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UK - Celebrating the very best talent in the world of lighting and video design, the 10th Knight of Illumination Awards took place at the Eventim Apollo, London on 17 September 2017. As one of the ceremony’s spotlight sponsors, creative technical event expert Hawthorn provided full technical production for the occasion.
With over 500 lighting and video professionals attending the award ceremony, the pressure was on for Hawthorn to deliver a spectacular production. Hawthorn’s lighting designer Chris Green took up the challenge of delivering an impressive design to a room filled with the most esteemed LDs in the industry.
With Claypaky as headline sponsor, Green used a range of their fixtures to produce a lighting design that fitted the look and feel of the iconic venue perfectly. “We used 20 K20 B-EYEs all running in Full mode which allowed for pixel mapping,” s

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Austria - The inaugural MusikFestiWels that took on 14-15 July in Wels featured around 20 acts across three open-air stages in the city’s streets and squares.
Martin Audio’s territory distributor k24 Technik & Vertrieb supported its customer, service provider Sound & Light Systems, who fielded a premium MLA Compact PA on the main stage, while lighting was provided by Powerland.
While Sound & Light Systems provided its full inventory, this was augmented by MLA Compact enclosures from Schallmeister, enabling the main stage system to be designed around 20 MLA Compact (10 elements per side) and nine MLX subwoofers in a cardioid left/centre/right array. In addition, four XD12 provided front-fill, BlacklineX12s and WS18X subs were on side-fill duties, four W8LM Mini Line Array served as delays and LE1500 as stage monitors.
Providing technical back-up we

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UK - White Light is providing the lighting equipment for The Band, a new musical that features Take That's music.
Written by Tim Firth, the production, which stars the winners of BBC series Let It Shine, opened this week at the Manchester Opera House and will now tour the rest of the UK.
The lighting designer for the show is Patrick Woodroffe and his associate is Rob Casey. Rob commented: “Working closely with projection designer Luke Halls, our role on the show was to aid the storytelling by guiding the audience, in terms of progressing the timeline as well as highlighting moments of particular importance. Similarly, there are two large concerts in each time period so we needed a lighting rig that could easily replicate these.”
The Band combines classic drama with recreated pop concerts on stage, something which Patrick and Rob were ve

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UAE - The Dubai headquartered company that is celebrating its 18th year of business continues to show growth whilst retaining its undisputed position in the industry not only as the region’s leading event solutions provider but also a major player in the world market.
The company that already owns one of the world’s largest event rental stocks that include the latest equipment in lighting, video, audio, rigging & trussing, scenic & staging, automation & SFX, conference equipment, robotics & motion tracking, has once more invested heavily in new technology and equipment over a busy season in 2017.
The season has seen Protec at the core of some truly exceptional events that has taken them across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The year was kicked off by the multiple award-winning IDEX opening ceremony in Abu Dhabi, one of the season’s high

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Germany - Radiohead’s long-serving lighting designer Andi Watson has been using 48 of GLP’s X4 L LED spots as well as 14 of the award-winning X4 Bar 20 battens (as well as several shorter X4 Bar 10) on the band’s latest A Moon Shaped Pool tour. These were supplied by Upstaging in the States, while Neg Earth picked up the European leg of the tour.
“My job is to create an environment for the Radiohead songs to exist within the stage. With so many layers to what they do, many different instruments and lots going on, I have to build complex arrangements to represent the songs visually.” He confirms that there are over 240 layers of video mapped to multiple projection and LED surfaces in order to reinforce typically between 80 to more than 100 unique songs.
For the rig structure he has favoured curves. “There are two front trusses, one for the front line

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UK - The beginning of June saw Robbie Williams kick off his Heavy Entertainment Show tour on home turf at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. The tour has continued throughout the summer, taking in stadiums, fields and arenas across the UK and Europe.
The tour’s audio requirements are provided by Robbie’s long-term supplier Britannia Row Productions (Brit Row) and has DiGiCo’s flagship SD7 consoles at both the Front of House and monitor positions.
Simon Hodge, Robbie’s Front of House engineer, has been using an SD7 for the last six years and continues to rely on it to handle this complex show. Jonathan Digby takes care of monitors, keeping the seat warm for Robbie’s long-standing monitor engineer, Pete Mc Glynn, who is recovering from an accident he had shortly before the tour took off. Jonathan is also deploying a SD7.
“The show is complicated, so

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South Africa - Dance has been an integral part of Indian culture since ancient times. Over 3,500 years ago, the Vedas’ carefully choreographed rituals were used to convey spiritual themes. This tradition lives on in beautiful fashion in South Africa today, where the Jhankaar School of Dance in Lenasia keeps dance (often with a more modern twist) in the forefront of the cultural life of the nation’s large Indian community.
Reaffirming its mission, the school, which was founded in 1986, stages an annual production of celebrated Indian dances. On 9-10 September this year, Jhankaar 2017, featured a moving and passionate performance of the contemporary Indian dance You’re The Fire. Accenting the longings and desires that weave their way through this powerful story of self-discovery is an equally intense Shaniel Laloo lightshow that draws on the output of 26 Chauvet P

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China - Amadeus has announced a 50-speaker install with '3D Sound' control. The sound system compliments 20 giant 'soft LED' screens and performances of 700 actors in China's first live event dramatizing the historical 1938 Xi'an Incident - which is credited with creating modern China.
The State-run theatre is located in the exact location where the Xi'an Incident happened. Amadeus worked with its distributor, Guangzhou Sign King ET Co., Ltd., Swiss-based company Sonic Emotion, and British manufacturer of digital mixing consoles DiGiCo to design and install the sound setup within the massive new building.
Wymen Wong, of Guangzhou Sign King ET Co., Ltd., states, "Amadeus delivered the best solutions, both in terms of products and services, matching the design constraints and goals that the Show Director' expectations. The audience also expects a lot from a

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Singapore - Automation and motion control specialists and manufacturer Kinesys has appointed a new distributor in Singapore - Total Solution.
The move underlines the increased trend for motion control and movement systems becoming a visual element of live shows, events and spectaculars.
Kinesys MD Dave Weatherhead said: “There’s been a surge of interest in Kinesys in Asia generally in the last two to three years, and the timing of this deal is perfect for us to capitalize on this and increase our brand exposure and market share. Total Solution is a strong company that is well-established and respected, and we’re looking forward to a very positive working relationship.”
Total Solution was founded by Glenn Wong in 1998 and works with a number of premium lighting, rigging and AV brands across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Glenn commented:

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China - Multinational flight case hardware and 19-inch racking manufacturer Penn Elcom has opened a new 2000sq.m distribution centre close to Beijing, which will run in conjunction with its busy manufacturing operation in Guangdong.
The company hopes holding a large amount of stock for immediate dispatch in a major commercial hub like Beijing will further boost the speed and delivery of products across mainland China and to Penn’s Asia-wide operation.
“We needed to invest to fuel further growth,” explained Penn Elcom chairman and founder Roger Willems, “and to capitalise on those flightcase users in all sectors who are requesting that their case makers – our clients – utilise Penn hardware by default”.
The new facility will be headed by Huang Xue Lin (Linda Hwang), a multi-skilled manager and customer relations specialist who has worked for Penn Elco

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UK - The School of Rock & Media Ltd (SORM) is a social enterprise based in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, that works with young people and people with learning & physical disabilities.
The brainchild of John Bolton and Tony Saunders, amongst its many enterprises, it provides PA & stage services to the wider industry and are currently working at grass roots festival level providing services for Nice & Sleazy Festival, 0161 Festival, Seaside Specialised, as well as providing sound & stage for Leeds & Bradford council events, and have provided sound for bands such as The Beat, The Specials, Sham 69 and Peter and The Test Tube Babies.
In 2018 they will be providing sound to one of the stages at Bingley Festival, and are in discussions with 80’s Ska legends Madness for next years Specialised festival.
Commissioned through Leeds & B

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Live & Gigging - Live music now accounts for almost a quarter of UK music industry revenues, new figures reveal.
Concerts brought in £1 billion in 2016, over £300m more than recorded music - which includes sales of CDs, vinyl, downloads and streaming.
In total, 30.9 million tickets were sold for concerts and festivals in 2016, up from 27.7 million in 2015, but UK Music warned that the closure of small venues posed a threat to up-and-coming artists.
"Live music did have another great year," said CEO Michael Dugher. "But future talent will never get the chance to shine if we continue to see cuts in music in schools and closures in venues where artists need to learn their craft in the first place."
He also repeated calls for artists to be fairly compensated for their music - singling out media giants YouTube and Facebook for criticism. "Unlike the subscri

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USA - At a time when some bands are using exotic, abstract and hard to decipher scenic elements on stage, pop punk phenoms Real Friends are taking an entirely different approach. Touring the USA, Mexico and Australia in support of their second studio album The Home Inside My Head, the Chicago-based quintet is performing in front of a downright homey set, complete with a family room couch, Afghan blankets and lamps that look like they popped out of mid-century America.
This set is meant to convey the honest connection that Real Friends has with their fans, rather than nostalgia or drowsy comfort. Although there are some gentle acoustic tunes in the tour’s set list, most of the time the band kicks things into raw punk gear with hard driving songs like Mess and the staccato Empty Picture Frames. Supporting the gentle set and the edgy music is a flexible S

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UK - The Warehouse Sound Services is to host a presentation and demonstration day of Adamson Systems loudspeakers. The event will be held at The Backstage Centre in Essex on Tuesday 3 October 2017 at 1pm.
The Warehouse Sound Services is the UK distributor for Adamson. The company has invested heavily in Adamson equipment over the last year to help get these systems established in the rental and installation markets within the UK. The company will be showcasing its S-Series and new IS-Series of premium loudspeakers, with key personnel from Adamson and The Warehouse on-hand for the demonstration.
Adamson’s S-Series of tour-grade loudspeakers, including the flagship S10, will be demonstrated. The two-way, true line source sub-compact line array cabinet has been deployed in the U.K. for recent shows by the likes of Bryan Adams and Shawn Mendes, plus major events like the

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France - Philips Lighting reports that it has worked closely with Opera Sanxay to introduce the first-ever moving light rig for the celebrated Soirées Lyrique de Sanxay opera festival, staged from 10-14 August. The use of the latest stage lighting and control technology successfully enabled a new level of dynamic design possibilities for this highly respected outdoor spectacle.
Now in its 18th year as one of France's leading lyrical arts events, Soirées Lyrique de Sanxay maintains presentation standards as high as any international opera event. Illuminating the elaborate scenic and costume designs to the required standard calls for the highest quality and reliability lighting.
The carefully chosen lighting rig for this year's production, Mozart's The Magic Flute, successfully combined traditional and LED light sources. Moving lights, including Philips V

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UAE - With the delivery of a large batch of over 500 pieces of LiteDeck staging platforms, Prolyte Group and Fruition Events LLC embark on a fruitful cooperation in the Middle East region.
Prolyte Group will deliver the LiteDeck staging elements in two batches, the first to be completed in September, just in time for the start of the season in the Middle East region. The second to complete later in October.
Fruition Events aims to become a recognised event delivery partner in the Middle East region.
They choose to achieve this through continuous investment into a world-class team of industry professionals and sustainable product lines that can meet creative challenges. They focus on offering a professional and full-service infrastructure for the events sector. Fruition Events have extensive regional experience and can boast varied strategic partnerships, guarante

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UK - East Anglia-based CEG has recently launched its new website (www.ceghirepro.uk) which includes a hire catalogue allowing customer to get a real-time view of inventory information and availability.
Working closely with rental management software experts, Current-RMS, CEG has created its website using the API (Application Programming Interface) provided by Current to help build these industry-first features, which give CEG’s customers access and control as never seen before.
CEG’s director Ben Bowles explained: “When we started this project back in 2016, we worked closely with Chris Branson and his team at Current RMS to see how we could build our new website using the functionality built within Current. From the start of the project we were keen to incorporate some ground-breaking features into the hire catalogue and rental account sections of the website -

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UK - As co-organiser of the Knights of Illumination (KOI) Awards with The Fifth Estate, The STLD, international lighting designer Durham Marenghi and his wife Jennie, the Association of Lighting Designers would like to recognise with great pride its own members amongst the 24 designers to be ‘knighted’ and bestowed with the emblematic sword trophy.
More ALD members than ever before took a well-earned place in the KOI 2017 short lists for theatre, television and concert & touring events.
This year’s event, held at London’s Eventim Apollo marked the KOI Awards’ tenth anniversary. The occasion was a bold reminder of both the stature of the awards and the powerful impact of the production visuals of lighting and video design it has highlighted to the eyes of the wider industry and media.
Among the successful ALD members in the Theatre section of the Aw

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UK - Martin Audio has announced a series of webinars that will kick-start a new monthly education programme for its bestselling product ranges and software platforms.
A major development in Martin Audio’s training initiative, these live sessions will initially be conducted by members of its product support group and in time start to introduce guest speakers featuring end users who will share their experiences, insights and expertise.
These sessions will be offered to audio professionals wishing to leverage Martin Audio’s technologies and optimise their advanced tools for problem solving in field applications. These webinars can be accessed from anywhere in the world, and all sessions are available free-of-charge.
Martin Audio’s director of marketing, James King, commented, “Our brand has started to become pervasive around the world and it follows that we

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Denmark - A renowned live music venue in Denmark has received a major upgrade to its loudspeaker systems by d&b.
A popular stop-off for countless international touring acts, VEGA in Copenhagen incorporates three performance spaces: Store VEGA, with a capacity of 1,550; Lille VEGA, with space for 500; and Ideal Bar Live, with a capacity of 250.
Led by head of production Anders Mortensen in late 2016, the overhaul of the loudspeaker systems in Store VEGA and Lille VEGA intended to furnish both rooms with more responsive systems, capable of accommodating speech and a wide variety of live music genres.
Three leading PA systems were considered, but the decision was made to continue VEGA's long-running association with the d&b audiotechnik brand that had seen the venue make extensive use of its Q-Series system.
“We have been using d&b successfully

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USA - Rosco has acquired French LED specialist DMG Lumière.
Rosco will incorporate DMG Lumière’s technology and talent to further develop its LED lighting product range, while DMG Lumière will benefit from Rosco’s established international sales and marketing, distribution and customer service. It means that customers will now be able to easily access both companies’ products worldwide.
DMG Lumière was founded by the de Montgrand brothers; Mathieu, Nils and Jean, and their partner Nicolas Goerg. The partners include an LED lighting developer, a gaffer and a renowned cinematographer; together creating a team who are perfectly suited to develop customer-driven LED solutions for film production and broadcast lighting.
Since its start in Lyon, France in 2014, DMG Lumière has grown quickly and recent business highlights include its SL1 Switch LED panels bei

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China - The National Centre for the Performing Arts, one of China's most prestigious and architecturally striking performance complexes, has invested in a large number of Claypaky's latest award-winning LED HCR wash light, the Claypaky K-EYE K20, along with the another of the brand's award-winning fixtures, the Claypaky Scenius Profile, as part of a major upgrade to the lighting rigs in its theatre and opera halls.
Known locally as the National Grand Theatre, The National Centre for the Performing Arts is located in Beijing, covering an area of 30,000m2 close to Tiananmen Square. The ellipsoidal venue's domed exterior of titanium and glass (which has earned it the nickname 'The Giant Egg') houses four bespoke, world-class auditoriums - the Theatre, Opera House, Concert Hall and another multi-functional theatre space.
"The National Centre for the Performing Arts needed

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USA - Country music duo Dan + Shay - vocalists and songwriters Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney – are engaged in an extensive touring cycle following the success of their second studio album, Obsessed, released in June 2016.
Lighting is designed, programmed and operated for them by Jeff Mathews of Borealis Stage Lighting in Nashville, Tennessee, and includes Robe Spiider, Spikie and Pointe moving lights. Jeff has been working with the artists for about 18 months and with shows in venues of all types, shapes and sizes, the core touring lighting rig is designed as a dynamic and flexible specials package that can be brought in ‘under’ various house rigs.
It was one of various creative options that Jeff pitched to Dan + Shay and chosen as the best concept to work for the combination of headline gigs and festival support slots that they will be playing until the end

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Europe - Entertainment engineering experts WIcreations has constructed several major set elements and developed associated rigging systems for the spectacular stage architecture designed by Stufish for the Rolling Stones’ No Filter European tour.
WI’s team, led by Hans Willems and Koen Peeters, had to create a cantilevered stage roofing system above the main performance area; devise a method for rigging and securing four 23m x 11m LED video screens to the front of four large steel towers; and build two mobile technical areas.
Koen Peeters has worked on previous Rolling Stones Tours in 1998, 2002 and 2005. He said: “It’s great to be back working with the band and an amazing creative and technical team. We have really enjoyed the challenges and the collaboration, and I think the end results are something of which we can all be proud.”
After discuss
  1. K-array solution for historic Florentine hall
  2. Systems Workshop to distribute Arthur
  3. Prolight Concepts Group to distribute Kuzar Systems
  4. ETC launches online merchandise store
  5. Claypaky supports Moonrise 2017 in Baltimore
  6. Bring Me The Horizon on tour with d&b J-Series
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