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USA - Located on Cocktail Bay overlooking Darling Harbour, Home is Sydney's only true superclub. Built in the late nineties, the club features over three levels of purpose-built clubbing space. With a capacity of 2100, the venue is one of the largest in the southern hemisphere.
Incorporating innovative creative design and with four venue areas, including a luxurious rooftop terrace, featuring both indoor and outdoor areas, Home lends itself to all aspects of entertaining.
The club owners recently decided it was time for a renovation of the venue’s lighting and turned to Show Technology for advice.
Darcy Cook, production designer at the club, worked closely with Show Technology’s business development manager Stephen Dallimore who said, “The design of Home lends itself more to a New York warehouse vibe, incorporating some fantastic street art work by local ar

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Canada - Multi-venue theatre production company, Drayton Entertainment, has made a major investment in its audio equipment, including three Allen & Heath dLive S Class systems, as part of an upgrade to its systems.
The company operates seven theatres located in regional communities, comprising the Cambridge Dunfield Theatre, Huron Country Playhouse and Playhouse II in Grand Bend, King's Wharf Theatre, St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, Schoolhouse Theatre in St. Jacobs, and the flagship Drayton Festival Theatre.
The dLive systems are all S7000 Surfaces and DM64 MixRacks, provided by Drayton Entertainment’s long-time audio partner, Angus Audio, which also supplied eight new Apple Macs, and Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless microphone systems.
“We are thrilled with dLive. We have a system with a smaller footprint taking up less seat space but with a large fader co

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USA - Panic at The Disco continue their Death of a Bachelor tour in the US with a striking production design created by Matt Larivée of Montreal-based creative practice Luz Studio, who worked closely with the band’s lighting designer, Alex Specht.
Together they specified 50 x Robe BMFL Spots, 10 x CycFX8s and six PATT 2013s which are prominent on the rig. The idea was to create a dynamic stage aesthetic which would highlight the classiness of adding a Sinatra-style horns section to the line-up combined with a mysterious new cult logo.
The architecture of the rig with gold-painted ladders at the back, contrasted with five moving curved LED video ‘chandeliers’ which meant the environment could easily switch from classic to edgy and contemporary!
The BMFL Spots are dotted around the rig on the upstage ladder structure, on the video chandeliers and the floor.

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USA - Chicago-based rock band 7th Heaven has been an entertainment staple in the American Midwest for 30 years. Despite its location in the US heartland, the band does an annual cruise called the Chicago Music Cruise and this year played a week of shows on the largest cruise ship in the world, Harmony of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean smartship outfitted with energy-efficient Elation Professional LED lighting.
7th Heaven has been sailing with Royal Caribbean for years but this was the first year they were hired as a feature act. On a Harmony of the Seas cruise that sailed the Caribbean from 7-13 January, the band played shows in the ship’s Royal Theatre, the ship’s main entertainment space, as well as a final show in the Aqua Theatre.
Band lighting designer Zach Scott, who has been with the band for six years and lights almost every show they play, an average of 250

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Croatia - Several challenges faced lighting designer Sven Kučinić when asked to design a high-profile one off show for Croatian pop superstar Ivan Zak in front of 18,000 adoring fans at Zagreb Arena. Forming his first band at 14 and hitting the big time in 2009 with the Adrenaline album and single, this was the star’s largest show to date.
Sven is one of Croatia’s leading LDs, known for his flair and imagination, he has been specifying Robe’s BMFL range fixtures on various shows for the last year.
In addition to the massive brightness, he loves the “seamless CMY colour mixing system, creative gobos and ultra-precise dimmer”. In fact the BMFL is so “feature packed” that he’s still discovering some new combination or effect on every show, which is a big thing for a power-user like Sven who by his own admission is one for either finding faults wit

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UK - The Philanthropist has been delighting audiences across the globe since it first premiered at the Royal Court in 1970. It is now making a welcome return to the West End in a brand-new production at the Trafalgar Studios.
Directed by Simon Callow, this latest version stars some of television’s brightest stars, including Matt Berry, Simon Bird, Lily Cole and Tom Rosenthal. Having already supplied shows at the Trafalgar Studios this year, White Light was called upon once again to provide the lights for The Philanthropist.
The lighting designer is Olivier Award-winner Mike Robertson. He comments: “I remember seeing The Philanthropist many moons ago and being struck by the extraordinary coup de théâtre at the beginning of the play. For this version, Simon has approached it with a really fresh vibrancy; whether it’s the younger cast or the s

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USA - Crossing genres in lighting is nothing unusual for Morgan Cerovski. The technical director at the 880-seat Palace Theatre in Manchester, NH. Cerovski is accustomed to having his rig light theatrical productions on weekends and then turn around with virtually no changes to serve up eye candy for a visiting band on Monday.
Such was the case on 10 March when the Palace stage welcomed the Red Hot Chili Pipers after just completing a Friday-Sunday run of the musical Hairspray.
Like the Palace lighting rig, the Scottish ‘bag rock’ band (not to be confused with the Red Hot Chili Peppers), is also accustomed to bending barriers. The band performs an upbeat fusion of bagpipe and rock music. Keeping pace with their high energy performance at the Palace were 12 fast moving Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Spots, purchased from Events United.
A night earlier,

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Canada - Atlona has announced a new partnership with SFM. Based in Dorval, Quebec, SFM will act as an extension of Atlona’s sales and support network across Canada, joining a quickly growing roster of global partners specialising in Atlona AV solutions and products.
SFM aims to work with suppliers that share similar business and technology philosophies. In partnering with Atlona, the SFM team believes it has found a company focused on interoperable solutions that also address the pertinent industry trends. Mike Calo, brand manager for SFM, points to Atlona’s recent innovations for AV over IP (OmniStream) and cloud-based control (Velocity) as particularly appealing.
“Atlona offers products that are compatible with existing hardware and video conferencing software, for example, which is important to the success of systems integrators today,” said Calo. “We also

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Italy - Claypaky is to host the tenth Showlight quadrennial from 20-23 May 2017 at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Florence, Italy.
Showlight will offer a broad range of stimulating presentations and panel discussions, delivered by leading international designers, programmers and influencers working at the forefront of professional show lighting in TV, theatre, concert touring, film, special events and leisure environments. The topics have been carefully chosen by the committee to engage the eclectic interests of lighting enthusiasts from across the world and across many disciplines.
Claypaky's CEO, Pio Nahum, says: "Being the headline sponsor of an international event such as Showlight expresses Claypaky's commitment and support for the lighting design community worldwide. It is an unmissable networking opportunity. Spending quality time together is essential in a niche

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Digital Reversal - Freelance theatre professionals are relieved to see the government’s controversial Making Tax Digital reforms dropped after unions lobbied intensively against the changes. The proposals, which included quarterly data submissions and covered all businesses with a turnover of more than £10,000, including self-employed individuals, were previously branded a “bureaucratic nightmare” by the union Equity.
Entertainment union BECTU also raised concerns about the reforms, calling for the sector to be exempted from requirements due to the nature of the work. Accountants had estimated that the impact on the average self-employed person in the industry could be about £1,250 per year, based on the costs of current software and tax administration.
But now the Making Tax Digital reforms, which were due to come in from April 2018, have been dropped from the

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UK - Earlier this year Pearce Hire, a Gold Sponsor of the e-Luminate Cambridge Festival, provided full production services, technical support and equipment for the stunning lighting event that, each year, dramatically covers the entire city of Cambridge.
The 2017 e-Luminate Cambridge Festival celebrated its fifth edition and during the past five years has become a key highlight in the city’s cultural calendar. The festival, which ran for 35 hours across six nights, commemorated the diversity and rich architectural offerings of this historic city – with ‘light’ as the star of the show.
Cambridge Live, the organisers of e-Luminate, which is recognised as a contemporary arts festival, approached Pearce Hire as their trusted technical production partner to work with the latest creative lighting fixtures to produce stunning architectural lighting illuminations at

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Belgium - As part of Bright Brussels Festival, ACTLD (ACT Lighting Design) contributed with a very innovative art installation as a total immersion of light, sound and mist. Lighting-wise, the spectacle totally comprised by SGM LED fixtures.
Mounted on a specially constructed trussing, forming a symmetrical matrix (35mx35m), 64 G-Spot moving heads played the leading role, strongly supported by Q-7 RGBW and Q-7 W flood/blind/strobes as well as P-5 and P-2 wash lights.
Koert Vermeulen, principal designer at ACTLD chose to explore the urban space of their hometown and offered a brand new experience to the public in a highly unusual location; a 70 x 80 meter construction site. Senior lighting designer and console operator, Luc De Climmer, explained: “Minimalism, geometry and reflection are some of the words that can describe this installation, playing with the industri

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UK - Following a run at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury and a UK tour in 2016, satirical play The Wipers Times has arrived in the West End with a limited run at The Arts Theatre. Full technical service provider Hawthorn were chosen to provide lighting equipment for this dark comedy from the trenches.
A stage adaptation of their award-winning BBC film, The Wipers Times by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, tells the true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper that was created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme.
The team at Hawthorn worked with lighting designer James Smith to provide lighting equipment for the production when it toured in 2016 and were delighted to be asked to be involved once again when it arrived in the West End.
Smith, explaining why he chose to get Hawthorn on board once again, said: “After seeing the success of how Hawthor

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UK - Considered by many to be one of the biggest Broadway musicals of all time, 42nd Street has now arrived in London where it has received rave reviews from audiences and critics alike. Starring Grammy Award winner Sheena Easton, this all singing, high-kicking spectacle is currently playing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane – London’s biggest stage. WL was called upon the provide the lights on this production.
42nd Street tells the story of young Peggy Sawyer who is fresh off the bus from small-town America and just another face in the chorus line on Broadway’s newest show. Yet when the leading lady gets injured, Peggy might just have the shot at stardom which she’s always dreamed off.
The lighting design is by Olivier Award winner Peter Mumford. He comments: “Despite its iconic status, I have never lit nor indeed seen 42nd Street before. I’d say

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UK - The application deadline for the new Collaborative Doctoral Award, an initiative between the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD), is fast approaching.
The Award, which offers a postgraduate student the opportunity to pursue a fully funded PhD at a leading centre for research in theatre and performance, together with the ABTT – one of the earliest organisations to represent the interests and needs of theatre designers and technical practitioners – has attracted much interest and praise for the legacy the resulting body of work will have for the industry.
The purpose of the Award is to enable a researcher to examine the historical context of the establishment and development of the ABTT, as well as its impact on the evolution of theatre design and standards of architectural, engineerin

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USA - Erik Parker has supported a variety of different bands from multiple genres with engaging lightshows. However, even he has to acknowledge that nothing in his portfolio was quite like his project for lighting Simply Three. “This was a new type of music for me,” said Parker of Chris Lisle Lighting Design. “It’s a three-piece string band that rocks to covers such as Take Me to Church by Hozier, Photograph by Ed Sheeran and Counting Starsby OneRepublic, as well as many classics from Puccini to Gershwin. Lighting them was challenging, but a lot of fun.”
Parker met this challenge in stunning fashion at the internationally acclaimed group’s recent homecoming concert at the Mesa Arts Center outside Phoenix with help from Chauvet Professional Maverick and Rogue fixtures, supplied by Creative BackStage. He positioned eight Maverick MK2 Spots and

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France - Hard Rock Café is arguably one of the most recognised names in popular, family-orientated dining, its mixture of American style food and music memorabilia continuing to attract millions of customers across the world. One of its newest outlets is in Lyon, France, which features a Yamaha Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) system.
As with all Hard Rock Cafés, the Lyon outlet features dining, live performance, a shop and public circulation areas, as well as a private dining area and a meeting room. Systems integrator Eurosono was contracted to install the audio system, choosing a zoned Yamaha CIS solution because it delivers great sound with very flexible control.
“A main requirement was that each zone and a range of audio sources had to be managed from a centralised point,” says Frédéric Borde of Yamaha Music Europe France. “A Dante audio network w

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Italy - RCF is to open a new lecture hall for audio courses and seminars. The new Audio Academy, dedicated to the culture of sound, will be situated in a new building at the RCF headquarters in Reggio Emilia.
Set on pitched floor, and with 46 upholstered seats, the classroom has also been acoustically treated, while a natural/artificial mixed lighting system provides maximum comfort. Finally, the classroom is equipped with audio-video systems and includes a spacious foyer for reception and refreshments.
RCF Audio Academy will continue the series of state-of-the-art seminars hosted by RCF product specialists, teachers and engineers both in the new HQ and laboratories. Since 2010, 127 courses have been organised, welcoming more than 2,200 participants, 381 indoor product demos and 374 outdoor.
The new venue will also host the Sound-Engineering University Course, or

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New Zealand - GLP has appointed Kenderdine Electrical as its distribution partner in New Zealand..
Kenderdine Electrical was started in 1959 by Hugh Kenderdine, a working theatre electrician, as a hire service to the theatre industry. Over the years, the company grew to be a major supplier of equipment to the theatre and rock & roll industry. By the early 80s the company was purchasing and importing equipment for its own hire stock, but more importantly, reselling to customers around New Zealand.
In 1982, Chris McKenzie joined to form Professional Lighting Services to look after the growing film and TV markets in New Zealand.
McKenzie confirms that his company had been seeking a premium moving light brand to introduce to the New Zealand market. “We had been aware of GLP for a long time but at the time it was being represented by an Australian company who al

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Ireland - EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum is Dublin’s newest museum, dedicated to one of the pivotal facets of Irish history: that of Irish emigration. In the appropriate location, the museum is situated in Dublin’s Docklands on the Custom House Quay, the departure point for many of Ireland’s emigrants in the 19th Century. Within the museum are twenty themed interactive galleries that take visitors on a journey through Irish history and, through interactive and immersive technology, connects all those who claim Irish connections and heritage with powerful experience.
Amongst the myriad of rooms dedicated to the global influence of the Irish culture through migration is a space entitled Science & Innovation. Within this gallery, visitors are familiarised with those of Irish descent who have been key in the development of scientific and technology progress. As an i

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UK - Technical installation experts, Hawthorn was approached by Multiplay, a subsidiary of high street retailer GAME, as it launched its new studio.
Hawthorn has previously worked with Multiplay on the technical production of live events, so when they were looking for support to create a bespoke broadcast studio its Install team was more than happy to help.
Based at GAME head office in Basingstoke, this shared broadcast facility will be used for a wide range of live internet gaming programmes.
Steve Wilson, head of production and broadcast at Multiplay, asked Hawthorn to develop a specialist lighting and acoustic solution for the new broadcast space. Using their extensive experience in this area, Hawthorn utilised the latest ETC Irideon track lighting system along with ETC’s new ECHO modular control system. LED Tape and drivers from City Theatrical were used to

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UK - Adlib supplied an L-Acoustics audio system, with all associated rigging and crew for the recent UK and European leg of multiple award winning Scottish singer / songwriter Emeli Sandé’s Long Live the Angels tour.
Adlib was asked on-board by production manager Steve Martin (Tourhouse Productions) and was delighted to be working with Emeli’s FOH engineer Max Bisgrove and monitor guru Andrew Williamson.
Their system tech on the tour – fine tuning and looking after the PA each day – was Adlib’s Kenny Perrin, who commented, “It was a pleasure to work with everyone on this tour – amazing people, a great show and an extremely positive environment.”
The itinerary featured a mix of venues – academies, town halls and arenas – so the requirement was to cover all of these, for which they toured a selection of L-Acoustics K1, K2 and KARA loudspeaker

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USA - Heralded for its acoustics, which are said to rival those of La Scala in Milan, the Hungarian State Opera House has hosted many of the greatest artists from the orchestral and operatic worlds. Gustave Mahler called this building home as the opera’s director, as did Otto Klemperer. At no time in this Budapest landmark’s history, though, did it ever ring with sounds quite like those created in Rocktopia, a wildly original mash up of classical and classic rock music.
After making its global debut last year at the opera house in a PBS broadcast, Rocktopia is now bringing its far-ranging musical mix to the US with a tour of mid-sized venues. Supporting this eclectic concert is a lightshow created by Michael Stiller of upLight. Stiller’s design remains true to the flavour of that PBS special, while still being portable and road friendly, thanks to some he

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UK - Bristol Music Trust (BMT) has revealed the next stages in its ambitious £48.8m redevelopment programme for Colston Hall, including a name change for the venue.
Louise Mitchell, chief executive of BMT, said: “We are on track with our transformation campaign and at this stage in the process, we can now focus on the detailed plans for the redeveloped Hall, including what its future name should be.
“The name Colston does not reflect the Trust’s values as a progressive, forward-thinking and open arts organisation. We want to look to the future and ensure the whole city is proud of its transformed concert hall and so, when we reopen the new building in 2020, it will be with a new name. This overall rebrand is part of transforming the Colston Hall we have today into the new National Centre for Music Entertainment, Education and Enterprise.”
With two-thir
  1. Rental houses opt for Nexo Geo M10
  2. Robe on tour with Nutcracker in Italy
  3. Philips Lighting adds funk to Bruno Mars tour
  4. FloppyFlex accents Granite Boardwalk in Texas
  5. S+H gets Bigheaded
  6. Elation Lights three Ultra stages
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