Lighting

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Germany - To celebrate 25 years of the Berlin Wall being torn down, a massive day of festivities took place on November 9th, culminating in a major ceremony in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate.

Some 8,000 helium balloons were released into the night sky over Germany's capital at the culmination of events while GLP's frontline X4 series impression LED automated heads also helped light up the night sky with a real tour de force for the central event - courtesy of the dynamic lightshow designed by Björn Hermann.

Björn Hermann had been commissioned by show director, Sven Sören Beyer of phase7, the Berlin artists company responsible for setting the programme. They in turn were brought in by mediapool Event Services GmbH, while global rental company, PRG supplied all the lighting for the main event.

Conceptually, the LD said he wanted to make the Brandenburg Gate itself the

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UK - Indie rockers Alt-J's new album This is All Yours rocketed straight to number one in the UK and number four on the US charts, and the band has embarked on an international tour in support of this second studio work, complete with a lighting and visual design by New York-based Jeremy Lechterman of Fragment Nine.

Jeremy - known for his fresh, innovative and lateral approach to lighting and several interesting up-and-coming and creative artists prominent on his CV - started using Robe products in his design work earlier this year for O.A.R.'s US summer tour.

For the first UK leg of Alt-J's This Is All Great tour, he specified 39 x Robe CycFX 8 moving LED battens and for the first - and current - US leg, the design is also utilizing 23 x Robe Pointes.

These numbers will be increased as the band performs in larger venues in the coming months.

At the essence of the d

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Germany - ARRI's most sophisticated LED fixture, the L7-C, has just received a brightness increase. Advancements in LED technology have allowed the L7-C to be updated with a new light engine - Light Engine 2 - making it more than 25% brighter than previous versions.

With this added punch, the L7-C is more versatile than ever, but still consumes only 160 watts and retains all the familiar great features such as tuneability from 2,800 - 10,000K, green/magenta correction, hue and saturation control, and much more.

The complete line of L7s includes the L7-TT and L7-DT, as well as the new L7-C, making the L7 series one of the most feature-rich LED Fresnel product lines on the market. The L7 excels at accurately rendering a wide range of colours and producing a quality of light similar to that of its tungsten counterpart. All of these outstanding attributes allow lighting profession

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Germany - When the infamous Berlin Wall finally 'fell' in 1989, it was not only an event of national importance it touched the entire world as a peaceful demonstration led to the end of an authoritarian regime.

The recent celebrations at the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) heralded the slogan 'Mut zur Freiheit' (Courage for freedom). One of the many highlights was the 'Lichtgrenze' (Border of lights), a project tracing 15 kilometres of the former Wall's course with 8,000 white helium filled balloons. To the sound of Beethoven's 9th symphony played by the Staatskapelle Berlin under the direction of Daniel Barenboim, these balloons were released one-by-one and flew up into the night sky over Berlin.

Lighting designer Björn Hermann used four grandMA2 full-size consoles as well as two MA VPU plus MK2 (Video Processing Unit) for this show at the Brandenburger Tor. Lighting fi

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USA - In its vision statement, Hope Lutheran church in Fargo proclaims its commitment to reaching out "in increasingly innovative ways" to members of its community in North Dakota's largest city. This promise is reflected in the church's enthusiastic participation in imaginative charities like Backpacks for Kids, through which it collected 10,748 weekend meals for school children; and in its Christmas YOU-Tensil Tree that invites worshippers to donate cooking tools for disadvantaged families by hanging ladles, spatulas and the like on an evergreen.

Not surprisingly, when Hope Lutheran was ready to upgrade its lighting system, they were interested in something vibrant, colourful, engaging, and forward looking in keeping with the church's commitment to innovative outreach. Excel AV Group of Maple Grove, MN provided these capabilities, using LED video panels and mo

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UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will exhibit at the inaugural PLASA Focus Glasgow event on 2-3 December. The event, held at Glasgow's SECC is the first PLASA Focus event to take place in Scotland.

On Stand A12, White Light will showcase the latest in LED, lighting control, and effects solutions for the entertainment and presentation markets. The company provides hire, sales, installation, and technical service to a variety of clients across the UK.

White Light sales director Peter Threadgold explains the value of the event, "The format of PLASA Focus events is very beneficial - visitors get to see new equipment and get their questions answered straight away. For us, it's a good environment to hear directly from customers and professionals in the region, so we can better deliver what they need."

White Light will bring a range of products to PLASA

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South Africa - A new dome has been erected on Krugersdorp hill, forming part of Tsogo Sun's Silverstar Casino, based in Muldersdrift. The attractive structure, designed and built by Otto Wijnberger of In2Structures, has been equipped with a basic lighting rig, stage and PA System making it a suitable self-sustained venue for smaller gigs hosted by Silverstar. At the same time, a similar structure, though not as large, was erected at Tsogo Sun's The Ridge in Emalahleni (Witbank), Mpumalanga.

In2Structures, a member of the Gearhouse Group of Companies, created the portable structures - there is a SupaDome, 71m x 35m x 17m high, at Silverstar and a Maxi Dome, 49m x 28m x 13m high, at The Ridge. Unlike other conventional aluminium framed assemblies such as marquees, they have the ability to withstand large imposed loads such as suspended equipment and high wind pressure and importan

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The Netherlands - Volt is a new night spot in Sittard, The Netherlands that opened in March after a refurbishment that transformed the previous venue into a top quality, professional live music venue. A key element of the refurbishment project was a professional lighting package made up of Elation Professional LED moving heads and LED PAR Cans.

The reason behind the rebuild, a total refurb that saw only the outer walls remain, was to rebrand and expand the venue in order to attract bigger name bands. Installation of the Elation gear was by BOS Event Support, a full-service event production company located in Sittard.

BOS Event owners Jamie Borger, Davy van Onna and Dennis Siemonsma handle projects collaboratively, choosing equipment and suppliers carefully based on the needs of each individual project. "Eventually for the Volt install we chose Elation because of its favou

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USA - At the heart of LD Darragh Guiney's lightshow for Killswitch Engage's appearance in the three-city Monster's Mosh tour was a trio of video walls created with PVP S7 LED video panels from Chauvet professional provided by JDI Productions. Providing a frighteningly heart-pounding background for the concert, the panels were used to create four video walls: a larger (4m by 2.5m) display positioned on upstage truss, and three smaller (1.5m by 1m) units in set carts that were arranged behind the drums, as well as on stage left and stage right.

The panels were used to display chilling scenes from scary horror flicks along with evocative images of the band. "Josh Mihlek, production manager for Killswitch Engage, buried himself in his office for weeks going through old stock footage of Hammer horror movies and other real old-style scary stuff," said Guiney. "We offset

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Australia - There's a fair chance you may not have heard of G.E.M. a Hong Kong based singer-songwriter, dancer, musician, and actress. Her stage name is an acronym for Get Everybody Moving and she is big in Asia.

G.E.M. is currently touring her G.E.M. X.X.X. Live World Tour, which stands for "more to eXpose, more to eXpect and more eXciting", and Mandylights, the Sydney collective of talented lighting designers, were charged with making it a tour to remember.

"I'd describe G.E.M. as the Lady Gaga of China and in the past year she has exploded in popularity," commented Richard Neville, director of Mandylights. "Her music is less mandarin-pop and more western-pop as her musical director is Austrian, in fact many of her team members are from outside of Asia."

Mandylights were required to design the lighting and visuals so that the live shows would

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will be showcasing the latest product highlights from their extensive brand portfolio at the inaugural PLASA Focus Glasgow tradeshow - stand D19, the SECC, 2-3 December.

Recently launched to great acclaim at the PLASA London international tradeshow, and selected as a Finalist in the PLASA Members Choice Awards, the new Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED Par will be showcased. Featuring an innovative fully homogenised beam which virtually eliminates the colour separation and shadows synonymous with LED lighting, the Color One 100 delivers above Par performance from ONE source.

Other Chroma-Q highlights include the award-winning Chroma-Q Inspire and Inspire Mini LED house lights range - powerful multi-purpose creative lighting tools that can transform the look and feel of performance spaces and commercial, retail or leisure environments.

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USA - "Clay Paky's success this year at the LDI show was resounding from every point of view". Pio Nahum, Clay Paky CEO, did not mince his words to describe their accomplishments at the lighting show in Las Vegas.

After the PLASA Award for Innovation at PLASA in London, the Clay Paky Mythos has received an Honourable Mention at the LDI Award for Best Debuting Product of the Year "for providing a high-quality, feature-rich fixture with great optics".

Nahum stresses that "the secret of the Mythos lies in its ability to do what the most powerful effect lights do in half the space and with half the power". But the Mythos is even more than this: it is today the only light capable of perfectly combining a spot and beam light thanks to a special optical unit created and patented by Clay Paky.

The SuperSharpy and the Stormy also met with great success:

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UK - The back catalogue of composer Hans Zimmer reads a little like a review of some the best films of the last 20 years. Academy Award winner for The Lion King in 1994; Grammy Awards for The Crimson Tide and The Dark Knight through to the WAFCA Award for 12 Years a Slave in 2013, the list is quite remarkable. So the opportunity to see the man in action with a live orchestra at a venue like the Hammersmith Apollo is one not to be missed.

Lighting such a special event fell into the safe hands of designer Marc Brickman and it was PRG who were contracted to supply the rig. Part of the spec included units for a strobe effect light; PRG opted to supply the brand new Clay Paky Stormys to fulfil the request as PRG's Rich Rowley explains, "We purchased the units from Ambersphere Solutions and the Hans Zimmer show was their first outing. PRG is always sen

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Germany - Every summer since 2007, Wolfsburg, Germany's Autostadt has put on a series of laser and light shows featuring effects staged on the areas of water in the sprawling park's grounds. Following up on the huge success of last year's show, which ran under the Made in Germany banner, this year the United Kingdom was up for treatment. The series of weekly changing shows, entitled Rocking UK which were the world's largest water shows of their kind, ran from 8 August through 7 September and took attendees on an audiovisual tour of Great Britain.

The series' choreography portrayed the history, culture, and lifestyles of the British Isles. The first week's show, which opened on 8 August, focused on the UK's Stars & Legends. Magic & Mystery was the topic 17 August through 23, while Culture & Tradition occupied the foreground 24 August through 30.

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Germany - Events become more and more spectacular, and thus the demand for durable laser systems increases. HB-Laser has launched a new IP68 waterproof laser line. These new LightCube 851 show laser light projectors are submergeable up to 3m depth. They are fully graphics capable and equipped with the latest diode laser technology with a pure diode setup. The Apollo ScannerMax scanners (with Pangolin ScannerMax scanners and Apollo driver) run at ca. 45kpps (kilo packets per second) @ 8° and make the LightCube 851 suitable for professional laser show applications.

Multi-media shows with water fountains and water effects as well as normal outdoor laser show installations require water proof equipment - the HB-Laser LightCube 851 is the right choice for these applications. It is available in two different power levels: 3.2W RGB (LC-851 RGB 3) and 5.5W RGB (LC-851 RGB 5.5).

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UK - Bristol-based lighting rental company Fineline collaborated closely with creative design agency Immersive to launch Christmas early at the Tesco's Metro store in Wigan, which saw a quirky and spectacular visual extravaganza played out in its car park, culminating in the reveal . . . of the Tesco's Christmas green hat crowning the 'O' in the signage.

The Fineline team, project managed by Rob Sangwell and co-ordinated onsite by crew chief Ruben Pinkney, used over 1.4km of rope lighting to wire up 80 Tesco shopping trolleys, lamp-posts, bollards and other street furniture plus around 60 individual LED festive decorations - Christmas trees, puddings, Santas etc - so these could be integrated into the show.

The backdrop was a striking 80m wide by 7m high LED video screen for which Immersive produced custom content and animations, which together with the lighting effects, was a

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USA - For Fleetwood Mac's current On With the Show tour a grandMA2 full-size console has been specified by lighting designer/production designer Paul 'Arlo' Guthrie.

The band launched the 40-city North American tour 30 September and, after playing to packed houses, added at least 28 more dates in a second leg, which will begin in January 2015. On With the Show marks the first full-member tour for Fleetwood Mac since 1997.

"Designing for Fleetwood Mac is always a challenge since you're dealing with five different personalities," said Guthrie. He began by giving them "the biggest, cleanest, most open stage set up I could, so every single seat in the house gets a clear view of the stage. I made sure to remove clutter so everyone can see the band members."

Guthrie opted for a grandMA2 full-size console to run all the lights, media servers - even

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Slovenia - Popular Slovenian singer Magnifico gave a special performance at the Krizanke venue in Ljubljana, featuring an innovative collaboration with the Serbian Army Orchestra which was completely sold out.

The show was part of the annual Druga Godba Festival which features numerous local and international artists and is known for spawning some unique and interesting onstage partnerships - like this one.

The Robe moving lights used were 20 Pointes, 12 LEDWash 600s and eight ColorWash 575 XTs, supplied by rental company Festival Novo Mesto who are the regular contractors for the 4000 capacity venue and have supplied lighting to the festival for at least 10 years.

For Magnifico's lighting designer Crt Birsa, it was his first show for the artist as well as the start of a tour with him which also visited Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia plus other cities in Slovenia. Krizanke has a

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Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden has introduced the latest product to its award-winning W-DMX line, the UglyBox MK2. This is a compact new wireless signal tester, which is a valuable tool for users of wireless products, providing proof of a solid signal and peace of mind in the absence of visible cable.

The UglyBox MK2 is housed in an attractive compact body, resembling a gaming control with a 4.3" Touch LCD Screen. It supports 2.4GHz, 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz and is a transceiver solution, which means that it can be used as both transmitter and receiver. It has a complete DMX tester that provides all data in live format directly on the screen.

It also has a built-in DMX Controller as well as an RGB Fixture to simulate LED fixtures on the LCD Screen for quick testing. In history mode you can also see over time that you have a stable signal over a certain period.

The unit runs

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Europe - LD Mark Wynn-Edwards is blazing a trail across Europe with UK electronic duo Lamb and a lighting rider comprising 11 Robe Pointes. Robe's live reporting team caught up with him at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels - where he also had the luxury of using the house's MMX Spots.

The Pointes were lined up along the back of the stage alternated on two levels - five on the bottom and six on cases forming the upper row - and created all the drama and atmospheric compliment needed for the band's 80-minute set. Their sound fused elements of triphop, d'n'b and jazz into compelling harmonic compositions with haunting vocals.

Mark explains that inspiration for the style of lighting he's evolving for this tour came from the stark monochromicity and 'reality' of black and white cinema, and much of the set is lit in white. With the Pointes, there are so many variations in how you ca

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Europe - This summer saw industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails (NIN) on their first European tour in six years, with an array of Clay Paky Sharpy and Sharpy Wash 330 fixtures delivering striking brightness and moody colours to help bring the band back with a bang.

Lighting designer Paul Guthrie specified the Clay Paky fixtures, supplied by Ampco Flashlight, to hold their own against the elaborate production, and provide maximum impact.

"With Nine Inch Nails, we wanted to give the audience an incredible show, that went from dark, moody and soupy to face-welding annihilation," explains Guthrie. "We see it as: if they're not convulsing afterwards, we're not trying hard enough. The Clay Paky fixtures allowed us to achieve this with their rapid movement and intense brightness."

"The Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures were specified by LeRoy Bennett for the original d

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UK - Impact Production Services (IPS) has joined the growing list of top-flight hire companies who have added SGM's powerful P-5 wash light to their inventory. Owner James Mason, who set up the Milton Keynes-based company 16 years ago, took the decision after sub-hiring in some of the high output heads for a project, which also gave him the chance to evaluate them. As a result, he placed the order for 24 P-5 RGBW fixtures with SGM UK.

"We had been looking at various IP-rated outdoor washes and P-5 had come up a few times on specs," he explained. "For us it's the next generation; it's compact, neat and you can use it indoors, whereas other IP-rated washes are often big and bulky."

In order to get the maximum impact from the fixtures he purchased 21° and 43° lens options.

Mason said the decision to back the Danish brand followed the recognition that

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Canada - Nestled in the heart of the city of Camrose, in Alberta, Canada, is the Jeanne & Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre (PAC), a 4,100sq.m multi-venue building. Equipped with nearly 100 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr luminaires - the largest number installed anywhere in the world - the venue earned a prestigious level four Green Globe distinction for its energy efficient building design and commitment to green technology before its doors even opened in October 2014.

Camrose is home to a blossoming arts community, and the city desperately needed a new, large-scale performance venue. "There weren't any venues within a 45 minute drive of the city that could accommodate touring Broadway shows and large scale dance or theatrical productions," explains Nick Beach, technical director and operations coordinator of the Jeanne & Peter Lougheed PAC. The primary goal f

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USA - LDI 2014 in Las Vegas lived up to pre-show expectations for LDI premier partner Elation Professional with an extremely busy booth, a Best Large Booth accolade and more industry recognition for the award-winning Sniper.

"We expected a busy show based on our pre-show appointments and it certainly didn't disappoint," said Elation sales director Eric Loader, who split his time between a busy Elation booth and a just-as-busy demo room. "Our booth was crowded from start to finish and based on the quality leads generated it gave us a lot of opportunities to continue our growth."

Like at the PLASA show one month earlier, the Sniper was recognised as an innovative product at the show, this time receiving an honourable mention as Best Debuting Product presented at an awards ceremony on Saturday, 22 November on the LDI show floor. The company also won the Best L

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