Business

Details
UK - Event production and audio-visual specialists Anagram used an Avolites Ai Media Server to replicate the atmosphere of the underground sewer lair of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Part of the relaunch of the cult TV series, Nickelodeon and Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP) invited over 350 guests to Shoreditch, London to announce their plans for a number of their well-known characters including: Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Anagram used the first ever eight-head Avolites Ai media server, combined with three HD10k Christie M series projectors, to project images of the well-known children's characters onto the walls of the stage in the Village Underground.

In addition, a feed was sent from the Ai to all the HD plasma screens within the room. The server's projection mapping capabilities enabled lighting programmer Russ Grub

Details
South Africa - A substantial range of Philips Selecon Spots, Fresnels, and Cyc luminaires have been installed at a brand new theatre space within a prestigious private college in Johannesburg.

Respected lighting consultant and designer Denis Hutchinson specified Philips Selecon Acclaim Axial Zoom Spots, Acclaim 650W Fresnels and Hui Cyc 1 A 500W Symmetrical floods along with Philips Strand 200 Plus 24/48 Lighting Control Desk and Monitor plus a number of six Pack 6/10 Amp Dimmer Packs for the co-educational Herron Bridge College.

Supplied by South African Philips partner DWR Distribution, Selecon and Strand Lighting made up the bulk of the order: "An essential part of the brief was to deliver a lighting system that is easy to understand and operate," explains Hutchinson. "However it also needed to feature a creative capability that surpasses regular school light

Details
UK - London-based theatre design consultancy Charcoalblue is a new sponsor of The Off West End Theatre Awards (Offies).

Creative thinkers Charcoalblue is sponsoring the Award for Most Welcoming Theatre (Central, North, South East, East, North West and South West). The award is one of the few public nominations awards, allowing theatre fans to vote via the OffWestEnd.com website.

"We're delighted that Charcoalblue, with such an impressive track record for transforming spaces, has thrown its weight behind helping us champion the most welcoming London theatres off the beaten track," says Sofie Mason, Director of Off West End. "Independent theatres, wonderfully scattered across London, can have strong personalities that are memorable in a way you would rarely find in the West End. Often theatregoers fall in love with the venue as much as the performance and return b

Details
UK - Black Light's Open Day is now established as a key event for anyone in the Scottish AV, sound, lighting and stage industry.

"Our Open Day brings together all the latest AV, sound, lighting and stage technology under one roof," says Black Light's head of company development, Phil Haldane. "We're inviting everyone to come along and help us celebrate 30 years in the business."

Black Light has already got over 30 of the biggest names in the industry confirmed. That means that the 2013 Open Day will be the most exciting yet, says the company. It will be a great chance for everyone to come and see the hottest new equipment in action, quiz the experts and, of course, meet friends and colleagues.

The Open Day will take place on 15 March. As in previous years, the event will feature a wide range of exhibitor stands at which visitors will be able to talk to ma

Details
USA - Designed by leading architecture and engineering firm, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with Corgan Associates, the Dallas City Performance Hall has been described as a 'lyrical and elegant' addition to the Dallas Arts District, promising to be a 'unique and delightful village for the arts' for Dallas audiences.

Located in the Dallas Arts District, the first phase of the venue opened in September 2012 and includes a 750-seat multi-purpose proscenium theatre, public lobby, and support space.

GDS was asked by Texas Scenic Company (TSC) to supply a zoned, DMX-controlled, working light system to be used across the stage galleries, auditorium catwalks and followspot booth to allow technicians access to technical areas under dark performance conditions without drawing audience attention.

Working in conjunction with Schuler Shook Theatre Planners, TSC installed GDS' award winnin

Details
UK - The TPi Awards, was a night of double celebration for LS-Live, which won two titles.

The stage, set and studio company based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, picked up awards for Favourite Rehearsal Facility (sponsored by Showcase) and Favourite Staging Company (sponsored by Sunbaba). LS-Live was also nominated for Favourite Set Construction Company (sponsored by J&C Joel Limited).

The annual TPi Awards has celebrated the most talented individuals and service companies working in the live production industry worldwide for over a decade. Presented by Radio DJ Lauren Laverne at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith on Monday 11 February, the 2013 event attracted 1,500 people.

Director Ben Brooks collected the awards and commented after the event, "We are very proud to be judged favourite rehearsal facility and staging company, and I'd like to thank everyone who voted f

Details
Albania - Eagle Square, at the entrance of Tirana in Albania, was renamed in November of 2012 in celebration of the country's 100 year anniversary. Standing majestically in the city square is a 10m tall, double-headed eagle, the symbol on the Albanian flag. Made of steel and weighing some 12 tons, it was created by Albi Cifligu of Podium Sh.p.k.

Saturating the monument in Albania's national colour of deep red are Exterior 430s from Martin Professional's award-winning Exterior 400 range of outdoor LED luminaires. Eight Exterior 430s, supplied by local Martin distributor Prosound Audio and Light, are used to uplight the eagle.

Lighting aspects of the monument were also handled by Albi Cifligu who turned to the Exterior 430 after a recommendation by Prosound sales manager Kliton Gjika.

"The only lighting fixture that can turn black metal red is the Exterior 430 so I sugges

Details
WarChild Benefit - Muse warmed up for their appearance at this week's Brit Awards by headlining an intimate benefit gig in aid of WarChild UK. The band performed for almost two hours in front of 2,000 fans at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire. Speaking from the stage, front man Matt Bellamy said: "This is a nice vibe, we should do a tour like this."

The concert - an intimate affair compared to Muse's usual stadium-headlining shows - saw them tone down their show to fit the theatre surroundings. Before the gig bass player Chris Wolstenholme told BBC's Newsbeat, "You don't want to be spending all the money on pyramids and flashing lights - that's money that could be going to charity."

Awards News - Opera magazine is to have its first annual international awards, presented at a ceremony in London on 22 April. The Operas, the brainchild of th

Details
Australia - Currently playing at Sydney's Lyric Theatre, Legally Blonde The Musical is lit by Kenneth Posner and Paul Miller with Hugh Hamilton acting as associate for the Australian tour. The set and lighting design for the Australian production comes from the London production of the musical held at the Savoy Theatre.

The rig houses only Vari-Lite moving lights: forty-four VL2500 Spots, twenty-two VL2500 Washes and five VL3500 Spots whilst conventional lighting consists of over 200 ETC Source Four fixtures. It's a fairly straight forward rig that was, according to Hamilton, expertly prepped at PRG, easily hung and there were very few problems to overcome.

"The overhead trusses go spot, wash, spot, wash, spot, wash and the ladders are all VL2500 Spots," explained Hamilton. "It's a great rig because you can put anything you need where you need it, plus it

Details
UK - Philips Selecon's lightweight, smooth colour changing PLCyc LED luminaires are facilitating fiercely felt mood and atmosphere for The Guildford Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth.

Lighting designer Declan Randall is harnessing the diverse colour palette and rapid colour changing abilities of the PLCyc fixtures to dramatically enhance the shifting ambience during the production at Guildford's Holy Trinity Church.

"I'm treating the ceiling of church as the cyclorama, up-lighting the roof and using the PLCycs to throw shadows of scenic elements and the cast up onto the roof," says Randall. "The show varies from intense colour to more natural, gentle, skin tones and the PLCycs offer us speedy colour changes and an amazing palette to work with. What's great about the PLCyc LED luminaires is that they deliver both the natural and unnatural colours

Details
The Netherlands - Adjoining the famous Escape Club on Amsterdam's fashionable Rembrandtplein, and also owned by experienced entrepreneurs, Ton and Dick Poppes, the new Kitchen & Bar Van Rijn has opened in the style of a grand café, with a terrace and upstairs area.

Inspired by the beauty and the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn, following a substantial investment, guests can enjoy authentic Dutch cuisine in a cosmopolitan atmosphere with open kitchen, whole listening to music through a premium RCF sound reinforcement system.

In fact premium is the watchword, since installer Mike Ho, of locally based service company 24/7 Audio, specified a TTL11-A active steerable column array, requiring only two systems with two presets to service all the requirements - literally 24/7 (including live music and a DJ on weekends).

"I first heard this system under demo at RCF's he

Details
UK - Inaugurated in 1886, the old People's Palace, as it was formerly known, was originally built to provide cultural activities to its local population but tragically burned down in 1931. Rebuilt in 1936 to the west of its original site, the new People's Palace is now owned by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). This historic Grade II listed building has recently undergone a £6.3m facelift to restore it to its former 1930's style interior beauty.

Located in the heart of London's East End and home to the 770 seat Great Hall, the theatre's transformation included a lighting and audio solution supplied and installed by specialist integrators Stage Electrics.

"Queen Mary, University of London is delighted with our newly refurbished venue and we're now getting a huge amount of interest from external hirers and promoters who are discovering this hidden gem in east Lo

Details
UK - Lighting designer Jonny Gaskell has harnessed the laser-like beam of Clay Paky's Sharpy fixtures to deliver a high impact, three-dimensional lighting environment for electronic dance music duo Orbital on their UK tour, which culminated with a spectacular and hard hitting show at Brixton Academy.

Gaskell, of Pinnacle Productions, combined the razor sharp beams of the Clay Paky Sharpys, supplied by rental operation Colour Sound Experiment, with laser bounce mirrors to deliver a three dimensional prism of super bright almost architectural effects around the band. This worked as part of a layered lighting concept that combined evocative video, moody washes and striking effects during the dynamic, content rich show. The result was a dramatically striking, 3D world of light and images that worked as one with Orbital's music but at the same time also reached out and engaged the li

Details
UK - Hawthorn celebrated their 25th Anniversary by welcoming over 500 clients, guests and staff to its Leicester Head Office, 16 February 2013.

Hawthorn applied its own event expertise to transform their facility into a swanky party venue, where guests enjoyed a night of food, drink, networking and revelry. Giant video screens, sizzling catering points, glitzy dancefloors created a vibrant ambience in the main event room; then if guests walked through a giant logo structure they entered a series of 'games rooms' with Karaoke, 'drive simulators', and familiar computer games.

Founder and Managing Director Martin Hawthorn cut the birthday cake and thanked all present:

"It's great to welcome everyone here as we celebrate our achievement bringing the company from the humble beginnings to where we are today supplying an incredible range of events. We have developed some great

Details
Austria - With a huge opening ceremony the 2013 Skiing World Championships recently started in Schladming, Austria. Associate LD Jeffrey Goes and associate LD Daan Oomen relied for the show on an MA Lighting system, consisting of two grandMA2 light, one grandMA2 fader wing and two MA NPU (Network Processing Unit).

Jeffrey Goes commented, "The grandMA2 offered the best solution in networking and stability for this outdoor event. Especially in bad weather conditions it proofed to be a solid, stable control system. This was essential. Furthermore it offered us a perfect back-up solution as well as great network possibilities."

Daan Oomen continued, "We had to deal with pretty harsh weather conditions. Also some lighting positions were only accessible by helicopter. Furthermore the venue had a quite unusual shape unusual shape and an extremely steep slope. Making a

Details
UK Unusual Rigging has been voted the UK's favourite rigging company at the TPi Awards 2013, which took place at the Novotel London West on Monday 11 February 2013.

The awards highlight projects undertaken in 2012 and the judges said: "Unusual Rigging was a clear favourite in the voting process this year, showing how well respected and valued they are by their industry peers."

(Jim Evans)

Details
Korea - In 2012, a DiGiCo SD7 was installed in Jiguchon Church in South Korea's Bundang New City. Such was its success that four more of the company's mixers have now been installed in another church in the city, demonstrating how DiGiCo mixing consoles are making significant inroads into the country's house of worship market.

The new Manna Methodist Church has a seating capacity of 4,000, with around 10,000 worshippers attending each week. Services feature a live band, choir, organ and orchestra, so the audio system needed a high input channel count, as well as facilities to mix live audio for broadcast on its own Internet channel.

The church consulted DiGiCo's South Korean distributor Soundus Corporation, who supplied and installed an SD7 console at Front of House, with four SD-Racks and an SD8-24 to take care of the live broadcast mix. In addition, Soundus supplied an SD9 f

Details
UK - Roland Systems Group (RSG) has announced the appointment of Leisuretec Distribution as a 'professional trade only distributor' for their expanding pro audio and video product range, effective January 2013.

Leisuretec, a leading supplier to the trade community, will be offering Roland's professional range of video products. As a new venture for the company this enhances their product offering and further broadens their profile, says the company.

Cliff Dounting, commercial director for Leisuretec Distribution commented, "After a successful year in 2012, we were looking to further broaden the choice we can offer our customers with unique specialist products. As a result, we are delighted to have formed a working relationship with Roland Systems Group.

"Roland's high profile and professional reputation fits perfectly with Leisuretec's technical expertise and commi

Details
Canada - CAST Software has announced its 2013 Video Contest, in which users of the brand new wysiwyg R30 are invited to submit their finest lighting designs for a chance to win one of three prizes. The creator of the winning video will land themselves a full one-year wyg membership, while second and third place runners-up will scoop a half-year wyg membership.

In an exciting twist on 2012's R28 competition, the use of consoles WILL be allowed, due to popular demand among previous entrants. Of course, employment of the software's Cue List and Camera Path features is perfectly acceptable and encouraged - Members are simply challenged to create a two-minute video of a stunning wysiwyg design and upload it to the CAST Software Facebook page for appraisal, initially by CAST's hand-picked judging panel, and then by the public who can vote for their favourite video via Facebook.

CAST

Details
UK - Mark Henderson was named Best Lighting Designer in this year's Whatsonstage.com Awards.

The awards ceremony was presented by the Whatsonstage.com theatre news website at a lavish concert on Sunday night. The Whatsonstage.com Awards is the only major prize-giving celebration for theatre voted on by the theatre-going public. The Best Lighting Designer Award is sponsored by leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

Henderson secured the prize for his work on Sweeney Todd, which opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre and then transferred to London's Adelphi Theatre. Henderson's was not the only award presented to the show, which also won prizes for its leading performers (Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton), its director (Jonathan Kent), and for the show itself, which was named Best Musical Revival.

Henderson's fellow nominees in the category were Humphre

Details
UK - The MAC III Wash, the final luminaire in Martin Professional's successful 1,500W MAC III family of moving heads, is now available. A full-feature, full-range wash luminaire with light quality and a colour palette, it excels at projecting an intense yet even field of light and has the added ability of shaping the beam through an internal barndoor system, a unique feature for a Fresnel light, says the company.

The MAC III Wash features a unique internal barndoor system (shutters) that enables designers to shape projection onto stages, performers, scenery, scrims, or any set element with great precision.

The MAC III Wash houses a 1:4 fully linear zoom that requires no lens changes plus the MAC III Wash maintains near full efficiency throughout the entire zoom range with no visible beam jump when zooming from tight to wide and no drop in lumens output.

At over 50,000 lumens

Details
Australia - Over 150 Robe moving lights were spread around multiple stages on Summafieldayze 2013 - the most popular marathon dance music festival staged at Doug Jennings Park, The Spit on Australia's Gold Coast.

Heading up the action were plenty of electronic legends like The Chemical Brothers, M.I.A, Fedde Le Grand, Mark Ronson, Hot Chip, The Faders, Kimbra and many more.

Lighting equipment, together with lighting production designs for the event's three main stage areas, was supplied by Clifton Productions, one of Australia's highest profile rental operations ... and the one with the largest stock of Robe fixtures.

Stage One was based around M.I.A.'s spec and featured 22 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs, eight ColorWash 2500E ATs and 18 Robin 600 Beams. The set centrepiece was an extensive upstage video wall.

The second stage was custom designed to accommodate the Chemical Brot

Details
Austria - When TV viewers in Austria tune into ORF 1 to watch weekly TV talent show Die Grosse Chance, one of the first things they notice is 1500 strings of SGM's LB-100 LED Balls festooned across the set. This large display forms the centrepiece of a set design conceived by Florian Wieder (of Wieder Design).

The LB-100's were supplied by production company, Supporting Role, who specialise in the broadcast rental sector, after being impressed by a system demo organised by SGM Germany's co-MD Thorsten Sattler.

Florian Wieder has taken a highly creative approach with the lighting - hanging the LB-100's as a curtain, split into separate sections, and as 'bridges' across the studio (one of which serves as the portal bridge to the stage).

These are fed by moving images from three Coolux Pandoras Box media servers.

Each of the 1500 strings measures 0.85m and contains sev

Details
The Netherlands - A new theatre in Roermond, south eastern Holland, has decided that energy saving is the way forward - and has been fitted out with entirely LED fixtures.

ECI Cultuurfabriek is a converted former chemical factory which was abandoned in the 1970s. After many years of discussion about the building's future, it was decided to refurbish it - replacing its missing roof and rebuilding the walls - and turn it into a space for the whole community to use. Incoming technical manager Maarten Janssen invested in 30 ETC Source Four Lustr+ and 22 ETC Selador Desire Lustr+ LED luminaires for its 244 seat theatre space, taking advantage of extra funding available for environmentally sustainable projects.

Janssen explains why he chose the ETC fixtures: "I saw the LED demonstrations on ETC's YouTube video library. The fixtures have incredibly smooth fades, which I've never

  1. The Love Machine on Le Mark floors
  2. EVA reinforces Marseille Grand-Est
  3. Robe shines for Two Door Cinema Club
  4. Liberty forges partnership with Perfect Path
  5. Paco Peña relies on DPA microphones
  6. SIEL 2013 celebrates its 30th anniversary
Page 1466 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .