World - Last year, 101 musicians from 33 countries uploaded videos to YouTube of themselves auditioning for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011. Chosen with the help of leading orchestras around the world and the YouTube community, the musicians have finally made it to the end of their journey to perform in an extraordinary concert conducted by Grammy-award winning YouTube Symphony Orchestra artistic advisor, Michael Tilson Thomas, and streamed live on YouTube directly from Sydney Opera House.

The culmination of the week-long festival was the Grand Finale concert which was streamed live on YouTube from Sydney Opera House. The Grand Finale was a multimedia extravaganza of music accompanied by extraordinary projections on the interior Concert Hall and the exterior sails of the Sydney Opera House.

Richard Neville of Mandylights was the lighting designer for the event and he opted

Poland - Clay Paky's award-winning spotlight, the Sharpy, has been given its first airing on Polish television following the broadcast of The Million Drop, a high stakes TV game show in which contestants can win or lose a million in cash.

Broadcast live, contestants begin with bundles of banknotes and have to correctly answer questions, or else see their winnings disappear through a trapdoor. The UK-created show, made by Big Brother makers Endemol, has since been exported to several other countries including the US, Australia, Germany, Russia and most recently, Poland.

Aired on Polish network TVP2, the show relies on strong lighting effects to create much of the mood and tension. Lighting director Adam Tyszka said he was challenged by the producers to come up with a distinctive new look for the show and was after something different.

"I was instinctively d

Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden has announced another OEM partner agreement with PR Lighting, making wireless DMX standard equipment in their new PR-5000 Spot and Wash and the PR-8802 Architectural LED Wash.

The PR-8802 has two heads and has the same characters as the popular PR-8800 with RGBW colour mixing + white + linear CTO, 0~100% linear adjustable dimmer, strobe, 15° beam angle, 32° field angle and IP 67 waterproof rating. It is designed for high power and great for outdoor use.

Mac Li, R&D manager for PR Lighting commented, "Working with W-DMX is the best choice for us as well as for our clients as it is like a standard for Wireless DMX."

Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless Solution said, "PR Lighting offers a diverse range of high quality lighting products to the market and we're proud to be chosen as their wireless DMX OEM partner. We are conf

USA - Luxeon A, introduced this week is the latest illumination grade LED from Philips Lumileds that reduces the engineering effort required for new solutions and delivers Freedom From Binning. Luxeon A shares the Luxeon Rebel ES platform and footprint and incorporates a 2sq.mm thin film flip chip and Lumiramic phosphor technology to deliver the highest quality of light at 2700K and 3000K with very high efficacy and light output, says the company.

All Luxeon A LEDs are hot-tested and specified at a junction temperature of 85°C that represents real-world operating conditions. Lumileds' unique chip and phosphor technology allows colour targeting that ensures all

Luxeon A emitters fall within a single three-step MacAdam ellipse on the black body curve. The quality, uniformity, and consistency of the light from LED to LED relieves luminaire manufacturers and lighting designers

Czech Republic - Robe's Robin 600 LEDWash is officially the 'fastest selling' product for the Czech Republic based moving light manufacturer since 1999.

Production started at the end of 2010 and the 2000th LEDWash 600 has just been delivered to French distributor Axente, with over 1500 on order. Special arrangements have been made at the factory in Valasske Mezirici to ramp up production and keep pace with the demand.

Around the world, so far Robe's Top 8 LEDWash 600 selling territories and distributors are Germany, France, Australia, UK, Russia, Switzerland, Italy and South Africa.

Sales were further boosted by a buoyant and positive Prolight+Sound 2011 exhibition in Frankfurt, proving to be Robe's "best ever" trade show in terms of actual confirmed orders taken during the four- day event.

Meantime, the 1000th Robe LEDWash 600 fixture reached its destination in

By Design Day - Although 23 April has passed, it's not too late to support By Design Day 2011, which raises money for Light Relief in the UK and Behind the Scenes in the US and Canada. Some of the industry's top designers pledged that day's royalties to the two charities while others are choosing to make a straightforward donation. By Design Day is being championed this year by an illustrious group of international designers from a number of design disciplines including Neil Austin, Ken Billington, Paule Constable, Jonathan Deans, Rick Fisher, Howard Harrison, Scott Lehrer, Tony Meola, Scott Pask, Ken Posner, Jennifer Tipton, and Hugh Vanstone.

Royalties have been pledged from shows on stages all over the world including Hamlet and Moonlight (Jon Clark); Warhorse, Clybourne Park, and Les Mis 25th Anniversary Tour (Constable); La Cage Aux Fo

UAE - Eighteen leading local technical and production contractors will supply equipment, crew, services and technical expertise free for a concert taking place in Dubai on 27 April 2011, at the Aviation Club in Garhoud, which will be in support of Peace One Day.

UB40's Ali Campbell and a full ten piece band will be topping the bill on 27 April, and this will be followed by two further evenings of action-packed shows including a host of local artists.

The main concert sponsors are Al Laith Event Services, Creative Technology, Delta Sound, EFM Event Logistics and Neumann & Mueller.

Staging, roofing, FOH, barriers and production village cabins will be provided by Al Laith Event Services; lighting and rigging by Neumann & Mueller; sound by Delta; LED screens, projection and cameras by CT, with logistical support from freighting experts, EFM Event Logistics.

A further 13 local

Italy - Lighting designer Massimo Tomasino has extended his relationship with SGM's popular Synthesis 700 and Giotto 400 moving head spots, featuring them extensively in the design for Patty Pravo's current Nella Terra dei Pinguini tour.

Having worked with the pop legend - whose own career spans four decades - since 2005, he has a clear fix on the type of set design that suits her best. "With her elegant pop/rock style I like to work with a lot of rear lighting," he says.

This time around, Tomasino designed both the lighting and the scenography, with a scalable set which would be equally dynamic in the smaller theatres as in the large arenas and amphitheatres. "I needed moving lights that would deliver a strong brightness and at the same time run very silent, especially when touring theatres.

"The set list contains many slow songs, with soft dynami

Germany - MA Lighting has published its new main catalogue which can be downloaded from the MA Lighting website.

MA has styled the catalogue into a complete new design. It contains a lot of background information about the MA system, offering a comprehensive overview of all its parts and showing solutions for setting it up.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Nearly 90 COLORdash Batten TRI LED wash lights have taken the stage on The Voice, a new star-studded show debuting on NBC this week.

Modelled after a successful television series in Holland, The Voice is a vocal competition hosted by Carson Daly and featuring Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton as celebrity judges and vocal coaches.

The Chauvet linear tri-colored LED lights were specified by lighting designer Oscar Dominguez, principal at Darkfire Lighting Design. They are strategically placed under the large centralized performance floor and at one end of a large expanse of stage floor where the judges sit. The Voice is created by John de Mol, who will executive produce along with Burnett and Audrey Morrissey.

"We are thrilled by this opportunity to showcase these great fixtures," Jamy Brock, director of sales

Denmark - Martin Professional has introduced two new economical DMX splitters for proper data transmission and protection of DMX controllers and devices. The DMX 5.3 splitter and RDM 5.5 splitter are useful in maintaining proper data over long runs or several runs of DMX signal with the RDM 5.5 Splitter also capable of handling RDM data, says the company.

The Martin Splitters help to rectify disruptions in the DMX signal caused by bad cables or bad connections by splitting the DMX or DMX/RDM data link into five separate branches while boosting the weak DMX signal to its original output level before it becomes too low to be read by DMX devices.

Through fully individual isolated input and five outputs, the Martin Splitters will protect any DMX controller and DMX fixture against voltage surge on the data line. Ground loops are common in complex lighting setups and such problems c

UK - The National Theatre's dramatic new stage adaptation of Frankenstein is directed by Danny Boyle and the talk of the show is the spectacular lightbulb ceiling which greets audiences on their arrival into the theatre and then creates stunning images suggesting the industrial age and the power of electricity during the show.

Triangular in form, the ceiling consists of a mirrored surface below which hang just over 3100 assorted lightbulbs. Conceived by Boyle, set designer Mark Tildesley and lighting designer Bruno Poet it was intended to "represent the forces of electricity harnessed by Frankenstein, and to provide a dazzling light for the moment the creature is born and opens his eyes for the first time," the lighting designer explains.

LED arrays of this type are now commonplace, but Poet was very keen to use tungsten "for its warmth, and because it be

UK - Cheltenham and Peterborough-based Event and Management Services Ltd has been appointed to oversee technical operations and production delivery for the Scarborough Open Air Theatre season 2011.

The newly redeveloped theatre, which can accommodate up to 8,000 in its largest format, was opened by The Queen in May 2010 and held its first season between June and August 2010 with capacity audiences to see shows such as a Gala Evening with Jose Carreras, Dame Kiri te Kanawa and '80s rewind.

For 2011, the arena seating has been extended from 6,500 to 8,000 using temporary decking to bridge the lake that sits in front of the stage and the season opens on 5th June with Sir Elton John in concert.

Pete Allison, MD of Event & Management Services said: "This is a great piece of work for us, we're well used to consulting on and managing the production and site issues around large

Italy - Among the long-running entertainment programmes that state owned Italian public service broadcaster RAI hosts, Domenica In (Sunday In) is by far the oldest: 35 years of non-stop editions since 1976, when the novelty of a six-hour continuous live entertainment show was introduced to Italian television.

Clay Paky was also founded in 1976 and has provided the vast majority of the lighting effects this year too. The rig includes about 120 intelligent lights consisting of Alpha Spot HPE 1200s, Alpha Spot HPE 700s, Alpha Spot HPE 300s and CP Color MHs, as well as numerous Clay Paky CP Spots as general accent lighting. All the lighting equipment is supplied by PR Electronics.

Director of photography Fausto Carboni comments, "The set lighting was designed to adapt to three different programmes: Domenica In, L'Arena' (the arena), and A casa di Paola

UK - Packed aisles and major new product launches firmly established PLASA Focus as an unmissable industry event for the north of England. Some 1956 visitors, representing a 9% increase in the total number of attendees in 2010, headed to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds last week to see 130 brands launch dozens of new products to the UK market. A total of 2457 attendees, including exhibitors, enjoyed Focus's trademark sunshine, free lunch and informal, friendly atmosphere.

Among a lengthy list of new products receiving their UK launch were the Chroma-Q Studio Force and Jands Vista V2, both launched by AC Entertainment Technologies; a new generation of moving heads from Robe; Avolites' Sapphire Touch and a preview of its Titan V5 software; the Wave 28 all-in-one modular PA from Adam Hall; Christie's new Nitro Solutions range of motorised moving yokes; the new Showtec luminaire

Germany - Lighting designer Gunther Hecker used 22 Robe LEDWash 600s as his key fixtures for the just finished Die Söhne Mannheims European tour, an opportunity seized by the band to preview material for their forthcoming new album to be released in the autumn.

Söhne Mannheims is a popular German music band with massive energy and dynamics, featuring up to 17 members (with 13 on this tour) encompassing several musical genres including rap, R 'n' B, soul, hip hop and rock all fused into a distinctive style, achieving considerable commercial and critical acclaim.

Hecker's lighting design studio is based in Werne. He started his lighting career in the theatre 20 years ago, and now works on a host of live events, TV shows and bands - also including LD'ing the Die Fantastischen Vier and Tokio Hotel. He has worked with Söhne Mannheims since 1999

Hecker had been wanting to try o

Australia - Alan Jackson is currently completing his first headline tour of Australia, with many of his arena shows selling out rapidly.

Lighting designer John Lucksinger used Chameleon Touring Systems for lighting supply including 16 Vari*Lite VLX LED wash lights hung in the air randomly over the stage.

Lucksinger admits that in the US he uses a different type of LED fixture, however when Chameleon offered him the Vari*Lite VLX's he was excited to try them.

"I found them to be very clean, and their colours are just beautiful plus they're very quick and have a really nice zoom. I'm not a real gear person and see lights as lights. I remember seeing a demo of the VLX and thinking 'oh great another wash fixture'. But they are honestly one of the best fixtures I've ever used, they are amazing. I'll certainly be specifying them in the future."

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Two grandMA2 light consoles and nine MA VPU (Video Processing Unit) plus are being used to deliver the video and graphics package for the current series of German Pop Idol, which is being recorded in Studios 30/31 at the Coloneum MMC Studios in Cologne, produced by Grundy Light Entertainment.

The popular talent show series is now in its eighth series and is the biggest studio based show in Germany, complete with a live broadcast every Saturday on RTL, also enjoyed by an audience of 1,300 in the studio.

The set and video concept is designed by Florian Wieder (Wieder Design) and based on a series of interrelated 3D spheres and screen surfaces. Video is a vital part of the look and dynamics of the show, with custom content for each competitor and their different songs designed by Falk Rosenthal from Gravity Hamburg. Together with the lighting, designed by Manuel

Algeria - PR Lighting's Algerian distributor, Neosun, has supplied production specialists, HANS Company, with quantities of XL Beam 300's to enable the production company to showcase a number of leading car brands at the recent Salon International de l'Automobile d'Alger (14th Algerian Motor Show).

Neosun has been working with PR Lighting since 2009, initially placing small orders before developing a much larger slice of the market with the Chinese manufacturer's components. One of their major customers has been HANS Company, confirms Neosun sales executive, Salim Derradji,

"XL Beam 300 is new type of moving head, with special features not found with competitors' brands - so our client was pleased to be able to provide a different solution," said Mr. Derradji.

At the Motor Show, the fixtures were mostly suspended from square or triangular truss sections. For SOVAC,

China - Wireless Solution Sweden will be showing off a new booth design while demonstrating the new W-DMX G4 line during PALM Expo 2011, 26-29 May at the China International Exhibition Centre in Beijing.

"PALM Expo is an incredibly successful show for us," says Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless Solution, "We've had great success with both end users and OEM partners in this region of the world. The G4 technology will be fast embraced."

"Unlike any cable, the new G4 is able to repair corrupted data and vouches for maximum security by running on dual band and creating a backup duplicate of the signal," explains product specialist Ben Darrington, "This new standard is transparent and works with several protocols, creating extreme flexibility and reliability without the need for additional controllers or software."

(Jim Evans)

Denmark - The Royal Danish Ballet's recent performance of A Folk Talewhich ended a four week run at the Copenhagen Opera House on 8 April, is a classic Bournonville ballet that included several new interpretations and visual elements. Part of that new look included lighting effects from Martin Professional MAC III Profile luminaires under the command of lighting designer and programmer Mikki Kunttu.

"It was one of the main ideas of the design to have the brightest source of light originating from the centre of the stage so we created a cluster of MAC III's in the centre of the space," Kunttu stated. "I wanted a very silent moving light with a lot of brightness, wide beam and good gobo projection and the MAC III delivered all these."

Kunttu made the decision to use the 1500 watt fixtures after studying scale models of the sets. "With the set's wh

USA - The Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Southern California grows larger every spring. This year, the three-day event boasted over 75,000 attendees each day, and featured headlining acts such as Arcade Fire, Kanye West, and Kings of Leon.

Integral to this major production was wireless lighting control, realised with LumenRadio's CRMX Nova systems. On 11 generator-powered lighting towers as far away as 2,100ft from the control center, LumenRadio controlled four DMX universes of High End intellaspots, PRG Bad Boys, and Color Kinetics ColorBlazes.

Provided by Felix Lighting of La Mirada, CA, the LumenRadio units overcame daunting challenges, not only linking several universes of DMX to locations well over a quarter mile apart, but doing so while peacefully coexisting in an environment saturated by other wireless traffic, including life safety, performance, production, and

Switzerland - From 26 November 2010 to 2 January 2011, Geneva illuminated its lakeside promenade thanks to the tenth edition of the Festival Arbres et Lumières.

One of the artists invited, Italian director and lighting designer Simona Braga proposed a mini eight-minute son et lumière with music and recitation. Le souffle du monde is a sequence of projections and lighting effects that develop the basic themes of the festival (nature and light). The projections have been achieved using high resolution photo gobos for the graphic designs created by the author, and Clay Paky metal gobos to produce some of the effects, such as the woods and fog which appear to come from the lake and disperse with the sunrise.

The lighting effects are projected onto four fan-shaped screens between 16 and 20m from the ground. The Alpha Profile 1200s have been hung on a tree in front of the s

USA - Martin US has already logged hundreds of miles on the first leg of its 2011 Engineered for the Eye road show and has thousands of miles and months to go.

The 2011 road show includes a newly revamped truck and trailer full of the latest Martin Professional dynamic lighting and visual effects products for the entertainment, commercial and architectural lighting markets.

Over the next several months, the Engineered for the Eye road show will cover an impressive 15,000 miles while hosting some 110 events in 33 cities. As a first, the schedule also includes stops in Canada.

(Jim Evans)

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