In case you missed my Friday morning explanation -- I'm going to once again live-blog the New Tech Breakfasts at LDI 2013. These are great sessions before the start of the exhibition that give quick run-downs of all the new gear. Friday morning's will highlight all the new lighting gear. You can check out that post here. Saturday will cover rigging and special effects, and will be covered in full here! So come back Saturday morning and check it out!

Richard leads off with a haiku:

You think you own it.

Ha! You are the foolish one.

It owns you sucker.

Then he threatens more if the manufacturers don't get up to the podium on time...

Dirty Rigger starts us out! They make gloves - durable, comfortable gloves. Talks about labor statistics about injuries on jobs -- and how many of them are caused by not wearing gloves. They source high-quality materials, and their designers have more than 30 years experience in teh theatre industry, so they know what we need. They also test their gloves non-stop. Protector glove is their best seller. "Armortex" palm. Phoenix gloves for handling hot lamps, with heat resistance up to 480 degrees F for 30 seconds.

Michael from Clear-Com talking about their systems. 700 beltback, analog party line. Showing how durable it is by rolling a Jeep Cherokee over it.

ETC comes up to tout their rigging gear. "A rigging company with a small little lighting company on the side." They just added a new building to manufacturing facility to double manufacturing floor space. They've added third party equipment integration with a motor starter box that allows them to integrate the gear into their system. They came up with a new variable control system, the QuickTouch Plus. They don't believe in product shots, apparently...

James Bedell from Broadway Green Alliance is making another appearance to tout their "Greener" Lighting Guide. It's a compendium of lighting information online that will offer designers greener alternatives to their current fixtures, so they can do greener designs yet get the quality of light they need. They launch in 8 weeks, and we'll be telling you more about them as we get closer...

Cosmic Truss! Speaker Tower array, barriers and crank up stands. And an app - Cosmic Truss app. Gives you weight load data. Short and sweet.

OmniSistem and OmniSound. They have a full line of speakers. Some of their products used at Burning Man, survived the ordeal. Their QS1000, has a 10" and two 4" transducers. The QS600 a 6" and two 3". US1200 sub. Self-powered, and can also power the QS1000s and QS600s.

Richard taking the absence of a vendor to tout his new electrics training DVD!

Show Distribution talks about the focus on safety in lieu of recent rigging accidents. They created a rescue system the L5. A rescue system, fall arrest system and more for rigging accidents. The Limpet is a fall prevention system. Limpet has you in tension as you move and work, mitigating the fall. "It won't let you fall." Also offers climb assist. Calculates weight, and gives you a 9% lift. Rapid Rescue feature, too. Limpet offers "fast" and "rapid activation" rescue system. Designed to rescue people from burning wind turbines.

Stu from ZFX! EZ Hoist, plus a new controller that's easy to train and easy to use, and easy to draw. Despite details on drawing, the controller itself can store detailed cues in touch screen, joystick mode, or others. EZ Hoist - 250 pound capacity at 8 feet per second. EZr Hoist - 260 pound capacity, 12 feet per scone. 12" by 18" by 5 feet. BIG EzHoist. Used for stunt work, arena work. 1100 feet of travel.

LynTec started in audio, customers asked them create a new lighting control system to control LEDs. In 2009 they came out with teh RPC control panels. Provide on/off control and interface so you could DMX control and turn off LED fixtures to lengthen their life, especially in terms of maintenance. Next came mobile power, RPCM Mobile power distro. Functionality of installed power in mobile unit. Accessible and control by web browser, branch current monitoring and on/off control.

Parasol up to talk about moving the moving lights. Moving lights have X and Y axis, and now with Parasol they add "Zed" axis, moving the moving lights. Star 600 is new unit, 72 inches in diameter, and has a touring case that allows entire rig pre-loaded with lights to be loaded. Highly tourable.

And we're back! SFX section sponsored by UltraTec.

First up is Pangolin Laser Systems. They produce laser controls. Lasers growing at exponential scale, and new tech has made lasers cheaper than ever. So SFX companies are needing to control lasers. So they need a software to control lasers in combination iwth lighting video and SFX. "Beyond" is their multimedia software package to control lasers and everything else. Supports DMX/MIDI/ArtNet and more. Trying to make life easier for programmers. Putting a focus on laser safety. Safety scan lenses to increase divergence of beams when going into audience, but not when overhead. Beam attenuation lets you control power of laser in different areas, so you can adjust when near audience.

Introducing LightSpace, Chinese laser manufacturer. 10W RGB under $9000. 2.5W RGB under $3000.

LaserNet! "Laser Bright," addresses smaller club market. Stand alone with sound application, or DMX controlled with patterns. It can be tied in with Pangolin software to do text images and patterns.

CITC! Their slogan is "Cool stuff that's show tough." They presented AquaMax last year with organic haze. Lasts for 2 hours, even though water based. This year they're showing a new snow machine. The Quiet Cube. Has a smaller foot print, only draw 4 amps of power, and 10 db's quieter than old machine. Flake itself has a larger particle and is a little more transparent. Little Blizzard snow machines on tour with Trans-Siberian Orchestra for 6 years. As snow falls into laser beam spreads, it lights up like fireworks.

UltraTec! Booth 1063, Fog, snow. They've been our sponsors this morning - Thanks, Marnie!

And that's all! Time to hit the show floor!