Lighting will come sharply into focus during May's PALME Middle East Show, with two giants of the architectural and entertainment sectors consolidating their presence.

Both Martin Professional Middle East and Avolites Middle East will have their heavy artillery on display. The former will unveil a host of new products for the first time in the Middle East, among them the MAC TW1 - a powerful, silent tungsten wash light with a clean, even, soft-edged beam, a motorised zoom, rich CMY colour mixing and both internal and external electronic dimming.

Lining up alongside are the company's new LC series - a semi-transparent, modular system of LED panels, perfect for displaying film, digital images and graphics;  the RGB Laser 1.6 - a compact and lightweight Class 4 laser with deep saturated colours and true whites; LED Stagebar - a light yet robust fixture featuring RGB, amber and ‘true' white, calibrated colour output, constant light output and more; MAC 700 Profile - a compact, powerful fixture with high output and optical precision combining a full CMY colour mixing system with eight-position colour wheel and gobo animation system (plus iris, fixed gobos, rotating gobos and zoom system); and finally the MAC 700 Wash - an exceptionally powerful wash light with a clean, even, soft-edged beam, a motorised zoom, indexible beam shaper and rich CMY colour-mixing.

Martin Professional have long been major players in the region, where their work can be seen at Dubai's Mall of the Emirates.

Working with Martin Professional Middle East lighting designer, Francis Krahae, F+A Architects brought to life one of the largest shopping malls outside of North America - which also contains the now legendary indoor ski complex within the desert.

Opened 15 months ago, this 223,000 sq. metre centre offers a full range of shopping, leisure, and entertainment facilities, and in addition to Ski Dubai includes the five-star Kempinski Hotel and Magic Planet - the largest indoor family entertainment centre in the country.

The outer facade of Ski Dubai is outlined in a strip of colour-changing light from some 370 Martin Architectural full colour mixing, weatherproof Cyclo IP65 fluorescent luminaires, controlled by a Martin PC-based ProScenium system. Debbas Electric L.L.C were the installers.

Attached to the Mall, the architecture of the 400-room Kempinski Hotel includesdomes which glow in an ever-changing rotation of shades from Martin Architectural CMY colour-changing Exterior Series fixtures - 12 Exterior 600 Compact and 48 Exterior 200 with lighting control from a Martin ProScenium and Martin LightJockey (as well as Martin Wireless DMX 512 control). The Exterior fixtures were installed by Cinmar Lighting Systems.

Finally, Martin Professional Middle East have provided an elegant combination of indirect dynamic illumination and atmospheric audio in Magic Planet - courtesy of the Martin Architectural ViroStation. ViroStation consists of flat panel architectural loudspeakers mounted on a slim post and illuminated by Martin Exterior 200 CMY colour-changers. The panels function as both loudspeakers - ­­­ for music and PA purposes - and light reflectors and blend perfectly into the environment, while inside Martin MAC moving heads add energy to the space.

Masters of entertainment lighting control, Avolites Middle East will be taking the new Pearl Expert lighting console to the Middle East for the first time - seeing the region as one of substantial growth and great potential.

Forming the main highlighted product on the Avolites Middle East booth Pearl Expert is a high performance version of the popular Pearl - with additional sub-masters, flash buttons and power - and optimised for use on larger and more demanding shows and events.

Pearl Expert is based on the Pearl 2004 operating system. It is powered by the new Intel CoreTMDuo Processor giving an exceptionally high speed button response which is particularly useful for ‘Take Over', and busking with Timed Palettes.

An additional five sub-master playbacks make a total of 20 - the most of any console in its class - ensuring every type of show has instantly accessible playbacks. New Add and Swop buttons for the top row of faders allow easy placement of fixtures and dimmers, on all 60 preset faders.

Pearl Expert has already been in action with leading lighting designers including Pip Rhodes (Paul Weller) and Nick Jevons (Jarvis Cocker), while high profile Pearl Expert installations in London already include The End, the Hippodrome Leicester Square and Brixton Fridge.

The range of Avolites Art2000 Dimmers and Azure consoles will also be shown on the Avo Middle East booth, as will the powerful Diamond 4 Elite and Vision consoles, currently on tour with Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, Bloc Party, The Killers and Bryan Adams.