Lighting

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Australia - Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons sold 175 million records worldwide - all before they were 30. And now their story is being told in Jersey Boys at Melbourne's Princess Theatre, with the help of lighting designer Howell Binkley and Bytecraft Entertainment. In Australia, Hugh Hamilton is acting as both associate lighting designer and production electrician.

The star of the show, from a lighting point of view, is a giant 'stadium with six lighting towers' made up of 144 ETC Source FourPARs. These hold custom donuts (gel frames that limit the size of the aperture of the light after the lens) fabricated to create an impression of perspective for the luminaires, which were placed upstage, facing the audience.

"The bank of 144 Source FourPARs, along with some strobes, looks amazing and is an epic look in the show. It comes at the end of the first act, as The

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UK - The trustees of the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) has announced its search for a chief executive officer, to manage the business of the Association, to be its public face and to lead the organisation, as it grows to meet the increasing needs of today's membership and the theatre industry in general.

Founded in 1961, the ABTT was started by a small group of enthusiastic professionals, whose main objective was to raise technical standards in the theatre, through the collation and distribution of information on working methods, theatre planning, stage machinery, lighting and sound equipment, acoustics, scenery construction, stage management and all aspects of live performance.

Starting from a membership of under 100 almost 50 years ago, the ABTT currently enjoys a membership approaching 1800, drawn from theatre consultants, architects, engineers, designer

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UK - London-based LD Peter Mumford used Martin Professional's high-brightness EvenLED RGB LED panels on the new opera Prima Donna at the Manchester International Festival.

Mumford used 111 EvenLED panels to light a large cyclorama for the opera which played at the Palace Theatre. "I particularly wanted to use EvenLED for Prima Donna to achieve a perfectly even cover using a rear projection cyc behind a painted glass wall and have the possibility of numerous colour changes and 'wipes' of color," Mumford commented.

"In the finale aria of the show entitled Feu d'artifice I was able to animate an abstract 'fireworks display' through another huge glass window and the result was very beautiful." Working with Mumford was a team led by production electrician Keith Johnson and programmer Victoria Brennan.

Festival technical director Jack Thom

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UK - ML Electronics has announced a new low cost two-wire LED lighting control system design that can be managed from an iPhone as well as a PC or other computing device.

ML Electronics has completed a reference design for a low cost home LED lighting control system for 'retro fitting' into existing standard housing as a replacement for, or enhancement to, conventional lighting. A key feature of the system is that the same 24 VDC supply lines that power the LEDs are used for the control signals, using a unique protocol developed by ML Electronics.

The system is operated using one or more master controllers which address a number of slaves, and each slave controls clusters of three RGB/white LEDs. The master can be controlled via Ethernet, Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth, DMX512, DALI or any custom control interface. As part of the development, ML Electronics produced both PC a

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UK - Students at south London's BRIT School's technical theatre course need to learn on a lighting control desk which will be able to handle the most complex, multi media filled rigs, yet simple enough to get to grips with as part of their course. And it needs to be one which they might go on to use when they start working professionally. When Andrew Smith, the school's technical manager, started looking for a replacement desk last September, he settled on an ETC Eos and its smaller sibling, Ion.

For the final assessment show of the year, 18 year old BTEC National students Ben Couch and Chris Burnage directed and programmed the lighting and AV on the Eos and Ion, working on discrete software partitions. Both have used lighting control desks before, but found that the additional functionality which ETC's desks offer has made their projects much easier. Couch explains: "The p

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On The World Stage - Robbie Williams' comeback concert for the BBC Electric Proms will be broadcast in cinemas around the world. The concert on 20 October will be beamed live to almost 200 screens across Europe. It will also be shown later in Australia and South Africa. Williams said: "It's very exciting to think that a one-off performance I play in London can be seen simultaneously by people all across the world."

The proms concert will be the singer's first major show in three years. It will also be broadcast on Radio 1. The high definition screening is being billed as the largest live music cinematic event of its kind in Europe, and has been put together by BBC Worldwide. The commercial arm of the corporation recently beamed The Last Night of the Proms into cinemas around the world.

Glastonbury sells out - Tickets for next year's Glastonbury F

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UK - Manchester- based lighting company DBN has completed the installation of the house lighting rig at the iconic Manchester live music venue, Band On The Wall.

The landmark 300-capacity venue on 25 Swan Street in the Northern Quarter of the city centre dates back some 200 years and has been associated with live music for much of its rich cultural heritage. The name comes from the 1930's when musicians used to perform standing on precarious platforms strapped to the wall.

It has been completely renovated, restored and just reopened by operators Inner City Music with the help of a £4m combined award from the Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and the Lottery Heritage Fund, to transform the venue into a 21st century centre of music with strong community ties.

DBN's Nigel Walker completed the design. An important part of the brief was that they wanted a retro

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UK - White Light recently appointed Roger Deane as hire project manager. With a professional career dating back to 1979, his experience spans three decades of development in entertainment lighting.

Deane has worked at the coal face of live events in theatre, music touring, launches, celebrations and corporate shows as both freelance lighting designer and production electrician across Europe and North America. His business experience includes a decade as a company director, building a corporate rental house to become the leading quality brand, and several years with a premium event production house managing the operation and building a full service offer.

(Jim Evans)

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UK / USA - PLASA (headquartered in the UK) and ESTA (headquartered in North America), two of the leading bodies worldwide for those working in the live events, entertainment and communications industries, have signed a Letter of Intent to merge.

The announcement comes on the back of long-term strategic reviews conducted by both Associations who believe that uniting as one body will lead to a stronger voice for members, the enhancement of existing initiatives and an expansion of the range of benefits and services.

The proposed merger has the full backing of both the ESTA Board of Directors and the PLASA Executive Committee who voted on the proposal this Summer and who will formally recommend the move to their respective memberships, subject to due diligence being completed successfully, during the Spring/Summer of 2010. If both memberships vote to go ahead, the first stage of t

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USA - Women vocalists considered to be the cream of the crop by the VH1 cable television network inaugurated the newest major event venue outside of Manhattan in late September.

The women, including Miley Cirus, Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Hudson, Melissa Etheridge and others along with host Paula Abdul, performed a three-hour live concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before attending an after-show party at the neo-Romanesque styled Williamsburgh Savings Bank, a Brooklyn landmark since its completion in 1929.

Standing at 512 feet and renamed One Hanson Place, the structure is the tallest building in Brooklyn and second tallest on Long Island. The tower is fitted with a four-sided clock, the largest in the world until 1962, and is capped by a gilded copper dome. The building was named a historic landmark in 1977.

The upper floors have recently been converted from offices to hig

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USA / UAE - Philips Vari-Lite has announced that its newest Middle East distributor, VTI, has successfully sold 100 units of the Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash and VL3000 Spot luminaires to Gearhouse Staging Connections for use throughout future installations in the region.

Gearhouse Staging Connections will put their new luminaires straight to work - first for use by Think Flash in Abu Dhabi, and then as part of the automated lighting package for a series of high profile events at the new Palladium Theatre in Dubai.

"The Middle East market, led by concert activity in the United Arab Emirates, has become more and more sophisticated over the past 10 years and the expectations of the client base have grown significantly," stated Peter McCann, managing director, Gearhouse Staging Connections.

"The operating conditions in this market are extreme with temperatures up to 50

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UK - When Wembley Stadium decided to transform the VIP guest hospitality room for this summer's biggest concerts, they turned to entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

The challenge was to create a versatile design that could provide a calm but attractive feel to the room for the pre-show dinner and drinks, but then transform the space into an exclusive nightclub for the after show parties.

To achieve this, White Light's Dominic Yates used some of the latest technology from White Light's extensive lighting stock to create a design flexible enough to give the room a different feel for each concert, while dynamic enough to continue the excitement of the gig beyond the end of each show.

The design made use of the new Fusion672 LED panels, which allowed the creation of both dramatically changing lighting backdrops and corporate branding, with the 'Club Wembley' logo presen

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UK - Fifteen venues across the UK will open their doors to 13- and 14-year-olds from 15 October until 2 December 2009, for The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills' first interactive Offstage Choices careers events.

These events offer young people aged 13 and above a taste of the job roles available behind the scenes and offstage in technical theatre and live music events.

Pupils from local schools will meet and experience the work of a number of professionals including lighting and sound technicians, marketing and stage managers and designers, in venues from the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, up to the SAGE in Gateshead. Behind the scenes staff will share the tricks of their trade and experiences, working out of the 'spotlight'.

Offstage is produced by The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills (NSA), a network of industry speciali

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UK - HSL supplied all lighting for the Stereophonics homecoming show at Cardiff Castle, Wales, last weekend - including eight of the new Robe Robin 300E Beam moving lights, which made their UK show debut, specified by LD Tim Routledge.

The gig celebrated the band's forthcoming album Keep Calm & Carry On, and Routledge was asked to light this and a warm-up gig at the Electric Ballroom in London following a TV special he designed for them last year at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, for which he won a Welsh BAFTA Award.

Blackburn-based HSL has supplied a number of Routledge's recent projects, and he was keen for them to also do this one. "The variety of kit that HSL has available is really impressive, as is their attention to detail and willingness to customise gear and accommodate non-standard requirements," he says. The project was managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

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Austria - When German superstars Die Ärzte played two sold-out stadium shows in Linz, Austria, their lighting designer Lui Helmig spec'd 130 Robe moving lights as the main work-horses of the rig for the spectacular show.

Die Ärzte's live performances have a reputation for dazzlingly spectacular light-shows and this one was no exception. Helmig arranged the fixtures - a mix of ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs and ColorSpot and Wash 2500E ATs - across nine 'finger' trusses above the stage, and on a front truss.

On the floor were 12 ColorWash 2500E ATs and six ColorWash 1200E ATs, used for aerial beam work, effects and low level cross stage lighting - all adding a bit of additional drama and dimension to the stage.

The design also incorporated GLEC video screens hung in between the trusses, and Helmig tried to make the stage as open and accessible for sight-lines all around

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Lighting designer for Beyonce's I am... tour is Justin Collie, partner of Artfag LLC, while Pat Brannon is on tour as lighting director.

Collie decided to use the MAC III Profile on the tour because, he said, they were new, brighter and better.

"Due to the huge video screen, we needed to move the lighting elements into useful positions when required so we have most of the MAC IIIs on 'pods' that can track, raise/lower and rotate within the three-dimensional area over the stage," says Collie. "The MAC IIIs are nice and bright, the zoom range is good and the rotating effect wheel is a nice gag."

Pat Brannon adds: "I love the optics of the MAC III. It has the same features of the MAC 2000 with much improved optics and brightness - in fact, I love their brightness. Of course, the added animation wheel is awesome. I really like the speed at which the fixt

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UK - White Light, a regular visitor to all of London's theatres, set something of a record in early September, supplying three different productions at the same theatre over the course of a long weekend.

The theatre was the Arts Theatre, located in the heart of London's West End; the three productions indicated the many different capacities in which White Light can help light a show as well as its ability to work to suit a production's schedule, however demanding.

The first of the three shows, an event in the theatre, saw White Light deliver lighting equipment on Friday for a Saturday show, then return late on Saturday evening to collect the gear from the theatre after the event.

The second saw White Light's Production team working with PositiveTV on an event in the theatre; the Production team provide a complete lighting service, including design, supply, crewing and more,

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Italy - Proel and Trabes have just signed an important commercial partnership agreement concerning Trussing products. It will allow Proel to offer its customers "a more flexible support policy and optimize its "problem solving" efficiency; at the same time, it will bring about increased strategic monitoring in these product lines".

To achieve a more distinct identity in trussing, the pre-existing partnership with Litec has been terminated.

"Proel and Trabes are two companies which, to some extent, share the same idea of business," explains Maurizio Amadori, founder and Chairman of Trabes. "Since it was established in 1985, Trabes has always worked in the market trying to meet the concrete needs of its customers and demonstrating its commitment to product reliability with accurate choice of materials and attention to detail, as well as with st

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USA - While MTV's Video Music Awards (VMAs) lit up the TV screens of millions of households on 13 September, lighting designer Tom Kenny utilised an extensive package of Coemar Infinity Wash XLs, Infinity ACLs and ParLite LEDs provided by Scharff Weisberg Lighting for the live show at New York City's Radio City Music Hall.

"An awards show of that size and pressure is like going into battle in the trenches," says Kenny. "In New York, everybody thinks they know how to be the mayor, the president of the United States and the lighting designer of the VMAs. You just have to hold your ground and do your show."

Working under such mission-critical conditions Kenny sought reliability and dependability as well as great creative scope from his lighting instruments. "I used Coemar Infinitys as the firepower on the show," he says. "All the lights pointing

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World Cup Concert - A major concert has been announced to kick off the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The three-hour show will feature collaborations between international stars and top African artists and appearances by football legends. The event, from the team behind Live 8, takes place on 10 June at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg.

The show is being staged by Kevin Wall, who told BBC News he has been "overwhelmed" by major artists wanting to get involved. "That's unusual, normally it's the other way round," he added. He admitted he will have to turn down some big name acts: "We are going to have a lot of the major African artists and really it's going to be about Africa so the slots for international artists are a rarity."

Wall believes the show could reach an even bigger TV audience than Live 8 and Li

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China - Philips Lumileds and Genius Electronic Optical Company (GSEO) have announced that GSEO is developing new solid-state street lights and street light modules with Luxeon Rebel for use on roadways throughout China. The first installations of GSEO's new streetlights are expected in early 2010.

"The solutions that GSEO is developing can bring great benefit to the cities that adopt and implement the new street lights," said Alvin Tse, VP Asia Pacific Sales at Philips Lumileds. "We expect that their design will deliver high quality, reliable street lighting for many years to come."

"GSEO's approach to creating new solutions is to choose the highest quality LEDs and to implement an optimised system design to ensure that the new luminaire is the best overall solution for its designated application," said Calvin Chen, director of LED Lighting BU at

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UK - Northern Light has provided the latest in architectural lighting to Glasgow's Trongate 103 - a new arts resource complex.

Philips Selecon's new Wing range of performance wall washer floods was being demonstrated at Northern Light's festival showcase in August and Jim Ewen, Arts Centre technician for project ability at Trongate 103, was one of NL's invited guests.

Ewen said: "Trongate 103's official launch was coming up on 8 September and I was looking for some architectural lighting to illuminate the exhibits. After consulting with the team from Northern Light and seeing the fixtures in action, I realised that the Selecon Wing 35W metal halide model would be absolutely perfect for our needs."

Northern Light provided a total of 142 Selecon Wing Wall Washers in architectural white for the client to install across a range of spaces within the six storey former Ed

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Germany / USA - GLP has set up a new office in North America to bring them closer to the highly-influential market across the Atlantic. Heading the operation will be experienced lighting professional, Mark Ravenhill.

The Los Angeles location has been strategically selected, placing GLP in the densely populated industrial district of Torrance, a traditional West Coast heartland for show production and event staging.

Elation Professional will remain GLP's distributor for the Impression range. But this development will enable the company to offer Elation much closer support, emphasises Ravenhill, who in addition to heading up the operation will retain his position as GLP's director of global key players.

Ravenhill says he is relishing the challenge. "It is a great opportunity to further exploit the enormous success of the expanding Impression range and at the same time reu

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UK - Students from all over the UK lit up some of the National Railway Museum's (NRM) most iconic locomotives in a bid to win a new lighting competition hosted by the Museum last week.

The competition was launched by the NRM to encourage students to consider the importance of lighting design in museums in the lead up to its re-development plans for the Great Hall.

Helen Ashby, acting director of the NRM, explains, "We're always looking to involve different groups of people in our various projects and we've really enjoyed watching the designs come together. It's been great to have the students bring so many new ideas to the table."

The winners of the competition were Jonathan Jewitt, Chris Farncombe, Craig Kilmartin and Oli Downton from Rose Bruford College in Kent. One of the judges, Belinda Morris, display content manager at the NRM said, "The scheme designed

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