UK - As a leading supplier of technical solutions to the entertainment industry for more than 40 years, White Light is often called upon to service various venues across the country. Whether it's annual maintenance, electrical testing or the repairing of lights and desks, WL has a team of experienced experts to fulfil any servicing requirements. One of its long-term contracts is with Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) which now owns 45 theatres worldwide - including 11 in London's West End.

When it launched in 1992, the ATG had a mere two theatres - the Duke of York's in the West End and the New Victoria Theatre in Woking. Twenty-four years later, the company now oversees an additional 43 venues, from the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse to the 2000-seat Sunderland Empire. With such a huge range of theatres, not to mention more than 11,000 performances each year, ATG needs to ensure that

UK - Weighing in at only 20.5kg, the Roxie LED 300W Followspot from Robert Juliat is an ultra-compact little weapon that packs a punch far above its weight. Available from the exclusive UK distributors, Ambersphere Solutions, the Roxie has been chosen by Phil Joyce of Onyx Lighting when making a fresh investment in followspots this year.

"I have never purchased Robert Juliat followspots before but, like most lighting professionals, I've used them on locations for many years and always been impressed with the quality of their build and ease of operation. This year we had more than 30 awards shows lined up not to mention a long list of dry hires to service so it was a case of making a purchase or continuing to rent in.

'Thor from Ambersphere came over to our office and did a demo with them. I was so impressed with the light output and the optics, we placed the order straight

South Africa - Successful South African rock band Prime Circle have invested in a dot2 core plus dot2 F-wing which will allow their lighting designer Vincent van Niekerk to be fully in control wherever they are playing, including international shows and tours.

The move was instigated by the band's bass player Marco Gomes who is involved in all aspects of their production, and was supplied by MA's South African distributor DWR, with whom Prime Circle has a long working relationship.

Founded in 2001, with six studio albums to date, several chart-topping singles and numerous awards, Prime Circle have toured increasingly in Europe in recent years. Their mid-2016 single 'Ghosts' reached the top 150 in Germany's weekly airplay charts and their European popularity was boosted further by several performances at high profile German events like Rock im Revier, Rockavaria, Rock auf d

UK - For the 12th consecutive year, Blackout was entrusted to supply the Summer Series with American Express, 10 evenings of concerts from pop headliners and emerging artists, before transforming Somerset House for its Film4 Summer Screen fortnight of cult, classic and contemporary outdoor movie showings, August 2016.

The drapes and rigging expert, led by project director Kevin Monks, worked with the London venue to supply all the stage rigging and a series of auxiliary structures for 11 pop concerts, including performances from Laura Mvula, Everything Everything and James Morisson. Two wings flanked either side of the stage, from which event branding was attached, designed to have minimal visual impact on the iconic building, drawing in crowds of over 3,000 to the open-air grounds.

The team worked successfully within tight time restraints to transform the historic venue f

UK - At PLASA 2016, City Theatrical will be demonstrating their new technology on stand H50 at Olympia London, including new B-Series Dimmers for LED tape, RGBI QolorFLEX LED Tape, new products from Pathway Connectivity, and the newly released Lightwright 6.

Andrew Voller will be also be on the stand demonstrating Moving Light Assistant Software.

City Theatrical is launching a new group of uniquely featured, high quality, constant voltage B-Series Dimmers in a variety of capacities and configurations. All partner perfectly with City Theatrical QolorFlex professional quality LED tapes.

The B5 Dimmer is a five-channel x 8A constant voltage dimmer in a rugged steel case. The five outputs give users the ability to run a full 40A of load such as RGB (three channels) plus bicolour tape (two channels), or RGBA (four channels) plus WW (one channel).

Three types of DMX conn

World - The global launch of Robe's highly anticipated new product and 'Next Big Thing' - the Spiider - will take place at www.spiider.cz today - Thursday 15 September 2016 at 12 midday (CET - Central European Timezone) - following an innovative and fun teaser video and a huge amount of chatter that helped ramp excitement within lighting and visuals communities.

Spiider is a brand new LED Wash luminaire. It builds on the extreme success of Robe's best-selling 'industry standard' LEDWash series with a completely new concept and "incredible optics".

It has one super bright 60W RGBW LED multichip in the centre which is surrounded by 18 x 30W RGBW LED multichips, and it is this optical design that resembles the spider's web that gave rise to the name. It is also so much more than 'just' a wash!

It can be used as a beam, and - a first for LED wash light stage luminaires - i

USA - Toby Keith knows what his fans want: more Toby Keith, and the multiplatinum country singer with more than 20 #1 hits is happy to oblige them as he continues his Interstates & Tailgates Tour with a new design and lighting package provided by Bandit Lites.

Lighting designer Seth Jackson reunited with the Toby team last winter to transform the look of the design, centring less on a specific tour theme and instead focusing on the operation.

"Toby wanted to shake his schedule up and play more of the festivals and fairs this year, rather than the standard amphitheatre run that had become the norm for him," explained Jackson. "In order to accomplish this, we had to design the show in such a way that it could always fit and look like the show we created, rather than have to make drastic compromises from day to day."

To achieve that goal, Jackson used several Bandit Pods

UK - Prestigious lighting and video content design awards ceremony the Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) has launched a new interactive event app for the 2016 edition.

The app serves as a one-stop hub for KOI Awards' shortlisted designers, guests, sponsors and interested parties to engage with the event and its celebration of lighting and video content design across theatre, television and concert touring and events.

With a clean, intuitive interface and branding for the Awards' valued Headline, Spotlight and Table sponsors, the free-to-download app offers users all the information about the event they could need in the palm of their hand, from shortlists to social media links.

Content creation, communications and events agency The Fifth Estate, that produces the event, worked alongside developer eStage Digital to introduce the new digital tool. The app is available

UK - Colour Sound Experiment provided lighting and LED screens to the dance tents at two major UK festivals for the first time this summer - T in the Park at Strathallan Castle in Perthshire, Scotland and the double sited V Festival, for which they serviced both Weston Park in Staffordshire and the Hylands Park site in Chelmsford, Essex.

Says Haydn Cruickshank, "We were very excited to be offered the chance to contribute to both of these amazing and popular events that are mainstays on the festival calendar."

For the Slam Tent at T In The Park, the Colour Sound team worked with regular Slam Tent LD Scott McDonald to provide the kit to his specification, while for V, two very different and dynamic designs were developed by Colour Sound's Fletch.

The V North stage was crew chiefed for Colour Sound by Alex McCoy and V South by Frankie McDade, while Sam Campbell led the te

USA - With business growing and the touring inventory constantly expanding, Bandit Lites has added to its Nashville office with the hiring of Ethan Mills, Sombath Inthavong, and Sylvain Thonethongthip.

Ethan Mills joins Bandit as the equipment coordinator where he directs and coordinates Bandit's extensive inventory for preparation and distribution among Bandit's production jobs. Prior to Bandit, Mills was the director of media and productions for Immanuel Baptist in Lexington, Kentucky, one of the nation's fastest growing churches.

Bandit's Technical Service Department has also expanded with the hiring of Sombath Inthavong as electronics technician and Sylvain Thonethongthip as assistant electronics technician, where they troubleshoot and repair equipment and correlative cables in addition to assisting with show preps, repairs and cable builds.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Clay Paky is thrilled to be celebrating its 40-year milestone at PLASA 2016 (Stand N42-K42) and welcomes visitors to the Clay Paky Universe, inside the Ambersphere Solutions area, inviting you to get up close and personal with its broad portfolio of trailblazing creative tools.

On debut is the Scenius, the new beam shaper at the top of the Clay Paky moving head range. Its advanced optical unit and the 1400W OSRAM discharge lamp provide very high light output and an excellent CRI. Its framing system consists of four independent overlapping blades which create shapes of all sizes and proportions by working simultaneously on four different focal planes

The Hepikos is a 700W washlight that combines low power consumption with color quality, without compromise. Thanks to its PC front lens (° 185mm) and narrow 5° beam angle, the fixture can also produce a sharp, thic

UK - Over the August 2016 Bank Holiday weekend over 70,000 music fans descended upon Daresbury, Cheshire for one of the world's biggest electronic music festivals, Creamfields.

The festival has grown in size each year, with the Cream organisation constantly raising the bar in terms of line-up and production values. Technical event producer LarMac Live was once again called in by promoters Cream and Live Nation to liaise with the artists and deliver the premium technical production and high quality visitor experience that Creamfields audiences have come to expect.

To help LarMac Live deliver the largest Creamfields to date, PRG XL Video were brought in to supply video, lighting and rigging across the two main stages - Arc, and Horizon, together with video across six more stages around the 900-acre site.

PRG XL Video's head of rigging services, Q Willis, oversaw a team s

South Africa - It was go, go, go for Clay Paky's Massimo Bolandrina on his recent visit to South Africa. Along with Robert Izzett from DWR, a jam-packed schedule saw the pair visiting clients in Johannesburg as they presented a one-on-one demonstration of the Scenius Profile.

"It was very good to see that everyone was enthusiastic about the product," said Massimo. "It was also good to have a warm reception from the customers." The South African industry have come to know Massimo over the years, and it's always great to welcome him back.

The Scenius Profile really sells itself. "Exactly what has been said in the advertisement about the quality of light, you find when you see it. The first thing that catches your eye is the excellence of the projection, of the white, the flat even field and saturated colours. Customers see this and immediately react to that."

Internation

USA - Full service production company GVPmedia utilized the multi-functionality of Elation Professional's Platinum FLX moving head on the AAU Junior Olympic Games Celebration of Athletes, using the award-winning hybrid moving head for beam and spot lighting, as well as floods of light.

The opening ceremony style event was held at the M.O. Campbell Centre in Houston on 31 July and GVP produced the entire show from start to finish including designing the entire set, developing the run of show, and creating custom videos and content.

This was the AAU Junior Olympic Games' 50th anniversary event and GVP fully utilized the Platinum FLX fixtures on the show, explains Gabby Schmees, director of business operations at GVPmedia, Inc. "They were needed for two main jobs," she said. "As a dynamic light show with fast, big looks, and as an even stage wash for IMAG. The greatest utiliz

USA - After 16 years, seven critically acclaimed albums and a succession of sold-out world tours, New York-based group Bayside remains as raw, hungry and true to its musical roots as ever.

Designer Eric Price hit a visual sweet spot when lighting Bayside's current tour in support of its new Vacancy album. Artfully deploying a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures throughout his rig, he is managing to deliver punchy, immersive looks, while avoiding heavy eye candy that could compete with the band's gut level music.

"Bayside wasn't looking for a show full of big lighting looks; this wouldn't be in keeping with their approach to their fans and music," said Price. "At the same time, though, they wanted something that would reflect their music in an exciting and intense way. The Rogues provided me with a great tool for doing this, because they were very brigh

UK - Leading UK lighting and visuals rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the recent UK tour by soul and jazz singer / songwriter and guitarist George Benson.

Benson, who had his most popular hits in the 1970s including the album Breezin' still has a huge following, and tours worldwide from May to October every year. The tour included Benson's 23rd show at London's Royal Albert Hall which was completely sold out. He first played there in 1977 and it's one of the artist's favourite venues.

It was the first year that HSL has supplied the tour, working to a lighting design and spec created by UK based LD Simon Tutchener, who has also lit the last four UK tours. This one was project managed on the road for HSL by Lester Cobrin, and prepped and overseen in HSL's Blackburn HQ by Sean McGlone.

Benson had a six-piece backing band and Simon put toge

USA - The Behind the Scenes Foundation has announced the Fred Foster Scholarship Fund. Board members had long been seeking a way to honour Fred's innumerable contributions to our industry and, in particular, his unwavering support of the charity since its inception.

The purpose of the fund is to assist the children of Behind the Scenes grant recipients with continuing their education which may otherwise be in jeopardy due to their family's current financial situation. BTS frequently assists individuals whose children are unable to remain in school because the family can no longer afford tuition.

The BTS Grants Review Committee will be responsible for identifying appropriate candidates from among the families of grant recipients and awarding the scholarships which may be used for any accredited post-secondary education program or vocational training.

Rick Rudolph, chair

World - Multi-award winning Italian singer / songwriter and music producer Laura Pausini started her 2016 world touring campaign in support of her new Simili studio album with a new lighting design created by Alain Corthout and Ignace D'Haese from Belgian based creative visual design practice, Arf & Yes.

This includes 128 x Robe Pointes and 109 x BMFL WashBeams which are right at the centre of a complex and eye-catching rig.

The tour kicked off with five large stadium dates - all completely sold out - in Italy for which the set and video was designed by Igor Ronchese from Tekset based in Paderno Dugnano. It now continues in the U.S. where Pausini has a massive following especially amongst the Hispanic population, and then Latin America where she is also hugely popular. At the 27th Lo Nuestro Awards in 2015 she stated that although being Italian, "half of my heart be

UK - PLASA opened the doors of Olympia this morning with a sense of anticipation. And it wasn't disappointed. It seems that answering the industry call to relocate back to the PLASA Show's original turf has payed dividends.

"It was encouraging to see so many people arrive for the very beginning of the show," says PLASA managing director Peter Heath. "PLASA's emphasis is where it should be, creating opportunities that will lead to sustained growth for our commercial divisions, leading back into the membership through increased activities and initiatives. The relocation to West London, and the move to a September date, as well as an enhanced seminar programme, more interactive showcases and technical workshops are all part of this, and were very much driven by member feedback. Early indications are that it's working."

So what is in store for day one? As well as a host of inn

UK - Forty years ago this October, the new National Theatre building opened on London's South Bank. It housed three theatres, production workshops, rehearsal rooms and all the state-of-the art technology you'd expect in a new world-class venue. It was also home to a new kind of lighting control capable of dealing with the National's 800 plus dimmers, moving lights, colour changers, projectors and more. Specified by theatre consultant Richard Pilbrow and partner Dick Brett, Lightboard offered a wealth of powerful tools for mixing and balancing lighting, creating cues with complex timing and overlapping fades. At best it was considered only borderline possible with the technology of the day - but with a mix of clever planning and cunning engineering by Rank Strand's development team, the project was realised.

The recent recovery of an original Lightboard by the Backstage Heritag

UK - As the most widely supported ethernet lighting protocol in the industry, Art-Net has arguably come of age with the release of version 4, which is timed to coincide with the PLASA show.

Artistic Licence is well known as the inventor of Art-Net and a leading expert in lighting control, and as such is the perfect host for PLASA 2016's dedicated Art-Net Zone. This exciting new initiative - on Stand R71, on the show's upper level - is supported by PLASA and LSi magazine and aims to provide expert education and training on the use of Art-Net and related protocols.

The Art-Net Zone promises to be a hub of activity, with many of the industry's most knowledgeable experts in ethernet and DMX/RDM lighting control on hand to provide one-on-one training, mini-seminars and practical product advice in an 'Art-Fest' session. Visitors will find Wayne Howell & Fraser Connolly (Artistic

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd. (AC-ET), a leading one-stop provider of professional equipment to the entertainment industry, will showcase a selection of the very latest technology solutions available from their vast portfolio of over 200 leading brands, in their large exhibition zone (main stand E30) at PLASA 2016 - Olympia, London, UK, 18th - 20th September.

Staff from the company's dedicated Lighting sales division - which supplies any aspect of your stage, theatre, or architectural lighting system - will be present to demonstrate the latest lighting solutions from brands including Chroma-Q, Jands, ProLights, Spotlight, LumenRadio, Luminex and Tourflex Cabling, amongst others.

The company's dedicated Film & TV sales division - which offers a comprehensive one-stop inventory of lighting, control and grip solutions for film, television, studio and locati

UK - On stand G60 at PLASA 2016, Philips Lighting - home of the Vari-Lite, Strand, Selecon and Showline brands - is showing visitors the very latest products from all of its renowned brands.

The first in an innovative new LED range from Philips Showline is the SL LEDSPOT 300: a compact, high output LED luminaire that offers great colour choice from its CMY colour mixing and fixed colour wheel, plus a range of dynamic effects from its rotating and fixed gobo wheels, three-facet prism, Iris and framing system. Other recent Showline additions include the SL BEAM 300fx and the SL HYDRUS 350 - an "astonishingly powerful" luminaire designed for the live event and TV market.

New from the Philips Selecon brand are the PL1 MKII LED range, plus the new PLprofile4 MKII - an updated product which now offers improved colour consistency across units and new power saving features. The Se

UK - Immediately following the launch of Spiider, PLASA 2016 Platinum Sponsor, Robe, is set to show this latest, innovative product at PLASA 2016. Spiider builds on the extreme success of Robe's best-selling 'industry standard' LEDWash series with a completely new concept and optics.

"Spiider is really something special which everybody will love!" says Robe's CEO Josef Valchar. "Forty-two Spiiders will be in action on the Robe booth - which is an absolute 'must-see'!"

As well as Spiider, Robe will be showing Halo and the Viva LED.

Halo is a special bespoke new Robe LED 'pixel technology' device, which can be used to transform PAR cans and add other dimensions to stage and TV sets, whilst the Viva LED is a moving light that has driven the introduction of a CMY version of this small, punchy workhorse fixture.

"PLASA is an important show," continues Josef. "We recogni

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