Stage Electrics is exclusively featuring the Apollo Right Arm at ABTT following the delivery and installation of the first units to the UK last week.

Brand new from Apollo US, the Right Arm's functional design makes it easy to add DMX control of pan and tilt to a wide variety of lighting, video and projection devices, the movement is precise, smooth and quiet.

The first Right Arm was supplied in the UK by Stage Electrics to Geoff Spain of Aldeburgh Music, at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, where, amongst other lighting challenges follow spots are pretty much out of the question and the natural acoustics of the hall mean that moving head equipment has to be completely silent - not just very quiet, but silent.

Geoff Spain explains "Everyone who works in a concert venue knows the problem; you get the stage set up and the rig focused and then the pianist wants to move the piano a metre off centre, the drummer wants to be closer to the bass player, or the soloist decides to go SL rather than SR. During our June Festival and August Proms we have a different concert every night and catering for the, often last minute, requests of the average musician can mean frequent runs up the Tallescope to re-focus specials.

Geoff continue "Since starting at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall a year ago I soon realised that some form of moving, or at least re-focusable light would allow me to cope with those last minute musical changes. Some form of moving yoke seemed the most appropriate for the venue, but they were generally expensive and not very flexible because they were designed to work with a fairly limited range of lanterns."

"The Right Arm" said Geoff "is silent (no fans!) and very quiet when it moves, it is straightforward to set up and get running and basically does exactly as I needed, the facility to mount any lantern (or other piece of equipment which needs a remote ‘nudge') makes it incredibly flexible, one concert could see them rigged with a Parcan and scroller, the next a Rama Fresnel and then a Source 4."

Geoff's enthusiasm for the Right Arm was not disappointed when on Saturday 8^th June the fixture was used  for the first time during a concert by the world renowned pianist Alfred Brendel. Geoff's final words sum the application and situation perfectly "Did the piano get moved a bit? Of course, but this time I didn't have to get the Tallescope out!"

Also featuring on Stage Electrics stand at ABTT will be the Roland Sound Systems digital Sound Snake a new and innovative digital muticore, providing stand alone solutions for sound technicians in a range of venues. The system delivers up to 160 channels of high quality 24-bit/96kHz audio over Cat5e cables. System highlights include remote controllable XR-1 professional quality mic pre amps, redundant Ethernet ports and splits using standard Ethernet hardware.