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UK - Nick Gray of creative lighting and design practice Renegade combined his skills and experience in the disciplines of entertainment and architectural lighting to produce a stunning, dramatic lightshow for the recent Tree of Light performances, which were part of the London 2012 Festival

Gray was asked to light a spectacular tree set structure created by Block 9 (Gideon Berger and Steve Gallagher) for the event - which toured to three outdoor venues in Reading, Oxford (as part of the Olympic Torch relay) and Henley.

Block9 and Renegade have collaborated on many previous festivals and events, and Gray was, "Very excited to take up the challenge"

"The tree structure was truly impressive" he explains, "Big, bold and making a real statement on one hand, whilst also involving many intricacies and detail, all of which needed highlighting diligent

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UK - The PAI Group has delivered an integrated display and digital media scheme - incorporating advanced high brightness window displays from Paradigm AV - for DFS' first high street store, which has opened on Tottenham Court Road in central London.

The retail space marks the debut of the sofa brand's new design concept that has been developed to complement the company's latest advertising campaign.

DFS appointed design consultants 20.20 to devise the in-store experience, with the overall aim to appeal to the urban demographic. The furniture retailer had aspirations for technology that could be easily incorporated within the shop fit to display their digital media content, devised by advertising agency Krow Communications.

Following previous project successes with 20.20, the PAI Group was asked to realise the technical visions of the design team, successfully harnessing tech

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In this session, Björks touring video engineer, Lucy Ockenden, gives her account of working on Björks ground breaking Biophillia tour. This will include the premise behind the project, iPad apps and development and the integration of app visuals and iOS devices in to the rig.

presented by: Lucy Ockenden
Tuesday 11 September, 2.00pm - 3.00pm

To book this and check out more free-to-attend sessions, check out the education pages

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UK - The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games saw the main stadium transformed into a huge array of LED video pixels, mapped to the space inhabited by the entire audience. Developed by Tait Technologies, the pixel tablet has become the latest product to emerge from the expanding range of Tait's available rental systems. Producing over 70,500 pixel tablets for the entire stadium seating grid saw video emerge from its two dimensional world to become 3D; the audience members integrated into the show itself.

"The assembly of dispersed LED pixels to form very large video images has been with us for some time," explained Frederic Opsomer, CEO of Tait Technologies, who drove the development of this new device. "But never before has it been done on such a scale, and with such organic animation." Opsomer is referring to the fact that the LED Pixel Tablets

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Japan - A new purpose-built musical theatre has opened in Japan - situated between the eleventh and sixteenth floors of the new 1.27 billion dollar 34-storey Shibuya Hikarie glass tower in Tokyo.

Connected to the Shibuya Station, Tokyu Theatre Orb's first production was of West Side Story, with signal distribution via an Optocore fibre backbone provided by the German company's Japanese representatives, Acoustic Technical Laboratory Inc (ATL).

This ambitious project was floated by owners, the Tokyu Corporation back in 2008, and ATL became involved after Yamaha Sound Systems Inc (Yamaha SS), the biggest sound system construction company for theatres and auditoria in Japan, had specified an Optocore solution in their proposal.

According to Tetsushi Hirai of Yamaha SS, the client had specifically requested the optical fibre backbone in view of the long distance transmissi

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Olympic Success - Friday night's hotly anticipated Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games was a huge success for all involved and, as well as kick-starting the Games in spectacular style, provided a worldwide platform to showcase Britain's incredible flare for putting on one hell of a show! Huge congratulations go to all involved. We hope our upcoming coverage in the combined August / September issue of LSi goes some way to documenting your incredible achievement . . .

The World Responds - The UK's TV audience for the opening ceremony peaked at 26.9m, the BBC has said. The average viewing figure for Friday's four-hour show was 22.4m, making it the UK's 13th most watched programme ever. The programme also had an 82% share - almost twice that of the previous high for an Olympic opening ceremony, in Barcelona in 1992. UK viewing figures for the opening ceremony of

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UK - France TV Sport, a division of France Television, has rented 48 ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ Zoom 25-50° luminaires from Dushow, fitting out a temporary TV studio on the north bank of the River Thames for the duration of the London Olympic Games.

Florian Allain, Dushow's technical director, explains, "We needed to use LED as we wanted to keep an eye on our power usage - we only have a limited amount available, and we wanted to get the most out of it. So with that in mind, we did a shoot out with a number of fixtures, concluding that ETC's Source Four LED, which was demonstrated to us by ETC distributor Avab Transtechnik France, was the most suitable for us.

"The presenters sit in front of a window with Tower Bridge in the background, which could have been our biggest challenge - we need enough lighting to avoid them being silhouetted, even with the bright ligh

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UK - Syncrolite has three major systems in action at the Olympic Games in London.

(The first system - Olympic Ceremonies - features curved lighting poles that extend over the edge of the playing field. They hold the Syncrolites, FOP lights and some smaller moving heads). Patrick Woodroffe is the LD.

Forty SXL (four each on 10 of the 14 'paddles') are flown head down to light the Opening Ceremonies stages and action doing many jobs from long-throw, cross-fading washes to our big beams, motion FX and ballyhoos. This system replacies the work of over 400 regular moving heads. "Due to the extraordinary output (350,000 lumens) of our Syncrolite SXL fixtures, the efficiency and powerful looks are unparalleled. We believe the combination of our Syncrolite and ArenaColor is the future of major stadium permanent installations," says the company.

Fifty-four ArenaColors are f

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UK - HHB Communications has supplied OB provider NEP Visions with 26 Wohler AMP1-16-M audio monitoring units (AMU) for high-profile sporting events, including the London 2012 Olympics, the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and Premier League football.

After their first deployment in flyaway systems at Wimbledon to broadcast matches for ESPN in America, the AMP1-16-MAMUs were installed into two triple expander HD OB vehicles to cover the London 2012 Olympics for US broadcaster NBC before moving on to Sky's coverage of the next season's Premier League football.

The AMP1-16-M AMUs enable NEP Visions engineers to select, monitor and meter up to 16 channels of embedded audio from either of two 3G/HD/SD-SDI streams. With a stereo analogue output on XLRs, adjustable volume and balance controls, the AMP1-16-M also features level metering and phase on two bright 2.4-inch LED backlit displ

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UK - SGM Lighting has expanded its distribution arrangements in the UK, appointing A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd (AC-ET) to work in parallel with existing distributor, LED Projects.

"We see nothing but positives in this decision," said SGM CEO Peter Johansen. "These will be the only official dealers for SGM products in the UK and Ireland, and between them they will be able to increase penetration in all SGM's core markets."

AC-ET managing director Phill Capstick and UK sales director, Jonathan Walters, were impressed when LED Projects MD Ian Kirby introduced them to SGM's new generation of LED products at this year's Frankfurt Prolight+Sound Show.

"We were very excited, particularly by the X-5 and XC-5 LED strobes, and could see enormous potential in the Six Pack [SP-6] and P5 LED Wash, which with its IP65 rating, will be well suited to the arc

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UK - London museums, event producers, and firms working in music, digital and gaming industries are today urged to play their part in building a lasting Olympic legacy, by helping transform the long-term career opportunities of young people from the capital's most deprived boroughs.

CREATE Jobs - which aims to tackle youth unemployment and provide new routes into the arts and creative industries - wants creative industry employers to provide eight-week traineeships for talented young people from the six Olympic Host Boroughs (Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest), where youth unemployment is at its highest.

The initiative has already won support from the Whitechapel Gallery, Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, and Shoreditch Trust, and has successfully placed 100 young people. With a booming creative economy, where 1:6 jobs in London are pr

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Spain - Mojo Barriers has expanded its European capabilities, providing its crowd barriers and consultation services to support touring and local promoters across Spain.

Marking its presence with a series of the region's most well known festivals Mojo is working with promoter Last Tour International, supplying Sonisphere (25 - 26 May), BBK Bilbao Live (12 - 14 July) and En Vivo (27 - 29 September) where it will be installing its Barrier Load Monitoring System (BLMS), which includes sensors to monitor crowd pressure.

Mojo Barrier's extensive product range and stock inventory has enabled them to work closely with production manager Eneko Gurrutxaga to create custom configurations for each site. For BBK Bilbao Live Mojo design and install a barrier layout for the main stage utilising 240 units of standard barriers, specials and corners incorporating two mega exits to aid the flow

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If, like the rest of the world, you were completely blown away by the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, you won't want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to find out how the technical teams turned Danny Boyle's vision into a reality.

PLASA 2012 organisers have revealed that the first session to take place as part of The Olympics Uncovered programme at the PLASA Show, taking place at Earls Court between 9-12 September 2012, is 'Behind the scenes at the London 2012 Ceremonies', chaired by technical director, Piers Shepperd, the full team will present an overview of the mega staging, flying, audio, AV and special effects behind the London 2012 Olympic Ceremonies. The panel line-up includes:

Piers Shepperd - Technical Director

Jeremy Lloyd - Technical Manager - Technical Design and Staging

James Lee - Technical

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USA - Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are hitting the road with the North American summer tour of iconic rock band Motley Crue, which is co-headlining tour dates across the country with Kiss. A complement of approximately 90 Sharpys have joined the Motley Crue /Kiss lighting inventory.

"I first saw Sharpys at the Ultra Music Fest almost two years ago," says lighting director Mike Cooper. "The lighting designer had a huge Clay Paky rig and a row of Sharpys on the stage, and I was blown away. I thought I had to use them."

Since then Cooper has deployed Sharpys on the Godsmack/Staind tour and Motley Crue appearances in Europe. "I love them: Their speed is awesome, and they can cut through anything," he reports. "We have a full rig of 1500-watt lights, but the Sharpys just cut through everything."

Lighting and production designer Sooner Routhier

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USA - Arguably the most recognizable landmark of the US's West coast, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge recently celebrated its 75th birthday. Thanks to wysiwyg, from CAST Software of Toronto, Canada, tens of thousands of spectators experienced the light show and pyro celebration as a complete surprise.

Event producer Don Richards of Foghorn Creative brought in San Francisco-based Lightswitch with lighting designer Norm Schwab to help organise the event, along with Prelite of San Francisco to design the lighting concept. Working with Syncrolite for lighting the bridge, Schwab and Prelite created a moving tribute with historical significance. The final effect was reminiscent of the Scintillator, a vintage lighting technique that was introduced to the city at the Pan Pacific Exposition in 1915.

The show culminated in a blaze of 75 Syncrolite light beams - the only lights used o

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USA - The PBS National Memorial Day Concert, honouring the service and sacrifice of service personnel, has become an American tradition. Co-hosts Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) and Gary Sinise (CSI:New York) were joined this year by an all-star line-up on the West Lawn of the US Capitol, including dignitaries, celebrated actors and renowned musical artists, for a night of remembrance.

Staged by Capital Concerts, the nation's leading producer of live patriotic television shows, in order to produce these large-scale live outdoor television events its staff are joined by a dedicated crew of hundreds of professionals. On the technical side these included lighting designer Bob Barnhart, of Full Flood Inc, and lighting director, David Grill, who chose large quantities of GLP impression LED fixtures in their armoury of effects. These were all supplied by Martee Nuruddin at PRG's Orlando

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UK - At this year's T in the Park one of the hottest acts to see was Professor Green on the NME stage. Twenty LEDHead Par144Q luminaries were used as part of a matrix to provide back lighting and visual effects. The 144Q is fitted with 18x 8W quadcolour LEDs in a rugged parcan housing, available in black and chrome.

The units were supplied by SM Lighting Ltd of Glasgow. Scott Munro, MD of SM Lighting commented, "We were very happy to use the LEDhead 144Qs on the outdoor NME stage at T in the Park for the Professor Green set. The brightness is ideal for day time shows and came across well on television. They had just returned from The Proclaimers' Scottish tour, where power was an issue in some venues. Since buying them we have been very happy with the brightness and reliability and also, of course, the price."

(Jim Evans)

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USA - The evening of 28 June 2012 saw a one night art installation in the form of a 3D mapping projection. This and other events were paying tribute to and celebrating the artistic legacy of art icon Keith Haring and were sponsored by Tenga of Japan. What makes this different from other similar events in NYC is that this was a fully permitted projection and not a 'guerrilla' execution.

The building selected for this spectacular show was The Maritime Hotel in New York's Meatpacking District (South Manhattan). Pearl Media Productions, a subsidiary of Pearl Media, managed and produced the entire project from concept to completion, including media content, installation and operation. Pearl Media's real estate division negotiated with the residential landlord of / and the hotel on which the projection and control area was placed, taking great pains to ensure the integrity of the even

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UK - Hammersmith Academy is a new school designed for the 21st century. Opened in September 2011 the Academy is all-ability, non-denominational, co-educational secondary school for 11-18 year olds. With specialisms in Creative-and-Digital Media and IT and an emphasis on technology, the school's mission is to develop the talents of all students to the full and to raise educational standards.

Integrator Saville Audio Visual was appointed alongside POLARaudio to provide a flexible PA system for Hammersmith Academy's multi-purpose performance space. The space is utilised as a lecture theatre, assembly hall, drama studio and general performance area.

The brief was to provide a high quality PA system that could be employed for each function of the multi-purpose auditorium. Three Bi-amp Audia Flex mainframe DSP's with Cobranet are at the heart of the system and are fed via a variety

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UK - The two companies that made event history by developing the digital artistry and technology behind the London 2012 Opening Ceremonies 'human-powered' video screen signed a global partnership agreement on Saturday 28 July. The partners are both behind the digital magic that enveloped the audience at Friday night's performance and plan to build on their joint offering to create immersive experiences for events worldwide.

Tait Technologies specialises in combining video and scenic technologies and provided the technology behind the largest ever video screen at the Opening Ceremony, which literally engulfed the audience. The screen is composed of 70,500 individual, full colour Pixel Tablets with a resolution five times that of HDTV and a height of 413ft.

Crystal is a creative agency which specialises in digital imaging and 3D animation. Crystal London created the stunning ani

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UK - Set in the courtyard of one of London's most celebrated historic buildings, Summer Series at Somerset House featured a programme of diverse music acts playing a series of special shows between 7 and 19 July.

Working with production managers Ronnie Lee for Metropolis Music and Jon Howes for Somerset House, PRG's senior account manager Loz Wilcox provided a lighting system for the temporary stage at Somerset House. Jon Howes said: "Nothing but praise for the kit supplied to Somerset House once again. PRG's service and back up was excellent."

PRG supplied house lighting designer, Petter Skramstad, with a core lighting package of Clay Paky Alpha Spot 700 HPE, i-Pix BB4 LED Battens, Martin Atomic Strobes and GLP Impression 120 Zoom LED Washlights, combining to provide a flexible house rig suitable for the broad range of performers and visiting LDs.

Petter commented

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South Africa - Fashion by the Sea was held over two evenings on the Moyo Pier at the Durban beachfront recently. The show ran off a grandMA 2 and also utilised four Avolites Cubes. The weather played along for this trendy event which could not have been hosted at a more beautiful setting.

Black Coffee supplied the full technical. The dimmers were at the beginning of the 120m ramp (pier), and there was a socopex run to each of the 24 5m long truss totems erected and reinforced along the pier. Each totem was topped with six PAR 64s. Set up was two days prior to the event.

Simon Hampton was the lighting designer and operated the grandMA2. Also part of the team was Brandon Bunyan and Llewellyn Pieters.

.(Jim Evans)

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UK - Harlow, Essex, based performing arts school Makin' Steps likes to pull out all the stops for its end of year show - traditionally staged at Harlow Leisure Centre - and ensure its students get to perform accompanied by "proper X-Factor technical production values".

This year, they asked London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) to provide lighting, trussing, rigging, power distribution and crew. The design and specification for the kit was produced by Makin' Steps' founder and creative director Scott Simpson, and his lighting designer Mike Penketh.

This year's show, entitled 5212 covered the six decades of popular music since the Queen's coronation in 1952.

It was the first time CSE has worked with Makin' Steps, and CSE's Haydn Cruickshank comments, "I was totally impressed not just with the level of excellence o

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Australia - Nestled in the leafy outer fringes on the eastern edge of Melbourne lies Oxley Christian College, a school that provides education for about 1,000 children, aged between four and 18 years. In order to offer a more intimate space than their large school hall and to support its strong sense of community, the decision was made to build a new performing arts centre.

This space was not simply to be a stage for performing arts; it would have to fulfil the myriad of functions that fill any school's academic year. One week it might have to host a full scale student drama and music production playing to 250, the next it could be hosting a lecture or parents' evening. The College, bolstered by a significant grant from the Federal Government, set about turning their plans into reality.

The new space would require a discreet, yet flexible, sound reinforcement system to complim

  1. Robe makes a grand exit in Serbia
  2. ACSP has designs on Uxbridge College
  3. Riedel on the Tour de France
  4. Christie's technology at Canada Olympic House
  5. Clay Paky fixtures join annual Moscow party
  6. Line 6 ships StageScape smart mixing system
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