Lighting

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24 July 2025

Belgium - A new identity has been unveiled for Antwerp’s Central Station with an illumination scheme, controlled by a system from Pharos Architectural Controls.

Antwerp Central Station, inaugurated in 1905, is an architectural highlight of the Belgian city. Known as the ‘Railway Cathedral’, it is considered to be one of the most beautiful train stations in the world. Influenced by the Belgian art nouveau movement, the station features a 75m high dome sitting atop the main hall, with a 44m high arched glass roof covering the tracks.

The lighting is part of a wider public lighting scheme, commissioned by Antwerp City Council to make the Belgian city’s nightscape safe and welcoming. Susanna Antico Lighting Design Studio was appointed to create the lighting design scheme for the Central Station. The illuminations needed to be contemporary and fut

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24 July 2025

Egypt - ETC lighting and control are powering the latest upgrade at the Asharq News Studio, located on the banks of the River Nile in Egypt. Asharq News delivers a wide range of programming - from business news to political talk shows - and continues to invest in technology that enhances its viewer experience.

ETC’s long-time partner and dealer, Oasis Enterprises, specified the lighting and control systems for the Cairo studio, following the successful instalment of ETC lighting in Asharq Studio’s Dubai facility. Building on that proven performance, ETC’s reliable and advanced technology was the clear choice to ensure seamless integration and high performance at each individual studio.

Despite the challenges presented by the studio’s limited space and the presence of a large background window, the team successfully achieved a visually strikin

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24 July 2025

UK - The Darkness’ rock roots were at the core of LD and programmer David Garcia’s design for their recent tour.

“The Darkness has always had that classic rock and roll feel to their music,” said Garcia (of Bigtime Lighting Design), who worked with a set created by production designer and video director, Eric Cathcart, also of Bigtime Lighting Design and crew chief Tom Rawlinson. “Our mission was to present that feeling with our lighting.”

Working with a lighting rig supplied by Zigzag Lighting, the design team did this in many ways, one of which was through the inspired use of light angles. “We chose to put ladder trusses of fixtures off stage to present the LED screens we had, which displayed The Darkness logo and IMAG images,” said Garcia. “We arranged these fixtures in straight lines to create the classic PAR can look like part

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24 July 2025

UK - Sterling Event Group has announced the appointment of two experienced industry professionals to spearhead its expansion into the South of England alongside its broader national growth strategy.

James Hunter joins as director, bringing more than two decades of experience in delivering world-class event projects across the UK and internationally.

Jack Sayer also joins the company as project director, bringing a wealth of hands-on production expertise through his successful career in creative event delivery. Jack will focus on technically ambitious event experiences that reflect Sterling’s trademark precision and innovation.

“We’re very proud to welcome James and Jack to the team at such an exciting period for the business,” said Richard Bowden, managing director, Sterling Event Group. “Expanding into the South isn’t just about

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23 July 2025

UK - Production lighting for the vibrant and diverse Park Stage at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival was once again supplied by Bristol, UK-based SWG Events. A design by Mat Spencer – also chief LX for the project – which included nearly 70 Robe moving lights, helped deliver the lighting for a lineup including Anohni and the Johnsons, Haim, Caribou, Beth Gibbons, The Maccabees and Gary Numan.

SWG has been the technical production partner for The Park Stage since it was launched in 2007, offering a full package – lighting, audio, video, and rigging. At Glasto 2025, it was one of the largest and most prominent of eight stages in which the company were involved, deploying approximately 60 crew site-wide, explained SWG project manager Joe Bailey.

SWG also has a lot of Robe products in its rental inventory, so it was a natural choice for The Park, where

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23 July 2025

UK - When Siyan MD Mark Baruch and his colleagues first saw GLP’s new JDC Burst 1 at last autumn’s LDI expo in Las Vegas, they knew this evolutionary strobe hybrid would make a significant impact on the lighting rental company’s inventory. Furthermore, they wanted to be at the front of the queue for delivery.

GLP fulfilled that wish, with Kerry Tymms in the UK office going the extra mile to get the first 100 heads landed, racked and into the Royal Albert Hall for a performance by Adriatique. In so doing, this high-profile show became the first deployment of the Bursts anywhere in the UK.

“Since that event they’ve hardly been in the warehouse,” Baruch admits. Recently, Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Liverpool saw 40-plus units (many edging the front of the stage) as part of the house rig on the New Music Stage, which saw a surprise ap

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23 July 2025

Europe/USA - ETC has announced a new addition to the Eos Apex family with the launch of the Eos Apex FP. Featuring the same programming surface and software as an Apex 5, minus the built-in display, the Apex FP is designed for those seeking a console that is just as powerful as it is adaptable.

The Eos Apex FP allows users to incorporate their display, using the two 16mm (5/8 in) baby pin ports to mount accessories such as monitors, tablets, laptops, and cameras. Alongside the flexible design is an array of features including customisable OLED Target keys for direct selects, reconfigurable inputs and outputs, six encoders, and one bank of RGB-backlit target keys.

Apex consoles are built with flexibility in mind, allowing you to mix and match your DMX and show control ports on a per-show basis using customisable widgets. In addition to standard etherC

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23 July 2025

Europe/USA - Elation has launched ‘a new era of high-impact beam lights’ with the Proteus Radius, a compact, high-intensity IP66 Beam FX fixture powered by a LILI (Laser Illuminated Lighting Instrument) light engine.

LILI is new technology that offers benefits such as a tighter, sharper and brighter beam, improved energy efficiency, better light quality, and increased adaptability. The Proteus Radius’s laser-based LILI light engine produces a remarkably bright, concentrated beam of light that can span impressively long distances. The ultra-narrow beam cuts through as a solid column of dense light, adding attention-grabbing impact. Highly efficient with little heat produced, the LILI engine boasts a long life of 10,000 hours without significant degradation in brightness or quality, keeping replacement and maintenance costs low.

Eric Loader, Elat

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23 July 2025

UK - Live Technology has announced two significant appointments as the business bolsters its team to support customers across the live events sector, following its launch last month.

Tim Haskell joins the dedicated live events distributor as product specialist – professional lighting, bringing more than 15 years of industry expertise with a focus on the film, TV, and broadcast sectors. Tim will be supporting Live Technology’s professional lighting team, helping to expand its presence in these markets following the addition of Sumolight and Elation to its portfolio, alongside Martin Professional, Robert Juliat, Macula, and StageSmarts.

Tim joins from Rotolight, where he played a key role in developing both sales and customer relationships in the UK and several major international markets.

Stuart Down has been appointed head of audio and wi

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22 July 2025

UK - White Light (WL) supported the latest immersive production from The Lost Estate - Paradise Under the Stars. Set in a reimagined 1950s Havana, this Cuban cabaret experience has transformed a “secretive” venue in London’s Earl’s Court into the Tropicana Club since March 2025.

Lighting designer Peter Small, a long-standing creative partner of The Lost Estate, was once again tasked with shaping the visual world of the production. To realise his ambitious lighting concept, he partnered with WL to supply a comprehensive lighting package, including a substantial amount of period-authentic fixtures.

With a setting steeped in rhythm, romance, and rich folklore, Small’s approach was rooted in capturing the explosive energy of 1950s Havana through light. “The vision was to create a transportive, immersive atmosphere - one that celebrat

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21 July 2025

Canada - “We never do anything traditional. We never go through the front door. It's always the back door, or an open window or something.” Smash Mouth frontman, the late Steve Harwell described the band’s approach to making music in a CNN interview. 

Though Harwell passed away two years ago, the quintet from San Jose is still following its own happily quirky path, something they’ve been doing since the release of their debut double-platinum album Fush You Mang, in 1997.

The band’s party vibe is still going strong. The band recently headlined at the three- day Musique Fest Premier Tech festival on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Enhancing this free-flowing fun-in-the-sun mood was an equally ebullient lighting design by Marc-Antoine Pelletier that engaged the big crowd with some intense audience lighting and

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18 July 2025

Germany - The family-run Lightpower Group is transferring to a new HQ in Paderborn. The group has united national and international sales companies in the field of professional stage lighting for more than 45 years. In addition to Lightpower GmbH, which distributes an exclusive brand portfolio in Germany and Austria, the company MA Lighting International operates worldwide as a master distributor.

With the Lightpower Group’s new building, these companies will also move under a ‘new roof’ in the future and are scheduled to move into their new home in mid-2026. After more than 35 years, the company leaves the location at An der Talle and lays the foundation stone for the new headquarters at Barkhauser Straße in Paderborn.

"With the new Lightpower Group building, we are taking an important and targeted step into the future. In doing so, we remain

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18 July 2025

USA/Europe - Elation has announced the launch of its new and improved website, ElationLighting.com. The completely redesigned site serves as a dynamic product showcase with an emphasis on video content, providing an engaging platform for customers and partners to explore Elation’s extensive line of professional lighting products.

Featuring a more intuitive interface, the new website delivers an improved experience across both desktop and mobile devices. With most visitors accessing the site via desktop, the updated experience has been carefully optimised to be smoother and faster with a highly responsive interface, streamlined navigation, and powerful new search functionality for faster, more precise results. Visitors also benefit from enhanced product filtering and powerful product comparison tools, making it easier than ever to evaluate and select the ri

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18 July 2025

UAE - Creative Technology Middle East (CTME) has made a major investment in new lighting equipment. This follows another substantial Robe purchase earlier in 2024.

The Robe numbers on this one are 60 x iFortes, 60 x iForte LTXs, eight iForte LTX FS Cameras, 80 x iTetra2 battens, 100 x LEDBeam 350s, 12 x iBolts and four RoboSpot BaseStations (added to the four CTME already owned), making eight in total. 

Added to these are the 24 x Fortes and 80 x LEDBeam 350s in the inventory that arrived earlier in 2024 with the first batch of four RoboSpots.

Sam Connolly, CTME's head of lighting & power, explained that all this equipment is for their rental stock and is already serving the company's busy schedule of shows, events, concerts, spectaculars, and special projects across the region.

Sam highlighted that because of the near-identical

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18 July 2025

USA - Disturbed’s five-time platinum debut album The Sickness began attracting new fans to metal from the day it was released in 2000. To celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary, the band are undertaking a 51-date tour that kicked off at Ford Centre Idaho Arena on 12 February and concludes at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on 28 October, with stops at The United Centre, Madison Square Garden, and the Kia Forum along the way.

Setting the stage for the celebration, while serving up some intensely gripping looks, was a production and lighting design by Trevor Ahlstrand and Sooner Routhier of The Playground that included Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobes and Maverick Storm 4 Profiles, which, like the rest of the rig, were supplied by Premier Global Production.

Joined by programmer Jason Giaffo and lighting director Joseph ‘Bam

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18 July 2025

Germany - At this year’s Telekom Electronic Beats festival in Berlin, lighting designer Rolf Wenzel deployed 90 GLP JDC2 IP hybrid strobes to create a striking lighting architecture at CANK, a former C&A department store in Neukölln. The fixtures were embedded in a large-format grid structure, inspired by classic 1980s disco aesthetics. The focus was on dynamically illuminated fields and a video-based display of the versatile spotlights.

The goal of the installation was to utilise the venue’s limited architectural space (3.05m of headroom and no hanging options) to create a lighting setup suitable for both DJ sets and live performance. The central element: a 30m-wide, 3m high podium rack with 90 individually controlled JDC2 IP fixtures arranged in 1 x 1m arrays – equally spaced by baffles to create a clean light pattern without glare.

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17 July 2025

USA - From major touring productions and festivals to high-stakes corporate events and high-profile permanent installations, Las Vegas-based 3G Productions LLC has spent more than 20 years delivering audio, lighting, video, and rigging solutions. Now, some of that same professional-grade equipment is available for purchase through the launch of 3G’s new website: UsedGear.com.

“The production industry runs on trust - in your equipment, team, and suppliers,” says 3G Productions CEO Keith Conrad. “With UsedGear.com, we’ve created a marketplace where audio, lighting, video, and rigging professionals can access the same calibre equipment used on major productions at prices that respect the realities of budgets. Top-notch, tour-ready gear, professional service, and reasonable prices are the genesis and hallmarks of UsedGear.com.”

The new site f

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17 July 2025

Europe/Saudi Arabia - Zeynep Kepekli’s desert experience inspired her when creating an enchanting lighting design for Thikra: Night of Remembering. Kepekli spent time in the Saudi Arabian desert when preparing her design for this compelling production created by multi-award-winning choreographer Akram Khan and Wadi AlFann, in collaboration with artist Manal AlDowayan, and featuring an original score by Aditya Prakash.

“This piece was originally made in the desert,” said Kepekli, noting that the premiere took place outdoors on a starry night at Wadi AlFann in Saudi Arabia against the dramatic cliffs of a desert canyon.

“On our first research trip to AlUla, we all met in the desert at 4am, and stayed there for a few hours until the sun came up,” she recalled. “We wanted to see the darkness and the changing light as sunrise approach

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16 July 2025

Europe/USA - Elation has unveiled its refreshed vision, mission, and core values, designed to guide the organisation’s evolution and align global operations around innovation and customer experience.

The new strategic framework reaffirms Elation's commitment to drive industry development and lead through example, making a positive impact on the industry.

“This isn’t just about changing words or statements,” said Toby Velazquez, CEO of Elation and president of the ADJ Group. “This is about aligning our business with guiding principles that will move both Elation and the industry forward.”

Elation has evolved from a grassroots business to the global design and technology company it is today. The transformation continues as the company reshapes and redefines the significance behind what the Elation brand stands for.

Elation h

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16 July 2025

USA - The near-20,000-capacity Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio features the world’s first installation of GLP’s Mad Maxx CW LED fat-beam searchlights. This will give the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and Cleveland Monsters ice hockey team, who share the facility, a dynamic rock’n’roll-style environment to enhance the matchday experience.

The Mad Maxx units were specified by production designer Eric Wade, creative director and vice-president of Dallas, Texas-based Crossfade Design.

Billed as the first true fat-beam LED fixture, with a massive 750mm beam diameter, Mad Maxx’s wide light output matches the beam’s diameter, which is adjustable by a virtual iris, while the colour wheel provides an extra layer of animation. This gives the fixture an imposing presence.

Crossfade had serviced the Rocket Arena for around a decade, and

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15 July 2025

Italy - Cesare Cremonini, one of Italy’s most prominent artists, with a solo career spanning more than 20 years, is currently on tour with a lighting design featuring Ayrton Mamba and Cobra laser-sourced lighting fixtures.

The Cremonini LIVE25 tour comprises 13 sold-out shows in some of Italy’s largest stadiums, with multiple dates across cities including Rome, Milan, Bologna and Bari.

Mamo Pozzoli, the tour’s lighting designer and a long-time Cesare collaborator, created a powerful and innovative lighting plot characterised by multiple moving circular structures and a strong focus on graphic fixtures.

Set within this vast design, dominated by a massive ultra-wide LED wall, Mamo carefully selected and positioned a number of high-performance beam units, namely 16 Ayrton Mamba and 48 Ayrton Cobra fixtures, all of which are situat

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15 July 2025

Singapore - Martin Professional’s MAC Viper XIP lighting fixtures made their debut theatrical performance at this year’s Shakespeare in the Park Singapore, bringing a bold and atmospheric visual dimension to the critically acclaimed production of Macbeth. Held under the stars at Fort Canning Green, the event marked a milestone in outdoor theatrical lighting with the debut of Martin’s weatherproof moving head fixtures in a major Southeast Asian theatrical production.

Presented by Singapore Repertory Theatre, Macbeth ran more than 20 performances between 7 May and 1 June, 2025. The production drew thousands of attendees over its run, reaffirming Shakespeare in the Park’s status as a cultural highlight in Singapore’s arts calendar.

This isn’t Martin’s first foray into Shakespeare in the Park. In

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15 July 2025

Brazil - Companhia de Luz is a busy rental and production company based in Rio de Janeiro, which is headed by lighting designer / DoP Arthur Farinon and this year is celebrating its 40th year since being founded by Arthur’s father, Juarez, in 1985.

The company has invested steadily in Robe moving lights for some years, starting with LEDWash 600s over 10 years ago, which they needed at the time to service both live and television projects, and these have since been added to with LEDWash 1200s, LEDBeam 150s, Pointes, BMFLS, RoboSpots, and most recently, iFortes.

Arthur explained that they are “big fans” of Robe and now have nearly 400 Robe products in rental stock, which are in constant use. They are utilised on Arthur’s own design projects plus numerous others that Companhia de Luz services as a premium quality rental partner.

Juarez F

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15 July 2025

UK - Venue Cymru, North Wales’ largest and most versatile performance venue, has completed a transformative upgrade to its lighting infrastructure, partnering with White Light, a d&b solutions company, to deliver a future-ready, energy-efficient solution that meets the demands of modern touring productions, local performances, and broadcast events alike.

The project, part one funded by Arts Council Wales, and part two funded by the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns initiative, marks a significant step forward for the council-run venue, which hosts everything from West End touring shows and opera to conferences and TV recordings.

With original fixtures dating back to the venue’s opening in 1994, the need for a modern, flexible lighting system was clear. “We’re a multi-purpose venue with a very busy programme,” comments Steve Cridge