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UK - You don’t get a Kerrang! front cover without blowing people’s socks off and that’s exactly what Biffy Clyro did at Download when they headlined w/e 10 June. “We used the exact same show we toured at the end of last year,” said LD Richard Larkum, “With my full light show and all the physical and video elements of Misty’s original stage design.”
That’s no small undertaking, the set is a striking example of forced diminishing perspective created from a stepped stage and portals constructed of video tiles in concentric array with an elongated landscape screen behind. It’s as eye popping as live video gets and is in no small part due to Larkum’s masterful combining of video and lights as a coherent whole.
“We took the production back into r

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UK - For nearly 30 years, Durham Marenghi has been lighting Raymond Gubbay’s Classical Spectacular show. Marenghi’s designs for this production have enthralled audiences at the Royal Albert Hall for decades as he describes, “Classical Spectacular has developed from an all Parcan rig with me operating on a Celco Gold to the addition of Vari-lites on an Artisan desk. I believe that we had the first Vari-lite fixtures outside of Rock ‘n’ Roll from the VL1 upwards, through the LSD Icon control and fixtures and then on to a full automated system controlled by a grandMA from MA Lighting.
“Over the years, we have created a massive library of musical pieces with many different rigs and the grandMA2 has converted a lot of this data into the current repertoire. I know of few other control systems that could have achieved this.”
With MA control at the

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The 2017 Behind the Scenes Holiday Cards are on sale now. There’s no better way to spread holiday cheer than with these unique cards created especially for Behind the Scenes. Sending a BTS holiday card helps spread the word about the charity and lets your family, friends, customers or colleagues know it’s important to you to assist those in need in our industry.
Three card ordering options are offered: personalised cards with a company logo and custom message, card packs of 10 with a standard greeting, and electronic versions for delivery by email. Orders will be taken until 29 September, 2017 to arrive by mid-November.
All proceeds benefit the Behind the Scenes charity which provides financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals who are seriously ill or injured. View and order cards at www.be
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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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UK - Ed Sheeran has always enjoyed huge popularity, but with ÷ (Divide) having dominated the international album charts since its release and the accompanying ÷ tour selling out the instant dates were announced, it has never been higher.
The tour began in Europe in Turin in March, travelling to Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain before heading to the arenas of the UK and Ireland. It has worked its way round South America, Central America and Mexico in May and June, then back to the UK before heading over to the US.
Ed is once again using Sennheiser’s flagship Digital 9000 Series microphone system and 2000 series wireless monitors, supplied by production company Major Tom.
Chris Marsh, Ed’s production manager, as well as front-of-house and monitor engineer, has been with the singer for six years and has an intim

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UK - Written by John Gay and with music arranged by Benjamin Britten, The Beggar’s Opera is one of the most renowned folk operas of all time. Since its first performance at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, London in 1728, there have been thousands of productions across the globe. The latest comes from Birmingham Conservatoire who recently performed the show at the city’s Crescent Theatre. White Light was called upon to provide the lighting equipment.
Upon its initial performance, The Beggar’s Opera parodied life in 18th century London and poked particular fun at the fashionable Handel operas of its day. This revival from Birmingham’s Conservatoire begins as a modernised version of the classic story and features a lighting design by Charlie Morgan Jones.
Charlie comments: “This production of The Beggar’s Opera starts as an up-to-date rete

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Denmark - A gigantic 24m diameter ‘earth globe’, known as Climate Planet, has been dominating the Aarhus skyline since early June - to coincide with the Danish city being appointed European Capital of Culture.
Encapsulated within this giant model of the Planet is a smaller sphere, and as visitors arrive at the spectacular high tech exhibition on climate change during the six weeks it will be stationed in Aarhus, they will be immersed in a surreal world of twinkling stars, generated by G-LEC Solaris LED balls.
Climate Planet is the brainchild of Henrik Rud, CEO of Koncept Aarhus, and he was soon sharing the idea of what he believed would be the largest facsimile of Earth ever produced, with Lars Nissen, operations manager at event A/V specialists, Comtech A/S. “When I first heard the idea I thought it was crazy,” admits Nissen.
The Comtech specialist in tu

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UK - The Claypaky Mythos2 luminaire was selected for its advanced optical features and superior colour mixing by lighting designer Steven Bewley to support his high-impact lighting design for record-breaking British grime artist Stormzy in his recent UK tour.
Bewley, who has worked with rap artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah, was head-hunted by Stormzy after the rapper saw the designer's work for fellow artist Wretch 32.
"I worked closely with Stormzy's production managers Bronski and Trevor Williams to design two sets of shows for the debut album tour Gang Signs & Prayer,” says Bewley. "One design was larger and for a series of three 'one-off' performances at the Brixton O2 Academy. The other design was what we used for the main bulk of the tour in smaller venues."
The larger show design saw an expanded visual package of 14 independentl

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Scandinavia - Owned by AS Tallink Grupp, the Baltic Princess cruise ferry sails between the Finnish city of Turku and the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Built at a cost of €165m in 2005, it can accommodate 2,800 passengers and was designed with luxury in mind.
Audico, Finland’s largest AV company, undertook the task of supplying and installing an L-Acoustics PA for the refit of the ship’s audio system, a project that spanned two years and took in all four of the ships entertainment areas: a nightclub, pub, live entertainment venue and disco.
“The first phase of the project was the ship’s main venue – The nightclub. The ship’s owners wanted to have the best possible audio system for its new, high-profile live music repertoire,” says Audico’s Pauli Molnár, who was working on the project in conjunction with consultant Tuomas Karppinen. “L-Acoustics was

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World - With more than 100 rental houses worldwide now offering the STM Series modular line array, Nexo is creating a special Partner Network for customers of its flagship sound reinforcement products.
Since 2014, the STM Series of high-performance configurable line array modules has achieved global acceptance. STM modules have been put into rental inventory in more than 50 countries, as well as being specified for installation in numerous theatres and auditoria, sports arenas and stadia. The arrival of the compact STM M28 main module has enabled many smaller rental companies to join the STM elite user group, and reap the benefits of the versatile modular design.
Aimed at the touring and rental sector of its business, Nexo’s new Partner Network will bring STM owners and users closer together in a programme for global cooperation, with Nexo and with each other. One of

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UK - As many PMSE businesses and equipment owners will already know, last year the Government and Ofcom confirmed the timetable for the clearance of the 700 MHz band to make way for mobile networks. Being evicted from the band presents two immediate concerns for those operating in the PMSE sector.
First, they will lose varying degrees of their equipment’s tuning range, creating a need to replace redundant equipment. Secondly, as a result of this, there will be significant incremental costs imposed on owners. We know from the 800 MHz clearance, the financial reality of researching, purchasing, transporting, fitting, testing and utilising completely new equipment is a harsh one for businesses in the sector.
Ofcom has released a consultation document laying out proposed parameters for a support scheme for affected equipment owners. Their proposals state that eligible e

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Europe - Roland Professional A/V has introduced the XS-1HD, a compact multi-format matrix switcher that combines the power of the popular XS AV Matrix Series and the size and features of the V-1 video switcher series. The XS-1HD provides multi-screen output destinations for confidence monitor, main and side screens and overflow rooms.
The diminutive XS-1HD features four HDMI inputs with scalers and scaled outputs all while measuring just under 13 inches x 4.5 inches x 1.4 inches in size. It is power packed with professional live production tools that include keying and picture-in-picture effects with full HD support.
The XS-1HD accepts a variety of video signals from sources such as cameras, computers, and media players ideal for corporate production, worship and rental applications. The XS-1HD is equally at home in banquet venues, halls, theatres, or e-learning studio

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USA - Chauvet Professional continues to usher in a new era of colour mixing opportunities in wash lighting with the introduction of the Ovation B-1965FC. Like its predecessors, the Ovation B-2805FC and B-565FC, the new 1.2m batten utilises a RGBA-Lime colour mixing system, allowing designers to create a richer and broader range of colours as well as brighter whites.
“The Ovation B-1965FC gives us a complete range of batten washes with RGBA-Lime colour mixing,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “Designers immediately appreciated the brighter output and more realistic colour washes they could achieve with our Ovation B-2805FC and B-565FC and they can expect the same from our latest batten. Lime fits into the optimal wavelength for the human eye, which is critical to the performance of these fixtures.”
Powered by 196 RGBL LEDs, the Ovation B-1965FC has an illu

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UK - “Robert Juliat are the gold standard of followspots and whenever we’re looking to add more to our inventory, they’re our go-to brand.” So says Hawthorn’s Group Director of Hire, David Slater who have just expanded their inventory of followspots with a significant purchase of fixtures from Ambersphere Solutions.
The company opted to add to their Cyrano stock and to make a new investment purchase of the LED 300W Roxie. Slater explains the choices, “The Cyranos have proved so popular we felt it was right to add to our current stock. Their really impressive tight beam and long throw makes them perfect for larger venues and arenas such as the recent UK Tour of Sister Act and the British Bodyshop Awards at Battersea Evolution.
“The saving on replacement discharge lamps, due to the amazing life of the LED light engine and low power consumption of the Roxie

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UK - Lighting and video rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment is enjoying another majorly busy festival season, supplying over 50 events up and down the country over the course of the summer.
One of the early highlights was Wildlife staged at Shoreham Airport (AKA Brighton City Airport) on the south coast, a musical adventure organised by SJM and curated by popular dance artists Rudimental and Disclosure, now in its third year. Colour Sound has also been involved from the start.
This year west London based Colour Sound supplied lighting for four stages and LED screens for one.
Wildlife 2017 radiated friendly vibes as everyone felt the love and enjoyed some fabulous weather, together with a dynamic and diverse musical line-up with outstanding performances by the likes of Fatboy Slim, Jess Glynn, Eric Prydz, Dizzee Rascal and many, many more.
James Hind,

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Belgium - LD Ruben de Snoo chose the new wash fixture with independent LED battens to enlighten all musicians in order to create more depth on stage.
Additionally, de Snoo was also very pleased with the 30° and 50° lens system of each fixture. “Because of the two different lenses I was able to create an even wash throughout the whole band, where other fixtures provide a hotspot below the hips of band members. Also the fixture is able to deliver smooth & saturated pastel colours, ”added de Snoo.
“The LEDwash XL is a compact, light weighted fixture which is very easy to apply on our shows, so it will definitely part of our club tour the second part of 2017.”
The LEDwash XL wash fixture has two LED segments. The two horizontal LED battens can be manually tilted and controlled separately. Because of the 30° and 50° lens it is possible to use the fixtu

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Europe - Grammy winners Clean Bandit are an EDM tour de force. Following their critically acclaimed appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival earlier this month, they played Glastonbury and have other summer festivals around Europe through August. The American leg of their tour is scheduled for October. In large venues and small, 18 Solaris Flare Q+ fixtures are integral to the band’s show.
“We’re using two sets of six for side-washes, and seven units upstage, all with Kasmer diffusers for a really clean look,” says tour lighting designer and programmer, Liam Griffiths. “I wanted the diffusers to hide the LED sources, which can be harsh on camera. I use the fixtures in two-pixel mode and as strobes. I've used Flares on almost every tour I've done and the new Flare Q+ is far brighter. Most of the time I actually find myself restricting them to 75%!”
Show des

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Denmark - Lighting designer Martin Holst wanted to make impact with a floor-based and cost-effective lighting / set package that was fully tour-able for Danish singer songwriter Rasmus Walter’s 2017 tour - and chose 24 x Robe picklePATTs and six BMFL Blades to be at the heart of the design.
The floor package also included LED strips which outlined an upstage scaffolding structure on which the picklePATTs were rigged together with some side lights. It was augmented at each venue by a specified ‘top’ rig.
The equipment was a new investment for rental company Vigsø Dry Hire via Robe’s Danish distributor, Light Partner, and these were the first picklePATTs in Denmark!
Robe’s reporting team caught up with Martin and Rasmus during a gig at Vejle Musikteater which also happens to have a Robe house lighting rig, so Martin was able to integrate 12 x MMX Spots

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UK - The new UK production of the classic musical 42nd Street, playing since April this year at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London's West End, has been an unmitigated success since its press night produced a swathe of five-star reviews from all the critics.
Behind the scenes, the musical is also breaking new ground, with over 80 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless microphones (UR1M transmitters and UR4D receivers) in use at any one time - if not a West End record, then certainly one of the shows with the highest wireless channel counts in London theatre history.
Award-winning sound designer Gareth Owen is responsible for all of the audio infrastructure on the 42nd Street revival, and has been a long-time user of Shure wireless systems. “Ever since they released the UHF-R system, we've had good results - and when I find a system that gives me good resul

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UK - Okulus, the production design company working alongside creative director Paul Caslin, and 24/7 Productions, were behind the Canadian singer-songwriter’s recent Illuminate World Tour, creating attention-grabbing looks, with Hippotizer Boreals and Taigas.
The Hippotizer Taigas (one active, one backup) fed a 1920 x 640 curved, 9mm LED wall, which served as the performance area’s main backdrop to display the visuals, triggered via timecode. The team also integrated the video director’s live camera feeds into the content.
A key technical aspect for the Okulus team was Hippotizer’s ability to beautifully integrate with Notch, the ‘real-time graphics workhorse’. Effects here included a 3D model of Shawn Mendes – using an Xbox camera focused on Shawn DSC – which Okulus placed into pre-programmed environments. The team also used the set-up to manipulate IM

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UK/USA - City Theatrical’s new DMXcat multi-function test tool recently received two prestigious awards in one week, first gaining the Lighting Product of the Year award at the ABTT Theatre Show in London on 6 June, and them receiving the Live Design Lighting Product of the Year award from Live Design magazine in New York City on 12 June.
City Theatrical‘s DMXcat makes it easy for anyone to control, analyse, or test any DMX lighting fixture, whether it’s a simple LED PAR or a complex moving light. The system consists of a small hardware dongle and a suite of mobile applications.
(Jim Evans)

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Azerbaijan - Entertainment engineering specialist WIcreations specified and fabricated two large and spectacular set pieces – a water fountain and a Tree of Life - for the opening and closing ceremonies of the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games, a multi-national, multi-sport event staged in Baku, Azerbaijan from 12 to 22 May 2017.
WI’s team, project managed by Yves Vervloet, was working for Betty Productions Ltd. who co-ordinated all the creative and technical production elements for the ceremonies on behalf of the Islamic Games Operations Committee.
The ceremonies both took place in the 70,000 seater Baku National Stadium, a venue already familiar to the WI team after their work there for the 2015 European Games.
The water vessel and the tree – integral parts of production designer Thanassis Demiris’s visual treatment for the two ceremonies - were realised
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