony was held last night at everybody’s fave new Midtown Manhattan venue, Terminal 5. I wasn’t there for work but instead to support a friend who was nominated for Best Music Website of the Year. I did manage to take a few snapshots of Nick Cave, who was given a Liftetime Impact Award, described by host Patton Oswaldt as “a butt plug designed by David Lynch.”

BML brought in a ton of gear, including 12 MAC 700s, 8 MAC 2k Profiles, 24 PixelBricks, custom-built risers, pretty and shiny soft goods, a full grandMA (current in-house is a grandMA light) two of the giant Barco projectors and tons and tons of green and purple gels. Overall design was done by director of photography Eric Cochran, Chris Reddish was the TV LD, and Mike Appel was the rocking LD/programmer.

Have a great weekend!

Chris Reddish (back to camera) and Mike Appel (right)

Nick Cave

Nick Cave

There’s not much I wouldn’t do to see the Beastie Boys live. I basically grew up listening to these guys, and it was especially nice to check them out for a good cause—last night’s show at NYC’s Terminal 5 (See Live Design Take 5 Feb. 2008) was a benefit for the Bronx-based Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (INMF). The INMF’s mission is to promote neurological health and well-being based on the healing power of music, and I totally get it. Some might argue to the contrary, but I do believe that music helps us tremendously, and by default, good lighting at a show can accentuate that music and make it even more powerful. Mike “Chicken” Lamb was the LD for last night’s show, and he provided a fair amount of different looks, working with the venue’s six moving lights (Robe ColorSpot 1200s) as well as 18 six-lamp PAR bars with Altman PAR64 NSPs, four 4-lamp ACL bars, and four 4-light blinders, 8 Source Four ellipsoidals (five 19° and three 26°), and eight High End Systems Cyberlight CXs. The venue has since added a number of plasma screens to help with the limited sightlines. Now if only we could get some better sound in there…

A couple of us attended a nice event last night in celebration of the launch of a new combined design/events company here in NYC. Emmy-winning production designer John Casey and partner Cathy Casey officially launched i.e. Design Events at the Bowery Hotel, complete with sponsorship by Brown-Forman and SKYY Spirits (read: open bar).

Cathy and John Casey enjoy their launch party, pictured here with Dan Gwinnell, who edited and co-wrote all text for the panels, brochure, and releases for the launch.

The couple (yep, they’re a couple) aim to provide both production design and special events management with their new firm, combining John’s 14 years of design experience and Cathy’s 10 years of fundraising and special events background. The venue for the launch was lovely–hadn’t been there before–and the room was outfitted with huge displays explaining the goals of the company, the partners’ areas of expertise (lots of shots of John’s set designs for shows like the Martha Stewart Show and Inside Edition, and (why not?) baby pics. John snagged his three Emmy nominations (one win) while with Jack Morton Design/PDG. John and Cathy are both immigrants, John from Ireland and Cathy from Ethiopia.

Huge displays at the party provided info on the firm, the partners’ backgrounds, and some fun photos.