China - The Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts, located at the Olympic Sports Centre in Jiangsu Najing, is the largest modern theatre in China, second in size only to the National Grand Theatre located in Beijing. It was designated as a world-class exhibition of works of art, the international exchange of arts activities platform and a public education platform for the promotion of arts.
Its Opera Hall is equipped with two grandMA2 full-size, two grandMA2 light and two grandMA2 fader wing whereas its concert hall relies on two grandMA2 ultra-light and two MA 2Port Node as well as two MA DMX Booster.
Xu Zhi Yong, project manager for ACE – Advanced Communication Equipment Co Ltd., MA Lighting’s exclusive distributor in China, commented: “The choice for MA was an

The Netherlands - With over 30 years in the industry, Gijs Schouten is one of the Netherlands most experienced professional sound engineers.
Gijs started in audio at just 14 years old, initially wanting to become a DJ but soon getting involved at his brother-in-law’s home studio. In 1983 he started his career as a professional engineer, initially with Balance, a show orchestra that played many events and parties in and around the Netherlands.
By the end of the 1990s, Gijs was employed full-time at Focus in Amsterdam, one of the Netherlands leading technical production companies, where he is now one of its most experienced sound engineers.
He is currently in the middle of a very busy summer, working on shows ranging from a Christian convention with the band Casting Crowns at Rotterdam’s Ahoy arena to a number of festivals, including Douwpop, Ribs & Blues

UK - With 35 musicians on stage delivering arguably the greatest back catalogue of classic rock anthems in history, Led Zep Masters is a live show that places great demands on a front-of-house audio set-up. To address those demands production company Liz Hobbs Group relied on an Allen & Heath dLive S Class digital mixing system for its recent run of UK theatre shows, which featured Australia’s Zep Boys backed by some of the best orchestral players in the country.
The Zep Boys are well versed in fronting the orchestral extravaganza of Led Zeppelin’s best-loved songs, with a history that reaches back to 1986. And having recently invested heavily in the dLive series, Liz Hobbs Group turned to Allen & Heath’s flagship dLive S7000 control surface and DM64 MixRack to serve up the band’s impressively bombastic performance in venues including the London Pallad
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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

Denmark - Holstebro Musikteatret in Denmark has invested in 24 new Robe LEDWash 600+’s which will be used throughout their facility, making the production lighting options more dynamic and flexible and saving valuable time during changeovers and technical time.
The Musikteatret includes three main venues: a 1,200-seater main auditorium; the Black Box, a flexible space which can accommodate up to 1,700 people standing and is where the fixtures will primarily be deployed - and The Hall of Fame bar which is also used for concerts, comedy, dining and events.
The venue is a truly multi-purpose concept, built in 2006 on the footprint of the old Holstebrohallen. The Black Box was added in 2008 expanding the capacity to stage more and a greater diversity of shows. The Black Box is also the home to its own Black Box Dance Company which produces several works annually and tour

UK - This year’s Glastonbury Festival was “the best yet” according to organiser Emily Eavis. A star-studded procession of artists from Radiohead, Ed Sheeran and the Foo Fighters to The Sleaford Mods, The XX and Katy Perry appeared on its stages. These superstars weren’t the only crowd pleasers at the five-day event, however, also attracting a lot of attention was the 20m high multi-coloured ribbon tower set against the brilliant light produced by 10 Maverick MK1 Hybrids from Chauvet Professional.
Simon Marcus, MD at Enlightened Lighting specified the 10 powerful 440W moving lights to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the tower and the park area that surrounds it. In addition to creating an aerial lightshow, the Maverick fixtures fit harmoniously with the tower uplights, and add drama and presence to the structure.
Installed in weather proof domes, the MK1s were

France - Mkplus, the full-service rental house based near Lyon, is one of the pioneering users of Nexo’s new Geo M10 mid-size line array. Frédéric Guinand’s company has debuted the high-output SR system on the four-day Changez d’air music festival, as well as several indoor events.
A very high-profile test of the new system took place in the elegant grounds of the prestigious Ombrosa Lycée Multilingue de Lyon, in Caluire. Ombrosa is a private international school operating within the French national educational system. To mark its 45th anniversary, the school hosted a large outdoor event in its grounds. For the audience of 2,500 people, the highlight was a performance by 500 young students on stage.
Mkplus presented a large mixed Nexo system for the fête, using ground-stacked Geo M10 as the main PA. Using a 10” LF driver and 1.4” HF driver, these two-way

UK - The Association of Lighting Designers has announced the launch of the 2017 Michael Northen Awards. This year, following extensive research by the ALD’s student working group, a total of four awards will be presented under the Michael Northen Award scheme. The awards are open to current students – not limited to those on vocational theatre course – as well as affiliate members of the ALD.
The awards are a celebration of imaginative and creative lighting and video design and represent a chance for young designers to showcase their talent, bringing their work to the attention of experienced lighting and video designers, as well to the wider reach of industry professionals. Awards are presented to those who demonstrate strong, imaginative and creative lighting or video designs.
The winner of last year’s Award was Rory Beaton, who has since held the role of l

Canada - Automation specialist Kinesys is staging its first product awareness demonstration in Canada - on 8 July for one day only - to make people aware that Kinesys products have ‘officially landed’ in Canada and are available for immediate rental from Drifter Rigging.
The demo day is a collaboration between David Bond, who runs Kinesys’ US operation and Mark “Drifter” Desloges from Drifter Rigging, a new rental operation recently established in Toronto, with a selection of Kinesys kit. It will be held in a warehouse facility at 100 Carson St. Unit A Etobicoke, Toronto, M8W 3R9.
The objectives of the day include introducing people to Kinesys as a brand and highlighting the range of intelligent rigging and automation solutions available generally with particular attention to the newest ground-breaking Kinesys technologies available, the Apex system.

UK - Theatre lighting designer Andy Webb has specified an Avolites Tiger Touch II as the house-desk at The Griffin Centre, a new £3.3m performance venue at Cotswold educational establishment, Rendcomb College.
Webb has been involved in the build as technical consultant since 2013, having worked alongside the college for over a decade, supporting the theatrical department and teaching A-Level lighting design.
"It was great to be involved in the project from the ground up," says Webb. "I was able to work with the architects to solve any design problems from a technical perspective before they were even engineered into the building."
The Griffin Centre will be utilised as a hybrid professional space for live events and as a training centre for the college's theatre students.
"From the start of the process, Rendcomb College made it clear that the theatre was t

USA - Daryl Hall and John Oates kicked off their 2017 summer tour last month at the BOK Centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The whirlwind tour across America’s heartland includes 30 dates through July.
The lighting design team of Matt Geasey and Jesper Luth specified 140 Solaris Mozart fixtures, as well as 600 IMS Mk2 RGBW lamps on 12 110-foot festoon strings, all provided to the tour by Morris of Nashville.
“Daryl and John were looking to add a lighting effect that would bring the audience closer to them, thus creating a more intimate setting,” explains David Haskell, president of Morris. “To achieve this, we deployed strings of IMS colour-changing festoon lamps over the audience from downstage to front of house. With six IMS Mk2 Universe Drive controllers mounted in the downstage truss, the network is simple to operate and keeps our work areas tidy. We are happy to r

USA - Theatre audiences today are accustomed to seeing musicals where songs and dances are woven into a well-crafted dramatic storyline, but that was rarely the case prior to the 1943 Broadway debut of Oklahoma!. The Rogers and Hammerstein classic’s smashing success (it ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances) marked the beginning of a new era, one that would ultimately see the songs and dances in a musical go from being mere entertainment numbers to vital parts of the unfolding narrative.
Lighting designer Zach Blane did justice to this “Book Musical” tradition in a recently concluded, Igor Goldin directed, revival of Oklahoma! at the John W. Engeman Theatre. Drawing on a collection of Ovation, COLORdash and Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional, Blane conveyed key dramatic elements of the play in light, particularly during pivotal scenes, such as

UK - Tony Kushner’s multi-award-winning play, Angels in America has made a triumphant return to the National Theatre, marking 25 years since its UK debut. This technology-laden production of the two-part epic features innovative ways of working with ETC’s Eos family of lighting control desks.
Dubbed "a gay fantasia on national themes" by Kushner, Angels in America concerns a group of interconnected New Yorkers in the mid-1980s, when the world was in the grip of the AIDs crisis and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. This new staging of the play is directed by Marianne Elliott, complemented by lighting design from Paule Constable and a set designed by Ian MacNeil, who takes advantage of the moving parts afforded by the National’s Lyttelton stage to blend reality and fantasy for the multi-faceted story.
To transport the audience from New York, to Sa

UK - Glastonbury Festival’s new look Other Stage was designed and manufactured by Serious Stages’, who also installed the system along with the main stages across the site.
Dedicated to improving the festival experience for artists and fans, the organisers long term relationship with Serious Stages made them the obvious choice of contractor to create a new look Other Stage to accommodate the large scale incoming band productions form the likes of Stormzy, Major Lazer and Boy Better Know.
This four tower 25m TZ roof featured a sloped back, to give extra on-stage storage for artists and production, along with clear-span wings creating a much-improved working area with increased space for the incoming productions. An offset leg design on the rear of the goalpost created the space for the side-shed. The main deck, rear shed, side wings, ramps and underworld also offere

World - Known for their very intricate stadium shows, U2 honours the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, by taking a robust, cinematic set and the albums legacy hits on the road for a stadium tour across North America and Europe.
After reuniting with their fans at iHeartRadio’s Music Festival and Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference, the Irish rockers cemented the idea to celebrate the Joshua Tree album with the Joshua Tree Tour, making it the first time the band has ever taken an entire album from their back catalogue on tour.
In a Rolling Stone interview, Bono speaks about tour, stating, "It's so not like us to throw ourselves a birthday party. We didn't know if we could pull off a tour that honours The Joshua Tree without it being nostalgic. That's an oxymoron."
In order to showcase the album to its fullest

UAE - Dubai Festival City is a 1300 acre, waterfront urban community that has been designed to reflect the 21st century spirit of Dubai. It offers visitors a shopping, dining and entertainment experience but is also home to a residential community, two international schools, hotels and commercial offices.
Deco Emirates LLC was recently brought on board to oversee a complete interior fit out of the Robinsons department store for Al Futtaim Sons. Contracts manager Chris George was responsible for ensuring the works were undertaken according to the design from HMKM London and to successfully hand over within a 10 month period. Chris, in turn, contacted Unusual Rigging and Engineering LLC to help Deco Emirates understand the complexities and challenges of the project.
Chris explained: "We knew from the offset that the installation of an overhead gantry within the escalator

UK - The PLASA AGM and Members Lunch returned to Hatfield House on 22 June to celebrate a year of stability, new initiatives and the promise of future growth.
Members enjoyed a productive day where the AGM was followed by an interactive Open Forum with opportunities to participate and ask questions of the board. Drinks in the gardens and a three-course lunch was further enlivened through a high-energy presentation by award-winning speaker and company turnaround expert, Nigel Risner.
The AGM saw presentations from PLASA's chairman Ed Pagett, who touched on the key developments of the last year, including an unprecedented financial turnaround, a much-welcomed move to Olympia for the PLASA Show, a 28% revenue increase for PLASA Media UK and positive outcomes following meetings with Jules Lauve, President of the ESTA Board of Directors.
Pagett mentioned PLASA’s f

The Netherlands - Integrated Systems Events, the producers of the Integrated Systems Europe trade exhibition, has announced that Stefanie Corinth, senior VP marketing and business development NEC Display Solutions Europe and Piet Candeel, Senior VP EMEA, Barco, have joined the ISE Board of Directors as of 1 July 2017.
They will replace outgoing ISE board members Wolfgang Lenz from Comm-Tech and Ollie French from Future Automation.
Mike Blackman, managing director of Integrated Systems Events commented: “I’d like to welcome our new members and at the same time thank the outgoing ones. It’s vital that the ISE board regularly welcomes new members from our extensive exhibitor base so that we are exposed to fresh ideas and experiences.
“Stefanie and Piet will bring valuable market intelligence and insight on the sectors in which they operate. Additionally, t

Italy - A good example of “calm before the storm” can be found on the Rimini beach in Italy, where Litec is constructing a sophisticated Libera series Alusfera II roof for upcoming concerts to be held during the Summer Beach Arena event.
Running from 24 June – 30 July, the Summer Beach Arena concert series features live and DJ sets by national and international artists from sunset until late in the evening.
(Jim Evans)

USA - Visional Productions, the high-end visual engineering firm specializing in event design, has announced the addition of BlackTrax, the advanced real time tracking system, to its rental inventory. Based out of Atlanta and Denver but producing live experiences worldwide, Visional is now one of only three U.S. companies offering the system for rental and sale.
BlackTrax has multiple production applications, including motion lighting, automated spotlights, projection mapping, and more. Using active IR beacons, the system is capable of tracking a performer, stage prop, scenery or screen in real time and in most atmospheric conditions. BlackTrax can integrate with other third-party systems such as lighting consoles, enabling moving lights to follow performers, or media servers such as d3, Avolites Ai, or Christie Pandoras Box, allowing projection content to follow moving per

Belgium - For almost 30 years, the municipality of Ingelmunster in the Belgian province of West Flanders has played host to the Labadoux festival. Now as much a part of the Belgian cultural fabric as the region’s chocolate and beer delights, the 'Music with Roots' festival blends a wide variety of folk and other genres, and serves as a key platform for both established and up and coming acts.
For this year’s festival, organisers wanted to up the visual ante for headliners including The European Pink Floyd Show and Levellers. To this end, LD Vincent de Schinckel specified a number of Chauvet fixtures for the festival’s main stage, including 12 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 spots, 16 Maverick MK2 washes and 16 Chauvet DJ Intimidator 140SR hybrids.
Wanting to give the impression of visual depth from the audience perspective on the main stage, De Schinkel positio

UK - Creative technical event production company Hawthorn brought the bright lights of Las Vegas to Battersea Evolution for the Waitrose Supplier Gala Dinner 2017 on 19 May 2017. Following a Vintage Vegas theme, Hawthorn worked with client Entertee Events to transform the venue into a show-stopping party venue.
Not only providing an opportunity for the company’s suppliers to network with the executive board, commercial directors, category directors, and senior traders, the evening also raised vital funds for the charity GroceryAid.
With 1,500 guests seated across 147 tables, Entertee made the most of Battersea’s large versatile space. Decorated with crystal chandeliers, entrance tunnels made from Hawthorn’s lavish blue velvet drape and thirty-two palm trees wrapped in fairy lights, guests were transported back to the golden age of Vegas. Hawthorn also created ten

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