UK - Chauvet Professional entered the holiday season with a full head of steam, anchoring shows for headliners at major arenas throughout the country. Now with the turning of the calendar page, the UK team is embarking on another tour, not in support of a musical artists, but to give lighting professionals a first-hand look at some of the company’s new IP65-rated products.
Beginning on Tuesday, 24 January at The Place in London, the Chauvet Professional road show will be stopping at eight different cities throughout the UK to spread the news about products like the Ovation Rêve E-3 IP outdoor ready full spectrum white and multi-colour-mixing ellipsoidal, and the new arena-grade line of Maverick Storm fixtures.
The road shows will also feature a first-time UK look at the new fixtures in the Rogue Outcast series of high-powered moving heads including The Rogue Outcast

UK – A new company, Electric Airshows, has been launched to provide drone light shows to the UK’s outdoor events market.
Two well-known faces in the event production industry, Chris Crockford and Ian Lomas, have combined their considerable expertise and event experience to offer this new, professional service.
After months spent in research, pilot training and regulatory approvals, the pair are now operating an initial fleet of drones purchased from Chinese manufacturer and drone show specialist, DAMODA Intelligent Control Technology.
The quad-copter drones, using accurate GPS RTK (Real Time Kinematics) positioning technology have already flown several successful displays, including a series of events for Alton Towers. The drones, which each carry a removable, all-in-one 10W RGBW LED and rechargeable battery pack, and can fly and maintain position in winds o

USA - Project manager Jonathan Blake and the crew at The Lighting & Sound Company spent 16 days setting up the popular Garden Glow walk-through event at Maymont Estate Park in Richmond, Virginia.
“A key goal for us was to highlight all aspects of the ground’s horticulture in a way that accentuated its natural beauty,” said Blake. “In support of this goal, almost all of our LED fixtures were positioned to enhance the appearance of every scenic element. The entire event covered a lot of ground, so there were numerous opportunities to highlight interesting sights. I’m grateful to our client, Maymont Estate for given us the opportunity to work at such an impressive site. Also, thanks to our lighting designer and programmer Ryan Williams, lighting control network engineer Logan Adams and installation team lead Brennan Adams for making this happen.”
H

The Netherlands - Andre Beekmans and a team from his Eindhoven, design studio, The Art of Light, created the lighting scheme for the 2022 Amsterdam Music Festival (AMF) a one-day electronic music extravaganza produced by ALDA and staged at the Johan Cruijff Arena as part of the 2022 Amsterdam Music Event (AME).
Andre chose over 400 Robe moving lights to be a major part of the lighting rig, including 166 x LEDBeam 100s, 192 x Pointes and 76 x MegaPointes, which helped make a significant impact for this first post-pandemic AMF.
Andre has lit the event for the 10 years since it started, and with this year being the first since 2019 everyone’s expectations were even higher than usual, and he worked closely with event technical production manager Maarten Hoogland from ALDA in creating the set and staging elements as well as delivering the lighting design.
A line-up

UK - Scottish singer-songwriter, Gerry Cinnamon, concluded his 10-date summer tour of the UK and Ireland with two sell out dates at his hometown stadium, the 50,000-capacity Hampden Park National Stadium in Glasgow, in mid-July and simultaneously made history as the first independent act - and the first Scot - to sell out multiple nights at the venue.
Production and lighting designer Pete Hutchison of Illumination Creative Design chose Ayrton Khamsin S, Bora S and the new laser-sourced Cobra to provide the big looks the show needed.
Forty-eight Khamsin S were rigged across four pairs of side trusses and on overhead finger trusses from where they were used as the main workhorses for stage lighting and for lighting out towards the audience.
“The main reason I chose Khamsin was for the power of their LED source which matches up perfectly with old discharge lamps

UK - Following a rigorous assessment, technical solutions specialist White Light (WL) is now a certified B Corporation (B Corp), joining a socially and environmentally conscious movement of 1000 UK-based and over 6000 companies worldwide. This news comes just a few months after WL gained ISO14001 accreditation - the international standard for environmental management systems (EMS).
B Corp was conceived in 2006 by B Lab - the non-profit network transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities and the planet. As such, the certification process comprehensively evaluates a business’s sustainability practices. Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. WL’s commitment to operating its business as a force for good was rewarded with an Ov

Europe - Elation Professional has announced that AV equipment supplier XLR has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Elation Professional lighting products in Belgium and Luxembourg. The distribution partnership went into effect on 1 January 2023.
Located in Brussels, XLR delivers innovative pro-AV equipment to theatres, recording studios, broadcasters, system integrators, rental companies & commercial and residential buildings across the region. Company owners Louis Lukusa and Jan De Brucker have been in the business for more than 30 years and have operated XLR for the past 10 years, providing full-service solutions from consultation to installation and after-service support.
Elation’s broad line of lighting products will have application across all of XLR’s markets and will complement well the company’s portfolio of top brand audio products.

UK - Cambridge-based CEG specialises in the trade rental of lighting, power, rigging, and effects equipment used for a wide range of entertainment shows and live events embracing multiple sectors.
Founded by Ben Bowles and Gavin Thorrold in 2008, the company has weathered the challenges of the pandemic with some smart thinking and fiscal agility and continues to be constantly busy.
CEG has been investing steadily in Robe moving lights and LED products since 2012 – when LEDBeam 100s first joined the inventory which has seen a steady flow of purchases since 2015, with the addition of Pointes, Cyc FX8s, LEDWash 600s, and BMFLs to stock.
The most recent Robe purchases have been Spiiders, Esprites, LEDBeam 150s and RoboSpot systems. The 13 x RoboSpot systems mean CEG holds one of the largest rental-only stocks in the UK, and these make up over 500 Robe luminaires

UK - The 2022 World Gymnastics Championships were held at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena over nine days in October and November, with 500 gymnasts from 75 countries competing at the 7,500-capacity venue.
The lighting supplier for the tournament was Adlib, who specified Martin’s latest MAC Ultra, amongst other fixtures. In total, 146 x MAC Ultra Performance and 24 Wash fixtures were deployed.
Elliot Tutt, Adlib’s account manager, said, “The client originally proposed the event to feature MAC Viper fixtures, so a large part of our proposal was the switch to the efficiency of LED and the performance of the MAC Ultra.”
Lighting designer for the event, Dominic Main, commented, “The MAC Ultra range is simply incredible. The light output is beyond anything I have used before in this size of moving head. The MAC Ultras allowed me to deliver a field-of-play lu

USA - Los Angeles-based DCLighting has been successfully lighting The Kelly Clarkson Show since its debut in 2019 and was recognised for Outstanding Lighting Direction with a Daytime Emmy Award in 2020 and in 2022. DCLighting founder and lighting designer Darren Langer is understandably proud of his team, who have lit over 600 musical performances on the show to date.
For the show’s fourth season, which first aired on12 September, 2022, Darren and his team are keeping the lighting looks fresh using a rig of Elation DARTZ 360 narrow-beam LED moving heads, SixBar 1000 linear LED bars and Cuepix 16 IP LED matrix panels.
Produced by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and taped at Universal City in Los Angeles, The Kelly Clarkson Show is an American daytime television variety talk show hosted by American singer Kelly Clarkson. More than a simple sit-down tal

UK - Prolight Concepts Group is now stocking LEDJ Libretto 50W Mini Profiles. Designed for gallery, museum and theatre applications the feature-rich Librettos operate with a manually adjustable zoom range of 14-31 degrees and project precise, focused hard-edge beams. They come in two versions, one is a 50W warm white COB LED (3200K), the second is a Bi-CCT version with 50W cool white (5800K) and warm white (2800K) COB LED (CW/WW).
Both are controllable via DMX, have a manual dimming mode and 4 dimming curves. They also have beam shaping shutters, zoom and focus adjust, and have a filter frame and gobo slot (five metal gobos supplied) included.

Sweden - Events supplier FC Production has invested in a mixture of new Prolights fixtures, including 36x Jet Wash7, 16x Astra Hybrid420, 24x Smart BatPlusG2 and eight EclFresnel fixtures.
The new kit will go straight into FC's rental fleet and is already booked out. “We decided to go with Prolights because of their vibrant and beautiful colour rendering, with high CRI values across all fixtures,” said Christoffer Carpvik, founder of FC Production. “Prolights has a sturdy and well-thought hardware design and the user interface between fixtures is very similar, making it an efficient workflow.”
When asked about the feature that impressed the most, Christoffer commented: “For me, it's the great design and the building quality. It's a well-made product made by professionals for professionals.”
Even though it's not the first time FC Production has used eq

Europe - Michel Arntz has joined Robe’s international sales team as key account manager for Europe.
He will be co-ordinating Robe’s activities in 18 countries across Europe including Ukraine, and his area will also include all of Scandinavia, Poland, the Baltic states, Austria, Switzerland and most of the Balkan countries. Netherlands-based Michel is already a well-known and respected industry figure in Europe.
In addition to sales, the scope of his work will cover product communication and marketing, plus relationship building with the distributors and end users.
Michel commented that he is “super excited” to be joining Robe’s international sales manager Ingo Dombrowski and his team of regional sales managers, noting that their “drive, passion and enthusiasm for their work and the industry that we all love so much” was a major reason for him accep

UK - “It’s been a while, but we’re going on tour in November and can’t wait to see you again.” So read the official statement announcing the recently completed UK tour by the Kaiser Chiefs.
The multi Brit-Award winning band played 13 sold-out venues, with a dynamic lightshow run on a ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M console that featured ample amounts of engaging audience lighting.
“This is a band that thrives on interacting with the audience,” said Jason Hyne who co-designed the show with Mike Darling. “Ricky Wilson, the band’s charismatic leader feeds off the crowd’s response to his actions. Our goal was to create one space for the band and crowd to share this connection.”
Facing a tight time schedule and a limited budget, Darling and Hyne worked concepts from previous tours into their new design. After only one-day of production rehearsals, the tou

Europe - Elation Professional has announced that AV equipment supplier Rolight has been named the new exclusive distributor of Elation lighting products in the Netherlands. The agreement, which went into effect on 1 January, also encompasses Elation’s atmospheric effects brand Magmatic.
Established for over 40 years and based in Enschede, Rolight specialises in supplying the Dutch market with lighting, video and audio equipment. Rolight provides professional equipment to a wide range of different market segments, including theatres, rental, touring and AV installation companies.
“The new partnership with Elation will help us strengthen both our lighting and effect product ranges, offering our clients a greater variety of options and strengthening our position as one of the leading providers of professional lighting equipment on the market,” stated Robin Eijlders

USA - The 90-minute Christmas at Hillcrest concert, which took place at the church’s Nine Mile Campus in Pensacola, FL, featured purples and blues, along with a host of other inspiring hues transforming the stage.
“As we listened to the songs that were to be featured in the production, we asked ourselves does this feel like a certain colour?” said the church’s production director Gavin Crane. “Different colours also have different biblical significance, so we tried to keep this in mind as well. For example, blues convey the calmness that comes with the hope and peace of Christmas. They also represent the clear moonlit night of the first Christmas.
“Throughout each song we varied our palette to reflect the different thoughts and feelings. So, we might start a song with the deep blue or purple, then as it built, we changed the colours to fit that moment. One

The Netherlands - In October, MHB of the Netherlands provided sport lighting for Indoor Friesland, one of Europe’s top equestrian competitions. MHB delivered, using their recently expanded inventory of Elation KL Panel LED softlights.
Indoor Friesland returned after a 15-year absence as top national and international riders competed in dressage and horse jumping at the WTC Expo in Leeuwarden.
MHB collaborated with the event for the first time as technical AV partner, providing sport and show lighting as well as LED screens and other technical essentials.
MHB has plenty of experience designing and suppling AV solutions for sporting events, having worked with clients such as Triple Double sports marketing and EMG media group. The company added to their inventory of KL Panels in September with 100 additional units and immediately deployed the full-spectrum LED s

UK – Kevin Foakes’ Wheels of Light: Designs for British Light Shows 1970-1990, shines a powerful light on a remarkable period of entertainment history.
The book exists because of (and treats as its central hub) Optikinetics - the UK manufacturer formed by Neil Rice and Phil Brunker in 1970 and, under the ownership of Rob Stitcher, still going strong to this day. ‘Opti’ (as it has always been known) was not the first – or by any means the only – creator and purveyor of the projection effects which characterized the era. But they were a central player: they designed and built the famed Solar 250 projector, and they are one of the few companies influencing that powerfully creative time to have survived through to the present day.
The author’s research – triggered by a modern-day DJ’s encounter with a Solar 250 projector (yes, they still make them)


Lights Dimmed - Many West End theatres dimmed their lights on the evening of 21 December, in support of Ukraine and the winter blackouts the country will face due to the ongoing war with Russia. 21 December is the darkest day of the year, with the shortest day and longest night of the year, and West End theatres, along with other London businesses and the Mayor of London, participated in the worldwide supportive act.
West End theatres have a tradition of dimming theatre lights before or during an evening performance to pay tribute to notable figures who have died, mark a moment of tragedy or show support for a cause. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged organisations and individuals to band together for An Hour For Ukraine by switching off festive and non-essential lights to help raise public awareness of the continued war impact on Ukraine and to help with f

USA/Europe - Following a positive reception from designers and specifiers at the LDI show in Las Vegas, Elation has announced that the KL Profile FC is now shipping. The unit is designed for any application where a compact ellipsoidal or wash fixture with outstanding colour range and a flexible zoom range is required.
The KL Profile FC offers full-spectrum performance from a 92 CRI engine that utilises a 305W 5-color homogenized LED array of red, green, blue, mint, and amber sources. The RGBMA engine, calibrated at a native colour temperature of 6500 Kelvin, emits diffused saturates and soft-field pastels, including tuneable white light. The carefully tuned LEDs ensure accurate colour reproduction while delivering a powerful output of 10,600 lumens.
High colour quality and colour manipulation are central to the KL Profile FC, ensuring that designs translate well to c

USA - Monster metal band Lorna Shore’s 18 December To The Hell Fire Christmas Show at the Wellmont Theatre, Montclair, NJ, featured songs from group’s albums, including the hit And I Return To Nothingness.
Powering his way through the explosive set on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ70, lighting designer Nate Haber kept pace with his client’s music, serving up a variety of potent looks, all while preserving an instantly recognisable Christmas flavour complete with brightly lit 12ft high holiday evergreens on either side of the stage.
Helping him accomplish this feat was a Squeek Lights supplied rig that featured Maverick Force S Spot, Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWash, and Nexus 4x1 fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
“Lorna Shore wanted to set the mood of a Christmas show, but with death metal music,” said Haber. ‘Given that directive, I wanted to accentua

USA – The new Chaparral High School in the central Texas city of Killeen opened its doors in August 2022 with a modern performing arts wing designed to elevate student learning. It is equipped with an array of luminaires from Vari-Lite, including a Neo and Vision.Net control system, VL800, Acclaim LED and Coda LED fixtures, and Aurora LED Strips.
The arts centre within the $147m school boasts a 1,200-seater auditorium, band, choir, and orchestra rooms, a black box theatre, set design workshops and teaching spaces, built by American Constructors and designed by James Fauver at PBK Architects.
“Our mission was to provide an integrated, fully networked, professional standard stage lighting system that would be intuitive to learn, access and use for both students and staff,” says Erich Friend, principal consultant at theatre consultancy, Teqniqal Systems. “Our desi

USA - The results are in for the 2023 ESTA Board of Directors election. Incumbent Todd Spencer of Ventana Capital Investments will return as president, and incumbent Joe Aldridge will return as individual director. Hannah R. D’Amico of IATSE has been elected as the new organisational director. She will succeed Alan M. Rowe, who reached his term limit.
D’Amico first became involved with ESTA through her work with the IATSE Education and Training Department. Early in her career, she was assigned to work with members of the IATSE Craft Advancement Programme (ICAP) to develop new craft skills and safety trainings for IATSE workers. During her time with the ICAP, she was mentored by ESTA past-president Eddie Raymond; individual director, Joe Aldridge; outgoing organisational director, Alan Rowe; and ETCP Council member Kent Jorgensen, among many others. Last year she joined

USA - Jennifer Lucas has a first-hand appreciation of the power of Christmas traditions as the director, programmer, and lighting design of the Taylor Family Christmas tour.
The annual series of concerts was started in 1994 by B.E. Taylor a founding member of the popular ‘80s progressive rock band Crack The Sky, as the B.E. Taylor Christmas Show. Taylor, who became a Christian music star in the 90s, brought a warm and engaging style to Christmas classics, ensuring that the show became a beloved holiday tradition for fans throughout Pennsylvania and the eastern Great Lakes.
At the time Lucas joined the tour in 2005, it included 14 dates in four states. As the tour continued to grow in popularity, Taylor sadly was stricken with brain cancer. After he passed away in 2016, the Christmas show stopped touring. His family tried to revive the tour, but then COV

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