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UK - HSL supplied lighting for the popular Bill Kenwright touring production of Save The Last Dance For Me, a rousing 'juke-box musical' by Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran, with some serious and deeper cultural undercurrents accompanying the infectiously catchy vintage bubble-gum pop of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman - one of the 1960's most successful hit-writing partnerships.

Lighting was designed by Tim Oliver, who balanced the diverse requirements of candy pop, theatre and drama as the story of love juxtaposed with cultural values and differences plays out, complete with a full live band who brought a richness and resonance to the piece which has just concluded a six-month UK tour.

HSL's project manager John Slevin commented, "It's a pleasure working with Tim and the BKL team on another great musical. We had a good efficient prep at HSL and the tour ran smoothly right

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UK - The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP) has launched a BA in Creative Music Production. The BA will provide new career focused opportunities for students and is the result of collaboration between tutors, Alchemea College, and studio console manufacturer Audient.

Core benefits of the BA (Hons) Creative Music Production are to enable students to create, produce and launch market-ready original music, alongside developing industry-relevant technical and entrepreneurial skills. Already an Apple Authorised Training Centre, ICMP has recently become an Avid Learning Partner and an Ableton Certified Training Centre. Pro Tools, Logic and Ableton certification training are all integrated into the music production degree.

Mike Sinnott, former director at Alchemea and now part of ICMP's management team stated, "I am delighted that Alchemea has found a new home at

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Malta - ARX has appointed Iklin based Black Box Pro as its exclusive distributor for Malta.

"Black Box Pro is a relatively new distributor of professional audio and AV products in Malta," says ARX MD, Colin Park. "We decided that with their many decades of experience in the pro audio sales, installation and production industries, owner directors David Zammit and Sandro Sammut and their team were the ideal partners to grow the market and user base for ARX's digital and analogue product range in Malta."

"ARX fits perfectly into our company's product portfolio, and will be of great interest to our dealers and end-users," says David Zammit, Black Box Pro's technical & sales director.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - It was country music's biggest night, as the CMA Awards celebrated 50 years of honouring the best of country music which included long time Bandit Lites clients Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Little Big Town and Thomas Rhett.

Garth Brooks' triumphant 2016 was capped off with the highest honours of the night as he was crowned Entertainer of the Year for the fifth time, the last being nearly 20 years ago. Bandit has served as Garth's lighting vendor since the beginning in 1988 and provides the lighting for Brooks' monumental tour, which has been smashing records including 5m tickets sold in two and a half years.

The country star shows no signs of letting up as he was recently awarded his seventh Diamond Award from the RIAA for having seven albums sell more than 10m units, the only artist to do so and surpassing The Beatles. Additionally, Garth launched his own Sirius

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Ireland - Critically acclaimed Irish singer-composer James Vincent McMorrow's kicked off his We Move world tour in Dublin on 7 October. Central to the set designed by Conor Jacob are Solaris Mozart RGB LED fixtures. The tour includes the UK, Europe, Canada, and the US, closing 1 December at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

Five towers of nine Mozarts each, arrayed in 3x3 clusters serve as individually controlled backdrops for band members and also combine for a canvas of content and special effects. "The whole show is built around them," explains tour LD Conor Jacob. "They travel easy, are robust, IP rated, very versatile, and easily manipulated as a light fixture and for content output.

"We're merging five universes of Art-Net DMX control and media server outputs, managed entirely with ProPlex IQ nodes and six Mozart 10-way PSUs. Controlled by an Avolites Tiger Touch I

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USA - For most of the 5,000 or so people who attended Robot-Heart, the event was a cool way to spend Halloween weekend. There was nonstop dancing, crazy costumes, artist like WhoMadeWho, a freaky robot, and a scintillating Dougie Lazer designed lightshow that featured an intense beam and strobe display using Chauvet Professional fixtures.

Those involved in putting on the two-day celebration, however, also saw something beyond the free-flowing party. For them, the event was another step on the way back for the hard-pressed Hunts Point section of the South Bronx.

"Robot-Heart is the first event ever held in this building, which used to be a fertilizer warehouse," said Lazer of DNA Illuminations (New York). "The plan is to turn this place into a permanent event venue, so it can help bring people into this neighbourhood. Being part of something like that definitely added an ex

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UK - SSE Hire, one of the UK's leading professional audio hire companies, has upgraded its entire hire stock of MIDAS mixing systems to the PRO X with Neutron System Engine. Four consoles in total, three PRO9's and a PRO6, have benefitted from Midas' PRO X upgrade package which allows users to upgrade their existing PRO3/6/9 consoles, to the spec of a PRO X.

The upgrade kit consists of the Neutron System Engine which contains four of Midas' latest DSP's. Additionally, the console surface receives new fascia panels, internal cabling, clips, and the illuminated PRO X logo - bringing the entire system up to that of a PRO X.

Operations manager Stefan Phillips commented, "Our Midas consoles are extremely popular, they're rarely in the warehouse. For us this was an easy decision; we've basically got four brand new desks with the latest technology and software at a fraction of th

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USA - Audio-Technica supplied more than 120 vocal and instrument microphones for the 50th Annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, presented Wednesday 2 November 2016, at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Broadcast live in 5.1-channel surround sound on the ABC Television Network, the awards show featured an extensive selection of Audio-Technica hard-wired microphones, plus Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless Systems with AEW-T6100a Handheld Microphone/Transmitter.

The CMA Awards presentation is recognized as Country Music's Biggest Night and represents the pinnacle of achievement for those involved in country music. The team of industry veterans responsible for the audio at this year's CMA's again included a who's-who of broadcast audio.

Tom Davis served as audio producer; Kevin Sanford served as audio coordinator; ATK/Audiotek provided the sound system with FOH

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USA - The ESTA Control Protocols Plugfest organizers have announced that informal round-table discussions for product developers have been added to the event's programme. Subject matter experts from the Control Protocols Working Group will share their knowledge on RDM Proxy servers, RDM Queued Messages, RDM Status Messages and sACN IGMP support.

The ESTA Control Protocols Plugfest is an educational opportunity for control manufacturers and developers to gather together in person and test their products for interoperability with the latest versions of the CPWG ESTA Control standards. Our goal is to assist you in ensuring that your customer is purchasing products that interoperate and communicate correctly on the same control network.

The scheduled hours are 4:00-11:00pm on Friday, 9:00am-11:00pm on Saturday and Sunday, and 9:00am to noon on Monday. The event is attended by

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Poland - PA company, Craftman, bought an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system to manage its events calendar, which recently included several key festivals. The system, comprising a S7000 Surface with DM64 MixRack, was employed for various projects, including the World Youth Days in Krakow, and the Summer Jazz Days and Jazz in the Old Town events in Warsaw.

Krakow became host city for World Youth Days, a huge event for young Christians organised every few years in different locations. Thousands gather from across the globe for celebratory concerts and services, and there is a special visit by the Pope. Craftman was appointed to deliver and operate sound systems in three locations in the city, selecting dLive as the FOH console at the historic Wolnica square, where various choirs, orchestras and bands performed.

In Warsaw, Craftman's dLive was used as the FOH console fo

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UK - With lighting effects a key part of the drama at any theatre production, Hager's Klik lighting control module (LCM) is ensuring the show does go on at a busy theatre at the Aberdeen City Campus, part of the North East Scotland College.

It was chosen thanks to its ease of installation, flexible use, reliability and cost effectiveness and is now providing enhanced lighting control for both the theatre users and onsite lighting maintenance staff.

With the incumbent lighting control system at the theatre proving increasingly problematic and costly to maintain and repair, the contracted lighting maintenance team led by Daniel Strachan at Mitie, decided to seek out an alternative lighting control solution. Following discussions with electrical wholesaler, Edmundson Electrical, and further liaison with experts at Hager, a suitable LCM answer was identified; one which could b

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Chile - Four Robe BMFL WashBeams were used to project bright, crisp, clear artwork, logos and slogans onto the side of the Gran Torre Santiago at the Constanera Centre in downtown Santiago for an event launching the new Chevrolet Cruze car.

At 300m (980 ft.) tall, the Gran Torre Santiago, designed by architect Cesar Pelli, is the highest building in Latin America.

BMFLs positioned approximately 220m away were utilized to achieve this goal, the brainchild of the event's creative director Esteban Icardi, working with lighting designers Tony Amoros and Manuel Guzman.

Esteban's technical production company, Icardi Productions, purchased 12 x BMFL WashBeams the month before the event from Robe's Chilean distributor, VGL, four of which were used to spectacularly brand the tower.

The four BMFL WashBeams were positioned on platforms built on the west side of the tower so t

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USA - Even a charity dedicated to the most serious of causes can inject some humour into its events. Anyone who doubts this should have visited Beyond Pink Designer Bra Fashion Show at the Spokane Convention Centre ballroom in mid-October.

This fundraiser was held by Beyond Pink, a non-profit dedicated to early breast cancer detection . As part of its Old Hollywood theme, the event featured 12 different humorous fashion show vignettes, such as Bra Wars, which showcased Star Wars-inspired characters dressed in custom-designed bra costumes.

A collaborative design by the women of Beyond Pink, the fundraiser provided those in attendance with a fun-filled evening. Creating a show-time feeling around the proceedings, which raised roughly $160,000 (in part by auctioning off the bras seen on the runway), was a lighting and video rig designed by Justin Haas of AMP'D Entertainment t

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Germany - In its quest for an affordable yet effective system for both music and spoken word, the Lutheran Christusbrüdergemeinde in Wolfsburg, Germany, invited multiple installers to demonstrate possible solutions for their sanctuary.

At the end of that process, they chose a Dynacord system based on its Vertical Array components, which was designed by Olaf Trinkus from Trinkus Licht+Tontechnik, Wolfsburg.

The church sanctuary is a difficult space for audio design, with high ceilings and strong reverberation characteristics. The design goals were challenging. The church wanted clarity of spoken word, and big concert sound with full-range fidelity for musical presentations, with even distribution throughout the church and minimum acoustic feedback. Another requirement was minimal aesthetic impact, preserving sight lines while blending in with the architecture.

Dynacord

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Papua New Guinea - ARX products feature heavily in the audio system for the upcoming Coke Studio TV series in Papua New Guinea.

Supplied by long time ARX users, Port Moresby based Six8eleven Video Productions, the ARX equipment list includes MSX 48 16ch Splitters, splitting signals for the monitor mix, multitrack recording studio and back up audio recording. ARX DI's were used on across the band's instruments and a 'Blue DI' Bluetooth Direct Box used for background music replay during breaks.

Coke Studio PNG, is a new Papua New Guinean television series which features live studio-recorded music performances by various local artists. Coke Studio combines myriad musical influences, from diverse local culture to contemporary hip hop, rock and pop music. Inspired by the Indian / Pakistan Show of the same name initial viewer response indicates it's destined to be

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Sweden - Robe PARfect S1 LED fixtures, delivering a crisp, well defined 6000K of white light - are providing a solution at Landvetter International Airport in Goteborg, Sweden, where they are illuminating two separate Volvo car display areas - one in the Departures Hall and the other one airside in Arrivals by the baggage carousels.

The fixtures were specified and installed by Mediatec, now a US owned Swedish company and specialist in exhibition and conference technical production, headquartered in Kung?lv just outside the busy port city of Goteborg. The project manager was Mattias Berglund.

Volvo - both cars and commercial vehicles - has been a Mediatec client for some time. The company has designed specified and lit numerous shows, expos, activations and launches for the world-renowned brand - one of Sweden's most successful. Volvo knows what it wants and demands the hig

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UK - Based on the 1997 smash-hit film, The Fully Monty has been adapted into a stage play and is currently touring the UK. Written by Oscar-winner Simon Beaufoy, the play tells the story of six out-of-work Sheffield steelworkers who resort to the world of male-stripping to make ends meet.

The show is currently playing in Liverpool and will continue to visit cities and towns across the UK well into 2017. As one of the leading lighting suppliers to UK touring theatre, White Light was approach to provide the lighting equipment.

The lighting designer for the show is Olivier Award-winning Tim Lutkin, whose credits include Chimerica, Elf the Musical, Les Blancs and The Girls. He was also the lighting designer for the original West End run of The Full Monty. He comments, "My brief on the show was to make the lighting as realistic and indu

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USA - Christien Methot served as lighting designer for the World Humanitarian Day Concert at the United Nations in August and used a number of Elation Professional and ADJ dynamic lighting fixtures to light the event.

The concert, held 19 August at General Assembly Hall at the United Nations in New York City, starred American actor and singer Leslie Odom Jr., winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the hit musical Hamilton.

Methot is principal lighting designer at Design One Lighting Design, a full service lighting design and consultation firm based in New York City that stocks its own lighting gear. He had worked with production company One Dream Sound the year before on the same project and was asked by One Dream Sound CEO David Ferdinand to help out on this year's event.

Methot chose to use 12 Elation WW Pr

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USA - French LED digital lighting manufacturer, Ayrton, worked in close conjunction with exclusive US distributor, Morpheus Lights, to present its new line-up of LED lighting products to the US at this year's LDI show in Las Vegas.

Ayrton's latest innovative creations were shown in a dramatic 300-fixture showpiece display on the shared Morpheus Lights/Ayrton booth.

The demonstration featured the new, 15:1 zoom-equipped MagicPanel-FX projector and the new MagicBurst 240,000 lumen graphic strobe luminaire, along with IntelliPix-XT, VersaPix-RS and AlienPix-RS fixtures.

The display also introduced two exciting new additions to the MagicDot family: joining the original MagicDot-R, winner of Live Design's 2016 Product of the Year Award for Effects, were the scaled up MagicDot-XT and the zoom-equipped MagicDot-SX. Also presented were recent Ayrton favourites: DreamPanel -Twi

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UK - Plessey has announced that its LEDs will be lighting up the Compton Verney Park, Warwickshire, in a lighting spectacular entitled In Light to commemorate the 300th anniversary of renowned British landscape architect; Capability Brown.

The Plessey LEDs are being used in the Consol Solar Jars which are manufactured by Suntoy, a South African based company. Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park are using 1000 Consol Solar Jars as one of its key set pieces. Plessey's GaN on Silicon LEDs are being used as they offer manufacturers flexibility when designing custom light fittings due to their compact, eco-friendly and sustainable nature.

This is the first time globally, that wireless DMX technology has been used to activate so many solar powered lanterns in an art exhibition of this magnitude. The technological challenge was made easier in collaboration with UJ (University of

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UK - PRG XL Video continued its support for Nordoff Robbins music therapy charity, providing event technology for the Nordoff Robbins Boxing Dinner at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

The evening was hosted by Strictly Come Dancing's Anton Du Beke; and boxing champion David Haye was honoured with the Nordoff Robbins Boxing Icon award. Musical entertainment came from singer and West End star, Beverley Knight.

The annual event, which raises funds for the music therapy charity, was supported by an array of stars, and included dinner, a live auction and a programme of boxing featuring a title fight between Alan Higgins and Eric McKonzo.

Working alongside industry colleagues, John Henry's Ltd, who provided the production, audio and staging; and Zig Zag Lighting; PRG XL supplied video equipment for the event including plasma screens, camera system and projection. These

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USA - The Event Safety Alliance (ESA) has accepted a seat on the Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) Council and Steve Adelman, Head, Adelman Law Group, PPLC will serve as the representative. The ETCP Council is the governing body which manages the development and implementation of ETCP's certification in the areas of Rigger - Arena, Rigger - Theatre, Entertainment Electricians and Portable Power Distribution Technician.

"We are extremely pleased that the ESA has joined the Council and that Steve Adelman will be sitting at the table. The ESA's focus on safety at live events and Steve' expertise in risk management and litigation regarding safety and security will be a true asset to the program," stated Tim Hansen, ETCP Council chair.

"I am honoured to join the ETCP Council and to support its efforts to expand recognition of and insistence on ETCP certifica

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USA - The annual Electric Forest Festival features jam band/EDM music on five stages at the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, MI. But more than that, Electric Forest Festival has an experience mission: it's to enhance the music with a multi-sensory fan experience by locating art installations throughout the (actual) forest in which the fest takes place.

When lighting designer Travis Shirley was tasked this summer (his fifth year with the festival) with lighting the festival's Main Stage - called the Ranch Arena - he knew he also had an experience mission: to offer an equal opportunity lighting rig for both daytime and nighttime artists. To do this, he designed and specified a lighting rig that would cut through daytime ambience and that would also do justice to light up embellishments of the stage design. Longtime festival vendor Christie Lites (rep Robert Roth) worked closely with

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UK - It's somewhat of an epic undertaking to install a 7:1 sound system into Wembley Arena, but that's exactly what Britannia Row Productions (Britrow) did when Bear Grylls' Endeavour tour began in October.

"Bear is a big presence on stage," said the tour's director Jim Baggott from Harvey Goldsmith's office. "As such every member of the audience needs to feel involved and a properly implemented surround system such as this goes a long way to making that happen. Everything in the production has to come up to that standard."

Britrow has some history in this area, "We were fortunate in that we have done something like this before," confirmed their project manager, Lez Dwight, "Not least the Hans Zimmer tour last year. So I was able to assemble an experienced team. Our system tech' Sergiy Zhytnikov has done a superb job, supported by crew chief Josh Thomas and the rest of the

  1. Voodoo Music + Arts Experience with Chauvet
  2. Bringing the Enchanted Forest to life
  3. WIcreations celebrates 10 years in style
  4. Claypaky lights up international cultural tour
  5. Robe BMFLs for Ghent Floralien
  6. Unusual Rigging meets Half A Sixpence challenge
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