Lighting

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UK / USA - Lighting designer Steven Douglas is no stranger to the delights of Ayrton fixtures. When he was looking for a new way to showcase The Killers' logo of a 'K', his previous experience of Ayrton MagicDot-R proved a fertile ground for firing his imagination.

"We've had various incarnations of the logo over the years; I'd always thought it would be cool to build a giant 'K' out of moving lights but I was always put off by the size and weight it would inevitably end up being as well as the space needed between fixtures to allow to the head to move.

"When I saw the MagicDot-Rs for the first time it was exciting to think I had found a solution to the problem. Being able to mount the dots closer together because they are so small and do not move outside of the radius of the head itself meant that the concept was now a workable design. I spent a lot of time going back and

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USA - Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas celebrated its 10th anniversary on 23 April 2016 with a fireworks and lighting show featuring Syncrolite XL Xenon searchlights that filled the sky over the resort in an eight-minute choreographed lighting, fireworks and audio display.

The 45 XL's were placed in three groups of 15 fixtures around the resort creating a huge stage for the aerial art. Veteran crew chief TJ Benton along with Travis Slater and Travis Braudaway were on hand to set-up and execute a flawless light show.

Syncrolite coordinated the performance with Fireworks by Grucci who designed and produced the show, which was billed as the largest fireworks display ever hosted by a single venue in Las Vegas.

(Jim Evans)

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Sweden - Moving head luminaires from Osram's subsidiary Clay Paky will be in action to provide a spectacular light show As pioneers in entertainment lighting, Osram and Clay Paky are once again being entrusted to provide exceptional lighting effects for the shows staged at the Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Stockholm from 10-14 May, 2016.

Around 1,000 moving heads equipped with state-of-the-art light sources will be used to present, in the best possible light, the contestants from 42 countries during the semi-finals and the final.

"We are really pleased to be back at this prestigious event with our lighting products", said Hans-Joachim Schwabe, CEO of the Specialty Lighting business unit at Osram.

Frederik J

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UK - The current tour by Jeff Lynne's ELO features show design by Tim Routledge. "To create a beautiful show you have to have balance," he says, "and a big part of that, in technology terms, is the critical relationship between all the visual elements of the show and the music."

The video system for the tour is supplied by Video Design. "Unusually for an arena tour, all the video is LED; not just the twelve-metre circular central screen and the large floor surface ellipse, even the two IMAG screens to the sides are LED," explains company MD Alex Leinster. "Tim has commissioned some beautiful graphical animation from Ben IB, that's one good reason why Richard Shipman, an expert in running content for live shows, was engaged for the tour."

For this tour Shipman's skill was in working dynamically throughout the show to ensure the balance Routledge desired. "The key is output

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Australia - Canberra Theatre Centre (CTC) is a lively and proactive arts and cultural hub at Australia's capital city / territory, comprising three main venues - the 1244 seater Canberra Theatre, The Playhouse which holds 614 people and The Studio, a black box space with 100 capacity.

Around 150 shows covering a wide array of performance genres are staged annually, an eclectic mix ranging from rock 'n' roll to choral music, shows to drama, musicals, stand-up comedy and dance - a massive cross section involving a host of one-nighters to much longer runs of two or three weeks.

Last year, the CTC invested in its first moving lights - which were Robe.

These were specified by head of lighting Andrew Tweedie and delivered by Canberra entertainment rental and production specialist, Elite Sound and Lighting.

Andrew has worked at CTC for six years, and the lighting upgrade

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New Zealand - New Zealand's theatres, venues and hire companies have enthusiastically embraced the High End Systems Hog platform, with multiple units installed around the country by NW Group.

The latest addition, a Road Hog 4 in Auckland's SKYCITY Theatre, joins a flagship Hog 4 in Tauranga's Baycourt Theatre, a Road Hog 4 in Auckland's Bruce Mason Theatre, multiple Hog models across the seven council-run Positively Wellington Venues, and Hogs for hire across the country.

The 700 seat SKYCITY Theatre has had the same lighting desk since it opened in the late 1990s - a Hog 2. With the console at the end of its working life, it was more than ready for replacement. "SKYCITY Theatre is a flexible, multipurpose theatre that's doing everything from bingo, to theatre, to comedy acts," explains Simon Garrett, general manager of lighting at NW Group. "They do a lot of 'one-day-wond

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USA - Lumileds and Arrow Electronics have announced a strategic agreement for the global distribution of Lumileds comprehensive portfolio of application optimized LEDs including high power, mid power, low power, CoB, colour and UV LEDs as well as the infinitely configurable Matrix Platform. The agreement aligns with both companies' dedication to providing customers with responsive, accelerated service and reliable, high performance solutions.

"Lighting is an extremely dynamic market and today's lighting producers expect timely delivery of the right LEDs where and when they are needed," said Emmanuel Dieppedalle, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Lumileds. "Arrow is a technology leader that is known for connecting customers with the right comprehensive solutions, quickly. We are confident that this agreement will expand our market coverage, and with Arrow, custome

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Germany - GLP recently completed its most auspicious theatre installation at the hands of experienced theatre lighting designer Rick Fisher.

In taking the Santa Fe Opera production of Madame Butterfly, which he first lit in 2010, to the much larger, 3000-plus capacity Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at LA Opera, he found a dynamic role for GLP's versatile impression X4 Bar 20, from GLP's range of battens.

"There were challenges in relocating this production from the relatively small stage in Santa Fe that is also open to the elements upstage," he explains. "The night sky is their back drop and that gives a depth that completes the stage picture and in many ways allows for a simpler stage design than you might choose for a traditional venue."

To make this work in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion an impressionistically painted scrim and rear projection screen were added by

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USA - Norwegians Ketil Jansen and Ulrik Denizou Lund, better known as Lemaitre, can be considered a two-man melting pot of music. In the tradition of bands like Phoenix and Daft Punk, the red-hot duo effortlessly blend dance, indie, pop and even heavy swing brass into a fast smooth electro tinged sound that's all their own. Their most recent release "Closer" already has 12 million streams.

Expectations were high when Lemaitre performed at this year's Coachella festival, and the pair didn't disappoint, blending their eclectic sounds with a mesmerizing lightshow created by LD Michael Sheck of L7 Productions. A key component of Sheck's show was the 'sizzling pixel-mapped eye candy' served up on Chauvet Professional Nexus Aq 5x5 LED panels, supplied and installed by Kilroys Lighting and Production of Las Vegas.

The RGBW Nexus units were rolled out quickly on the Gobi Tent stag

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UK - Taking a short break from pre-season planning for the busy summer ahead, Pearce Hire will return for a fourth consecutive time to the PLASA Focus regional event in Leeds next week.

PLASA Focus: Leeds is a well-established date on the industry trade show calendar, and senior personnel from Pearce Hire will be on hand at the show to meet existing and new clients who are visiting the show. The two-day show provides ample opportunity for the team to discuss event production needs, on any scale and at any venue or site (greenfield, urban or otherwise) and how Pearce Hire can provide turnkey solutions for power, lighting, audio and staging requirements.

Pearce Hire has become a regular exhibitor at PLASA Focus and will once more be promoting their production services and rental business. With an increase in events and a growing portfolio of new customers, Pearce Hire is in

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UK - Zero 88 will be exhibiting at Plasa Focus Leeds - Stand N-B12 - with several exciting new products and releases.

Following its successful launch last year, FLX8 now joins the FLX family of lighting consoles as the latest eight-universe version of the PLASA Innovation Award winning FLX product line.

FLX and FLX8 will be shown with demonstrators highlighting the latest software release - ZerOS 7.9 - and the online universe upgrade program for FLX.

This continues the planned FLX programme of feature and capability enhancements ... all continuing to making FLX an even more powerful, durable, portable and extendable lighting control console package.

ZerOS 7.9 also brings significant advancements to the whole ZerOS console line-up, as we combine the software's feature set across consoles.

Sitting alongside the FLX will be the new ZerOS Wing, allowing the expansi

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UK - The 2016 Bhangra Showdown (TBS) event produced by Kudos AV and the Imperial College Punjabi Society is the world's biggest Bhangra dance competition and this year moved to Birmingham's Barclaycard Arena. Once again, the bar on production values was spectacularly upped.

The event featured a stunning lighting design created by Tom Grant and Nathan Wan, which used 80 Robe moving lights at its core - 16x BMFL Wash XFs, 18x MMX Spots, 24x LEDWash 600s and 12x Pointes.

Kudos AV's Hardeep Kataria was the production director and Tom, who also served as production designer commented, "The organisers wanted a wide and angled look this year and something a bit different to a 'standard' big LED wall upstage", so the stage design evolved into an LED screen at the back comprising five flown columns of Absen A3pro 3.9mm pitch screen.

Each column was hung on pairs of motors that

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Germany - Two, Four and Seven Watt RGB, 45kpps@8° and a browser interface for system configuration - these are the key features of the new tarm Series.

Since tarm joined the Laserworld Group beginning of 2016, a lot of development has happened, especially in cooperation with Ray Technologies. This rersulted in the presentation of a brand new product line at this year's prolight+sound. Tarm managed to create a product setup that perfectly fits the company group's portfolio and replaces the RTI ATTO and RTI FEMTO systems.

"When engaged in product development, we managed to use many synergy effects within our company group. This lead to a price level for the new tarm Series that is far below the one of the ATTO and FEMTO and even challenges the Pure Micro units," says Norbert Stangl, CMO of the Laserworld Group.

All tarm units have very fast scanner in common, running

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USA - Bandit Lites has announced the addition of Shay Simpson to its corporate ranks at its world HQ in Knoxville. A 13-year veteran of the entertainment industry, Simpson brings her expertise to Bandit's accounting team as senior accountant, and will manage all aspect of the accounting systems while developing and maintaining accounting policies and procedures.

A Johnson City, TN native, upon graduating from East Tennessee State University with a degree in accounting and finance, Simpson first worked in public accounting before joining the finance team at Regal Entertainment Group, the United States' largest theatre chain. While there as senior accountant, she oversaw the month-end close process, reviewed monthly financial statements and provided detailed analysis of budget and prior year variances.

Regarding her new position with Bandit, Simpson said, "I am very blessed

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UK - Making a welcome return to the Maidstone Studios, LD Chris Rigby, who picked up the Royal Television Society 'Lighting for Multicamera' Award for his work lighting Later, is once again adding some creative illumination to the wonderfully eclectic blend of performances featured in this, the 48th season of the BBC flagship music show.

Speaking about the show, Aurora project manager Ben Taylor says, "Later is an exciting project to be involved with - it's a show that is serious about music and Chris is an LD that is serious about lighting. The brief is to complement rather than over shadow the performances and creativity paramount throughout."

The main installation features over 100 automated fixtures, primarily Vari-Lite VL3000 and Martin MAC 575 heads which help maximize versatility and movement whilst providing the ability to quickly phase in different l

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UK - The annual House of Fraser British Academy Television Awards was held at London's Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank and attended by some of TV's most well-known faces including Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston & Mary Berry.

For the second year running appointed production company Light Motif created the settings for the pre-awards reception, dinner and after party. A series of moving mirrors were installed to reflect light beams across the ballroom creating a dream like canopy as guests enjoyed cuisine from caterers Rhubarb Food.

For the after party DJ's Rickie & Melvin spun the tunes into the small hours behind a giant TV screen decked with colourful florals from the creative Rebel Rebel.

Rob Mills, lead creative for Light Motif, said: "It has been an absolute pleasure once again to work with our wonderful clients at BAFTA together with some of the industries most t

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UK - American singer and songwriter Halsey kicked off the European section of her Badlands tour at Glasgow's O2 Academy earlier this year.

Creative directors of production design company Okulus, Louis Oliver and James Scott, turned to Ayrton once again when creating an adaptable lighting design which could be modified to suit all of the venues in the European tour dates. The designers chose the clean lines and angular appearance of Ayrton MagicBlade-R and MagicPanel-R fixtures to illuminate Halsey's performance at Brixton Academy in February which formed a key part of a flexible system that could be easily adapted for the whole European leg of the tour.

"Halsey gave us only one key item of direction, that she wanted a set based on 'V' shapes," says Oliver. "We continued that visual element through the whole environment, starting with a V-shaped stage, three V-shaped upstag

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Canada - Forty years after their first hits climbed the charts, American rock band Heart teamed up with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts for a Queens of Sheba 2016 tour through Canada that saw the Wilson sisters performing their rock staple hits beneath an automated rig that included effects from Elation Professional's new ACL 360 Matrix LED moving panels.

Dale Doucette, who has been a freelance lighting and set designer for 35 years, working with a wide range of acts from Kitaro to New Kids on the Block, also served as lighting designer/director for the Wilson sisters for eleven years prior to becoming production manager just over a year ago.

On the Canada leg of the Queens of Sheba tour he worked with Gabrielle 'Gabi' Scheff, an up-and-coming designer with previous experience from East Coast Lighting & Production Services of Rhode Island. "I gave her the keys to the car so to

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UK - Nearly 100 Robe BMFL Spots are on tour with multi-award winning chart-topping singer / songwriter Adele's current Adele Live 2016 world tour, in a stylish and dramatic lighting concept developed by Patrick Woodroffe working with associate lighting designer Adam Basset from design practice Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD).

The extensive tour follows the release of Adele's record-smashing third studio album, 25, in November 2015 which has established her as one of the most successful recording artists of all time.

Lighting operator / director on the road is Roland Greil, and the equipment for the UK and European legs of the tour is being supplied by west London based rental specialist, Neg Earth, while Upstaging will deliver the rig in the US.

Ninety BMFL Spots are rigged on a series of symmetrical overhead LX trusses above the A-stage, with another four units

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USA - Just a few years ago, using a five-watt, full-colour laser system was reserved for only large production companies with budgets big enough for large laser lighting rigs. Today, as laser technology has advanced and X-Laser's product development has evolved, a true five-watt RGB laser system exists at a price point that makes stunning laser beam and graphics displays accessible to more clients than ever, says the company. The Skywriter HPX Tour offers a solid build and high-quality laser sources to make it an option for both permanent installs and high-mileage touring acts.

"Our Skywriter HPX has been popular with clients who want an all-around, high-power laser system, and the HPX Tour brings that to a new level," said Adam Raugh, president of X-Laser USA. "We wanted to push the limits of dollars per watt, and we think the HPX Tour will become a standout performer in the

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USA - Elation Professional LED lighting was used in several tents at this year's Coachella Music and Arts Festival with Elation lights also used to uplight the festival's well-loved rows of palm trees in rainbows of festive colour.

Nearly two decades on, southern California's premier music festival still creates lasting memories and exhilarates the senses. Coachella delivered another eclectic experience across two weekends in April with a broad mix of acts from the world of rap, hip hop, EDM and rock delighting crowds with surprise guests like Angus Young, Rihanna and Kanye West adding to the festival's distinctive feel.

Elation lighting has been a staple of Coachella shows over the years and again this year played a large role in the visual experience with over 500 Elation products in action in the Yuma, Sahara and Mojave Tents, as well as around the festival grounds. Fel

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UK - A contemporary arts centre in Bristol has become the first venue in Europe to install the new ETC ColorSource ThruPower system, which launched at the beginning of the year.

The Arnolfini, which is located in a former tea warehouse dating from the 1830s, hosts regular live theatre events, as well as film, dance and university shows, and is also used by drama students at the University of the West of England. So it was important to future-proof the venue when their previous dimmers came to the end of their life.

Nick Ewins, managing director at ETC dealer Push the Button, explains, "We had been working with ETC's Graham Parker and Jeremy Roberts to install a beta test site for ColorSource ThruPower, so we knew it would soon be available for the Arnolfini."

During a three-week shutdown at the end of last year, Push the Button installed six 24-channel power control ra

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Spain - AFIAL is the main professional lighting trade show in Spain. Once again, Stonex arranged a large area where visitors could see the latest products from ETC, being supported simultaneously by technical professionals.

The AFIAL trade show was staged 26-28 April in Madrid. Stonex, ETC'S official distributor in Spain, dedicated a large area to show the ETC products.

SourceFour LED, ColorSource e Irideon FPZ LED series were among the highlights. Additionally, visitors could experience the ION and GIO consoles.

Every day an ETC Nomad was raffled among Stonex booth visitors. The lucky winners were: V

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UK - Software provider Stardraw.com has enjoyed the best six months ever for sales and usage stats of their off-the-shelf design and documentation product range with growth approaching 25% during 2015.

The company recorded its best quarter ever during Q4 2015 followed by an even better Q1 2016. "This is a fantastic result on a number of levels," said Stardraw.com CEO, Rob Robinson. "It's the first time in the history of Stardraw.com (which was incorporated in 2000) that we have had consecutive record quarters. Even more significant is the fact that, like many companies and for cyclical reasons, we traditionally enjoy better Q4s than Q1s, so to have a record quarter after a record Q4 is particularly notable."

The usage stats also bear out the success of Stardraw Design 7: logins on Design 7 have gone from an average of 9,000 per month in 2014 to 11,000 per month in 2015 and

  1. Painting with Light has a laugh with the stars
  2. Rogue R2 Wash wins votes in London Mayor's race
  3. GLP impressions support Dingushan Festival
  4. Cape Town's Ampere gets the Pointe
  5. GLP aura surrounds the face of L'Oréal
  6. Robe BMFLs complete New Order tour
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