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UK - After much deliberation, the theatre judging panel for the 2017 Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards has announced this year's shortlist of lighting and video designers, recognised for their creative work in theatre. The winners will be announced at the tenth anniversary KOI Awards ceremony, to be held at London's Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, on 17 September.
The KOI Awards was established to publicly celebrate the artistic achievements of lighting and video designers whose work has been showcased in the UK in the past 12 months in the sectors of Television, Theatre and Concert Touring & Events. Now one of the most celebrated nights in the live entertainment design industry calendar, KOI attracted more than 500 industry creatives and professionals to last year's celeb

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Australia - Lexair Entertainment is the new Australian distributor for Theatrixx Technologies. Theatrixx Technologies, based out of Canada, manufactures technical equipment to suit the needs of the performing arts industry.
"Theatrixx is thrilled to welcome Lexair Entertainment as our new distributor for Australia" said Erik Guertin, international sales for Theatrixx. "Together as a team we are confident that we will build and maintain strong relationships with customers and stay proud to offer a high-end variety of products to the Australasian market. There is no doubt that Lexair's reputation and expertise with AV products is a good fit for us and we are eager to see what the future will bring."
Lexair is initially focussing on the xVision robust video converter range that is designed for the road with recessed locking connectors, an integrated power supply with lock

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Belgium - British lighting console and media server manufacturer, Avolites, has appointed Fairlight as the exclusive distributor of its lighting and video network control products in Belgium. The exclusive partnership, which took effect on 1 July, follows nearly two decades of successful collaboration between the two companies.
Commenting on the relationship, Koy Neminathan, sales director for Avolites, says: "We are very satisfied with the performance of Fairlight in the Netherlands. They bring Avolites to a larger audience by undertaking numerous seminars, trainings and demos regularly. Furthermore, Fairlight always carries a large stock of Titan, Ai and Art dimming products. This is supported by their technical department who have been assessed and accredited by Avolites and thus provide the best technical assistance."
Technical service in Belgium will be provided b
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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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Factory News - Designs for Manchester's £110m arts centre the Factory are being redrawn after a review found the originals to not be fit for purpose. The project received planning permission in January but the council will now have to spend an extra £1.65m changing the designs.
The Factory was first announced in 2014. It has been given a £78m grant from central government, as well as a £9m annual grant from 2018-19. It is designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas' firm OMA, with theatre consultancy from Charcoal Blue.
According to The Stage, The ‘novelty’ glazed and concrete exterior in the original plans will "compromise the acoustic performance of the venue", a review submitted to Manchester City Council claimed. Elsewhere, the theatre's design was found to be too complex and the orchestra pit too small.
The review, conducted by Manchester City Co

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USA - t’s been said that “experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.” John Garberson, owner of Creative BackStage, picked up some valuable experience recently when he worked a Hello Arizona-produced show by Nile Rodgers.
Garberson had created a design for the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer that was built around a lot of high-energy aerial effects. At the last minute, though, he learned that he would not be allowed to use haze. With his original lighting concept severely crimped, he and his LD and programmer James Simpson reworked their plans and created a lushly coloured stage design using the 32 Chauvet Professional Rogue washes in his rig. For added good measure, they turned up the eye candy volume with the four STRIKE 4 multi-formatted fixtures on their front truss.
“Lately, we’ve become more aware of building versatility into our rigs

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UK - When lighting designer Cate Carter first conjured with Elbow appearing at the Barclaycard Summer Time (BST) annual concert series in Hyde Park this year she was immediately presented with two dilemmas.
“One was the sheer scale of the stage, that enormous wall of LED screen cannot be ignored,” she said. Supplied by Video Design, the wall has, since last year, been extended from centre stage across and right down the outside edges of the PA wings. Wrapping the entire performance platform, it measures 200ft across and 35 high, a total 650sq/m of 9mm.
“The other thing was about timing,” Carter continued. “We started supporting the new album Little Fictions, earlier this year in February/March. As it was a theatre tour we decided on no IMAG, relying instead on pure content projected onto a rear cyc. Our slot at Hyde Park made both those factors anachr

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UK - Space Spectacular, the annual space-inspired music co-production between the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) and promoter Raymond Gubbay, needed a spectacular lighting and effects show to live up to its name.
With limited time to set up and programme the extensive rig, RAH’s lighting design manager, Richard Rhys Thomas, was able to put together a stunning show in only a few hours using a Jands Vista L5 Console.
He commented: “For me it comes down to limited time availability and being able to maximise time to create the actual design looks, effects and sequences with ease. The fact that over 180 moving lights, 100 LEDs and 200 dimmers, together with all attribute controls and palettes were accessible from a single layout on a large screen meant there was complete control at any one time. This greatly speeds up the programming process and is a fantastic credit t

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UK - London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), took full advantage of the capabilities of one of MDG’s ATMe haze generators during their recent production of Rona Munro’s Scuttlers.
“The brief from the director, Hannah Eidinow, was to create the atmosphere of Manchester in the 1890s: hot, industrial, sweaty, dirty, polluted and foggy, so clearly we needed to use a hazer that was up to the job,” says guest lighting designer, Declan Randall. “And MDG’s ATMe haze generator was more than up to the task.”
Scuttlers was first performed at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre in 2015. It follows the exploits of the city’s first street gangs, set against the background of Manchester’s cotton mills and industrial expansion of the nineteenth century.
The recent production at RADA moved the setting from the 200+ seat theatre-in-the-ro

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USA/Europe - Canadian singer / songwriter The Weeknd is currently rocking plenty of style and enjoying success, critical acclaim, multiple awards and several hits from his chart-topping third studio album Starboy, propelling him a long way from his underground roots and early anonymous mixtapes uploaded to You Tube in 2010.
Lighting for 2017’s Starboy Legend of the Fall tour has been designed by Sooner Routhier who picked Robe Spikie moving lights together with BMFL Spots and WashBeams to be at the heart of the rig.
Sooner has worked with The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) since 2012. She and design business partner Robert Long of SRae Productions were contacted by his creative directors Lamar C Taylor and Drop last year and asked to assist with this tour, which involved lighting an impressively beautiful flown sculpture created by production designer, Es Devlin.

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Poland - Stadion Miejski, located in Łódź is the home stadium of football team Widzew Łódź, one of Poland’s best known football brands. Designed by architect Jacek Ferdzyn, Stadion Miejski is an entirely new construction with an all-seater capacity of 18,018. The design meets the requirements of UEFA Category 3 classification, with the option of adapting to higher categories if required.
The contract for design and installation of the stadium’s sound systems was awarded to Tommex Żebrowscy Sp. J. The first stage of the system's design was a detailed EASE acoustic simulation for loudspeaker selection and placement.
For Stadion Miejski, Tommex again chose Community’s R Series loudspeakers for their high power, intelligibility, controlled coverage and all-weather reliability. Flown from the roof canopy in a distributed configuration, Tommex achieved full cov

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Russia - The Nashvill rock festival organized by NASHE Radio took place recently at the Trud Stadium in the Russian city of Nizhniy-Novgorod. The festival line-up included popular Russian rock bands and was attended by more than 5000 people.
The grey skies, relatively cold temperatures and rainy weather could not dampen the rock ’n’ roll spirit, and the main stage saw live-shows from legendary Russian bands, Mumiy Troll, Splean, Animal Jazz, Knyazz and Noize MC, performing their greatest hits through Martin Audio’s premium MLA PA system. The second, smaller stage was given to bands such as Magnitola, ХХХХХХХХХХ, Kimakima and Moona.
The Festival sound and lighting systems were supplied by locally based rental provider, Citysound. The choice of MLA for the main stage was clear – the top-rated bands required detailed and powerful sound throughout the fes

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USA - For a recent collaboration with the Cavalettes Dance Team in Austin, TX, Lake Travis High School students Max Dalton and Trenton Schoonmaker used High End Systems SolaSpot 2000s to take the group’s production Love to a new artistic level.
The technicians at the Lake Travis PAC are all students enrolled in the Technical Theatre program at Lake Travis High School, and are part of the LTHS Student Chapter of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.
Lake Travis PAC managing director K.J. Bartosh comments: “We’ve worked hard over the last decade to transform our dance show from a very basic recital into a spectacular community event that adds a great deal of production value to the talent of our dancers, as well as to stretch the significant educational opportunities for our technical theatre students. The Cavalettes are a highly-decorated dril

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Canada - Ontario's Canada Day celebration at Queen's Park has been a tradition since 1967 and commemorates the formation of Canada as one country on 1 July 1867. The event draws audiences in their thousands, offering music and dance performances, roaming performers, games and children's activities.
This year, the festivities extended into the evening, with musical performances to celebrate Ontario and Canada's 150th anniversary. Bespoke Audio Visual was brought on board by the Ontario Provincial Government to provide all the audio/ visual/ lighting/ staging and technical support – site-wide – for the event, and with a bigger lighting package in use to illuminate the event into the evening, the company turned to BroadWeigh to supply load cell monitoring and logging for their rigging package.
Andrew Bernacki, production manager at Bespoke Audio Visual, explained: "Wi

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Hungary - Many historic opera houses have, in more recent times, begun staging a wider variety of performances. This often needs the installation of modern sound reinforcement systems, to ensure that every type of production sounds its best. An example is the Erkel Theatre in the Hungarian capital Budapest, which has recently installed a state-of-the-art Yamaha and Nexo system.
The Erkel Theatre opened in December 1911 and has been Hungary’s largest auditorium since its opening. With a currently audience capacity of 1819, it has been regularly redeveloped over the years and has been the Hungarian State Opera’s second performance venue since 1951. Although it had a small sound reinforcement system, the recent decision to stage musicals and other live music performances meant that a more modern solution was needed.
The new system was specified and installed by leadi

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UK - The University of Surrey has been awarded Gold for its teaching and learning in the first ever Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The University of Surrey includes the Guildford School of Acting (GSA).
The award scheme has been introduced by the Government to evaluate the overall quality of Higher Education provision in the UK, and recognises Surrey for delivering consistently outstanding teaching, assessment and academic support. It showcases Surrey as providing teaching and learning at the highest quality level in the UK, and reinforces our position as a leading academic institution for current and prospective students.
Only 20 per cent of the 295 institutions which entered the TEF were awarded Gold status, and the TEF panel drew particular attention to rigorous and stretching course design and assessment; the “outstanding research expertise” of staff “e

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UK - CUK Audio continues to strengthen its portfolio with the signing of an exclusive distribution agreement with German loudspeaker manufacturer, HEDD | Heinz Electrodynamic Designs. Established in 2015 by loudspeaker veteran Klaus Heinz (the founder of ADAM Audio) and his son, mastering engineer Dr. Frederik Knop, HEDD designs and manufactures studio monitors for all areas of music production, broadcast and installation.
The HEDD range is described by the company as “analogue monitors with digital minds”. The emphasis is on “flawless, transparent sound quality above all else, in a format that slots effortlessly into an increasingly digital world thanks to the inclusion of an input card system”. A range of optional input cards enables customers to connect to Dante, RAVENNA/AES67 and AES3/EBU networks for maximum versatility in networked environments.
MI retail

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USA - Originally completed in October of 1917 at a cost of more than half a million dollars, the impressive Greek Doric-style Central Branch of the Indianapolis Public Library, naturally clad in Indiana limestone, officially celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
A big part of the institution’s more recent history is Clowes Auditorium, an intimate 300-seat, 2,800sq.ft venue that was added during the Central Library’s extensive expansion in 2008. Hosting everything from classical chamber performances and Latin jazz bands to children’s theater and corporate presentations, Clowes Auditorium is now truly ready for the future, thanks to a new L-Acoustics Kiva II sound system installed in May by integrator Mid-America Sound.
The auditorium, which had been using temporary ground-stacked PA components as needed, now has its first-ever flown system consisting of six

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USA - DCR Nashville has expanded its inventory with the recent addition of three DiGiCo mixing consoles: two SD10 desks and a new SD12. Inclusive with that purchase are three SD-Racks - each fully loaded with 56 channels of DiGiCo’s brand new 32-bit ‘John Stadius’ mic preamp modules - three DiGiGrid MGB interfaces and three Waves SoundGrid Extreme servers.
According to DCR Nashville general manager John Schirmer, who joined the company in January of this year, the purchase underscores the company’s commitment to offering what its touring and corporate clients are looking for. “Although DCR Nashville has been providing full production services for Brantley Gilbert’s The Devil Don’t Sleep tour and a host of others events—including CMA Fest, Music City July 4th Celebration and Dave Ramsey Solutions - DCR’s owner originally started this company 12 years ago in

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Ireland - The annual Galway International Arts Festival is one of Ireland’s largest cultural events. This year’s line-up features musical performances by Dublin’s own Gavin James, England’s Passenger, original Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and many others. Lighting for the eclectic series of nightly concerts in the festival Big Top is provided by Light Source, with data networking by ProPlex.
“We have used ProPlex cable and devices for every show over many years,” says Light Source general manager, Ciaran Donnelly. “This gig has two GBS 10-port switches, four Opto-Splitters including two Minis in the truss, and an IQ Two 1616 16-universe DMX node. Tying the system together are over 200m of ProPlex Fibre, and 200m of ProPlex Cat 5e and DMX cables.” Donnelly added, “Additionally, we are using 200 meters of ProCable Multicable, fanouts, and 16 amp TRS mains cables.

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Czech Republic - Once the steel and coal powerhouse of Czechoslovakia, the city of Ostrava in the East of the Czech Republic has transformed itself since the fall of communism in 1989 into one of central Europe’s most vibrant cultural centres. In addition to hosting one of the most famous music festivals in Europe in a disused mining complex turned UNESCO World Heritage site (Colours of Ostrava), Ostrava is home to one of the most progressive theatres in the country, Divadlo Mir.
In keeping with Ostrava’s transformative theme, the theatre – a former cinema – recently called upon Ostravská Kulturní S.R.O to upgrade its ageing lighting and audio systems. For fresh visual input, the theatre opted to install eight Chauvet Professional Ovation F-165WW and 12 Ovation F-95WW Ovation ellipsoidal fixtures, supplied by Chauvet Professional distributor, Audiomaster.
“

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Croatia - Lighting designer Miro Hrg from top Croatian rental company Promo Logistika chose Robe BMFL Spots, CycFX8s, LEDWash 600s and MMX WashBeams to light the main conference plenary session for the Microsoft WinDays 2017 conference, staged at the Valamar Rubin Hotel in the beautiful historical city of Poreč in Istria.
The four-day event caomprised a series of lectures, seminars, networking and interactive sessions aimed at Windows developers and administrators and involved two locations – the Rubin Hotel just outside the city centre and at the Valamar Isabella Island Resort on the picturesque Island of Saint Nicolas in Poreč Harbour.
It was the second year running that Miro has designed set and lighting for the WinDays event’s main conference room. The client was extremely happy with last year’s results and this year raised the bar on the production values.
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