Robe - Leaderboard - 27 Aug25 - Jan26
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

Lighting

Details
The Netherlands - The Nederlands Blazers Ensemble Nieuwjaarsconcert - performed on-stage before an audience and broadcasted by NPO 2 on New Year’s Day - is a pivotal event in the Dutch cultural calendar, ringing in the New Year for countless viewers. The 2022 edition marked the concert’s 50th iteration, which paid tribute to legendary singers Nina Simone and Maria Callas. To create immersive and riveting visuals suitable for such a milestone, veteran lighting designer Henk-Jan van Beek and the Light-H-Art team selected the Martin MAC Ultra Performance as the lighting fixture of choice.
“I had already seen and played with the MAC Ultra Performance, and so I knew it was something I wanted to have,” said van Beek. “It’s since become my de-facto workhorse - it’s easy to set up, zooming into an iris effect is fast and elegant. Because it’s so bright, the fixture

Details
UK - Sennheiser has been an essential part of Ed Sheeran’s touring inventory since the start of his career, with his long-time production company, Major Tom, providing Sennheiser’s flagship Digital 9000 system for him in recent years. Now on a tour that takes in some of the biggest venues in the world, including London’s Wembley Stadium, the Stade De France in Paris, the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, New Zealand’s Eden Park and Sydney’s Accor Stadium, and with a show that has expanded significantly from his ‘one man and a guitar days’, a switch has been made to Sennheiser’s Digital 6000.
“Digital 6000 delivers the same sonic excellence, but with added flexibility,” says RF engineer Dave White. “The 9000 Series served us incredibly well, but with large shows on multiple nights with a band and the addition of guest artists, we needed some extra flexibility
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

Details
USA - There are many reasons why Dustin L. Derry always embraces the opportunity to light dance performances. High on this list is the opportunity it affords him to depart from the conventional use of colours and patterns.
“What’s nice about dance, is you don’t have to think so literally about 'natural' lighting,” said the Chicago-based designer. “In dance, you can push deep into the surreal and express yourself in new ways to support the choreographer’s vision. You can focus on individual elements, like live musicians, and help blend them into the background, and then pull specific dancers or ideas into the foreground and vice versa depending on the needs of the moment. I don't think this presents any challenges, so much as it opens new doors for me creatively.”
Derry stepped boldly through those doors recently, inventively using gobo patterns and coloured

Details
USA - Bandit Lites has added more Robe fixtures to its inventory. Designer Dave Butzler has over 200 BMFL Spots, WashBeams, Robin 1200 LED Washes and BMFL Lightmaster Side Kits on the 2022 Garth Brooks Stadium tour.
“Robe is obviously the heart of Dave’s massive design,” said Bandit Lites chair Michael T. Strickland. “Garth has gone where no other stadium act has gone before, selling out multiple shows in stadiums across the country. Garth did three nights sold out in Salt Lake City, two nights sold out in Edmonton, two nights sold out in Birmingham, and over 100,000 in each sold out show at LSU Stadium and at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. Every show on the tour was a sellout. Garth closes the 2022 Stadium Tour in September with five sold out shows in Dublin, Ireland at Croke Park, over 400,000 people total!”
Constant demand for the popular Robe FollowSpot wi

Details
USA - Tears for Fears has wrapped the North American leg of their Tipping Point World Tour 2022 in support of the duo’s comeback album of the same name. Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal treated fans to favourites from their new album as well as classics from throughout the years in an amphitheatre tour with lighting design by Joe Cabrera II who chose 48 Ayrton MagicBlade R fixtures for effects lighting. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
This leg of the Tipping Point World Tour 2022 kicked off at the end of May in Cincinnati and concluded a month later in New York’s Jones Beach. The duo’s eponymous album, their first since 2004’s Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, was released earlier this year.
Cabrera, of Los Angeles-based Flash and Trash Works, served as lighting programmer on Tears for Fears’ previous two

Details
USA - Bob Harmon, CEO and president of Eggshell Light Company of Honolulu, has had success using his stable of Proteus Hybrid luminaires to light shows at the Waikiki Shell ever since he acquired the multi-functional weatherproof lights in 2017. Still going strong after five years, Elation’s IP65 moving heads are reliably weathering another season at Honolulu’s renowned outdoor venue.
“I use a variety of manufacturers’ products but by far the most robust in holding up outdoors and dealing with heat and humidity are the Proteus Hybrids,” commented Harmon, noting that Eggshell has added more Proteus Hybrids to inventory since that first acquisition. “At the Waikiki Shell, they stay outside for four months at a time and work just flawlessly. They have been very reliable for us over the years.”
Eggshell handles lighting for a large number of one-off shows at

Details
South Africa - Blond Productions supplies technical production for a slew of popular reality TV shows which have included several iterations of Big Brother over the years. There was much anticipation this year when the South African version – Big Brother Mzansi – returned for the first time since 2016 produced by Red Pepper and broadcast on Mzansi Magic.
Blond’s Ryan Lombard (head of the show lighting department) designed and operated the lighting, working closely with a new set design created by Michael Gill, and several of his go-to Robe moving lights including Esprites, LEDWash 300s and six of Blond Productions’ new iSpiiders.
Blond made this initial purchase of 12 x iSpiiders for I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here (Germany) which was shot in the South African bush for which they needed some hardy, weatherproof, LED wash fixtures

Details
USA - For ARRI’s contributions to the industry, the company will receive the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award at the 74th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards.
ARRI receives the award for its more than a century of designing and manufacturing camera and lighting systems as well as its development of systemic technological solutions and service networks for a worldwide complex of film, broadcast, and media industries.
Named after Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the first fully working all-electronic television system and receiver, the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award is a non-competitive award presented by the Television Academy as part of the Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards. Since 2003, this prestigious accolade has honoured “an agency, company, or institution whose contributions over time have signific

Details
USA - “I’m ready to get back out and feel the nights come alive,” Jason Aldean said when announcing this summer’s 34-city Rock N’ Roll Cowboy tour. The country music superstar’s lighting designer, Keith Hoagland, knew just how he felt. After two years of contending with COVID lockdowns and restrictions, both were ready to spread their creative wings and fly.
From Hoagland’s perspective, the tour represented a welcome opportunity to roll out some big, bold looks with new tools, such as the Chauvet Professional Color STRIKE M motorised strobe/wash and STRIKE Array, which like the rest of the lighting rig, were supplied by Bandit Lites.
“We really wanted to come at this tour from a new direction,” said Hoagland of CKP Lighting. “The Luz Studio team did a great job developing this scenic concept mainly driven by video. Manager Chris Parr, project manage

Details
Hungary - The infectious beats of EDM music fused with the vibrance of festival culture returned to the picturesque shores of Lake Balaton at Zamárdi (AKA The Hungarian Sea) with the 2022 Balaton Sound event which was completely sold out. An impressive line-up included Martin Garrix, Alesso, Marshmello, Sven Väth and many more international artists performing across multiple stages.
Robe moving lights had a big presence on the main stage with over 200 fixtures in a high impact production design created by LD Mark Kontra and delivered by Budapest-based rental company, Colossal LTD.
Apart from the Main Stage, there was even more of a Robe buzz on site this year as the brand’s own Show Truck rocked up – fresh from a four-date tour in Switzerland – and became an integral part of the backstage village. The Show Truck’s tent extension provided a hub for the media

Details
USA - Chauvet has announced a new generation of IP65 rated moving heads: the Maverick Storm 2 BeamWash, Maverick Storm 4 Profile and Maverick Storm 2 Profile. Maverick Storm 2 BeamWash is the first available, and its intensely bright and versatility makes it ‘powerful enough to excel at even the largest stadium and amphitheatre applications’.
“Our company has been increasing our commitment to developing IP65 solutions that stand out for being way more than weatherproof, including our Maverick Storm series,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “With the class-leading weight and versatility of the new Maverick Storm 2 BeamWash we’ve taken this category to the next level.”
In addition to its bright output of close to 10,000 lumens, the new fixture, which features 19 50-watt RGBW LEDs in its centre pixel array, and an outer ring of 0.2-watt RGB LEDs, offers

Details
USA - Christie Lites has announced the opening of new strategic locations in Seattle and Nashville, USA. These shops add valuable local industry expertise, plus a diverse and well serviced inventory, to Christie Lites’ existing network across the USA, Canada, and the UK.
Christie Lites CEO, Huntly Christie, says: “No one can deny that it has been a tough couple of years for the entertainment industry. Almost every business in the sector has had to make some very painful tactical decisions to survive, including Christie Lites. However, I am delighted to say that 2022 is seeing a phenomenal upturn in productivity, prompting us to add these two strategic new locations. Nashville is an epicentre for the music industry and the Seattle shop will bolster Christie Lites’ support for the Pacific Northwest and demonstrate a commitment to key local clients.
“Seattle and N

Details
Latvia - Ayrton has announced VGD Project SIA of Riga, Latvia as its newest distributor. With immediate effect, VGD Project will exclusively represent Ayrton in Latvia and Estonia.
VDG Project was founded in 2013 as the certified provider distributor and training centre for L-Acoustics in Baltic States where it is responsible for the territories of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Uzbekistan.
The company then looked to extend its offering to include professional lighting and turned to Ayrton’s comprehensive product line to fulfil this promise: “Our goal is to represent only one manufacturer in each market segment,” explains VGD Project’s CEO, Igor Verkholat. “In this way we can be sure to supply a complete service for both the pro-audio and pro-lighting markets, and Ayrton fits into our philosophy very well.”

Details
Canada - Gil Perron lit a special, private show by the award-winning Italian trio Il Volo at Montreal’s Teatro Leonardo DaVinci. Although rigging was a lot easier at this beautiful facility, the design team had to be much more mindful of load capacity.
This was “sort of a big deal” for Perron, given his penchant for grouping fixtures in clusters to create unique multi-directional light angles. “It’s kind of my thing; I like clumping fixtures in groups of three and then layering them vertically and horizontally,” he said. “This is tougher on a fly system than on truss, but it’s well worth the effort. Doing this, I can use colour theory to create either triadic or analogic colour complementariness.
“Working with another proponent of colour theory, our programmer/operator Guy Laflamme, made this a lot of fun - you pick the primary and then, as if by magi

Details
The Netherlands - Heerlen hosted the 10th edition of ParkCity Live on 16 and 17 July 2022. Headliners on the main stage on Saturday night were BLØF and Limburg legends Rowwen Héze, while Sunday night ended with performances from Danny Vera, Anouk and renowned Dutch DJ duo Lucas & Steve. The main stage featured lighting provided by Ampco Flashlight Group, while spectacular lighting effects for the tented dance area were provided by SLF Group.
ParkCity Live is an event that's gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2010 and this edition welcomed around 35,000 festival goers over the course of two days.
For the main stage, 24 iFX-640 effect moving heads by Infinity were used. These versatile light fixtures ensured that the main stage was illuminated with an ever-changing variety of colourful light effects.
For the tented dance area, SLF Group us

Details
UK - London's first permanent digital immersive arts experience, Frameless, will be opening in October in the heart of London’s West End. Frameless has partnered with projection technology provider, Panasonic, who will use the venue as their global flagship showcasing their projection technologies and large format displays. Creative Technology, have also been brought on board to deliver integration services for all video systems across the attraction.
Using over 50 of Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP laser projectors, the art projections inside the attraction will be delivered by 479m pixels and 1m lumens of brightness and colour, to give ‘a truly stunning image’ quality across all four immersive galleries as well as a fifth gallery dedicated to corporate and educational events.
A second layer of audio immersion is achieved by 360-degree surround sound played over 158 l

Details
USA - AV systems integrator and remote collaboration service provider Kinly has announced the reappointment of Vel Johnson as its managing director for the US.
Johnson returns as Kinly’s US MD, having originally relinquished the position in December 2021 as part of his semi-retirement plans, after three years.
Based in Kinly’s Cedar Knolls (NJ) corporate office – one of four on the east coast (Fort Lauderdale, Washington, New York) – Vel was inspired to return to Kinly following positive discussions with newly appointed CEO, Tom Martin, who revealed his growth and expansion plans for the company in the US market.
Vel, leading the US team, will now develop and execute ‘a more business and culturally aligned go-to-market strategy to mirror that deployed in Kinly’s other global markets’ including Europe.
Tom Martin, CEO at Kinly, comments: “W

Details
UK - City Theatrical's Moving Light Assistant is an application designed to document both the physical setup and programming information for moving light rigs commonly used in the entertainment industry.
The software offers a spreadsheet view to show the configuration (lenses, lamps, menu options etc.) of moving light fixtures in your production's rig, to save you time and keep your project organized. It also allows you to design and edit moving light gobo, colour, and effect wheel loads, import console reports from leading lighting consoles, and much more, depending on the needs of your unique project.
The Moving Light Assistant application will run on both Apple Mac OSX (Intel only) and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Moving Light Assistant software is full of useful features for lighting professionals. Additional features include the ability view cue list

Details
Poland - In the city centres and main squares of many Polish towns and cities, visitors will come upon a multi-purpose building known locally as a ‘culture house’. Like many of these structures, which date back to the 1960s, Arts and Culture Centre Oskard in Konin was beginning to show its age.
A renaissance has now taken place in this centre thanks to a renovation project run by the Arts and Culture Centre Oskard's Arts Council and Committee. A key part of this rejuvenation was the installation of two all-new lighting rigs, one for each of the centre’s stages.
The council did careful research, visiting trades shows and consulting with local installation specialist, LTT, which distributes Chauvet Professional products in Poland.
In the end, Chauvet Professional fixtures were used for the new rig. To provide the foundation for a multitude of powerful looks

Details
USA - DJ Deorro played two shows at the Hollywood Palladium in early July and electrified the sold-out crowds using a lighting rig that included Elation’s multi-functional Smarty Hybrid CMY colour mixing moving head as the main moving effect light. The atmosphere at the 4,000-capacity venue both nights was raging, reflecting the EDM community’s excitement to be back live, as well as the hype around the artist’s new album Orro which was released just days before.
“The Smartys were an excellent choice because they can move as fast as a typical beam fixture, but also provide all the core attributes a spot fixture has to offer,” said Lorcan Clarke of the full-featured 11,000-lumen moving heads. Clarke served as lighting director, programmer and operator on the shows, coordinating 12 Smarty's on the downstage floor plus another 12 on the downstage overhead truss

Details
UK - Immersive experience company Pixel Artworks has designed and created the immersive mindfulness experience Room to Breathe. Located in Outernet London, a new ‘immersive culture, media and music district’ at Tottenham Court Road, the sensory experience is based on the science of ‘box-breathing’. It aims to help anxious commuters and busy Londoners unwind and catch their breath throughout the day.
This experience has been masterminded by Pixel Artworks, harnessing the healing power of digital light and pixel technology, with original music written by Matthew Wilcock and guidance from trauma and anxiety consultant Jayne Cox.
Jayne comments: “Anxiety and stress often changes the way we breathe, with our breath often becoming rapid and shallow, resulting in heightened anxiety and becoming ‘stuck’ in a state of fight or flight. Learning and regularly impl

Details
South Africa - Lighting designer Ryan Lombard decided that South Africa’s newest DSTV games show The Saturday Showdown was prime time for him to make the switch to an all grandMA3 – hardware and software – solution to run lighting and video graphical content!
The show was recorded at Urban Brew Studio 10 in Johannesburg, and produced by Red Pepper Productions for broadcaster Mzansi Magic, and designed as an action-packed sport-themed entertainment game show to keep fans enthralled on Saturday nights while the Local and Premier Leagues take their break.
Ryan specified a grandMA3 light as the main console for graphics and lighting, coupled with grandMA3 onPC running on a dedicated computer on the network accessed via a grandMA3 onPC command wing which was used to trigger all the reactive LX and AV cues as different sections of the games were played.
T

Details

UK - Essex Sound & Light (ESL) has completed the acquisition of DPL Production Lighting.
AV integrator, ESL has been growing its rental and production business since early 2015. Since then, ESL has been providing full production support (including staging, sound, lighting and video) to numerous events and festivals throughout the UK. ESL has grown its rental stock, most recently with a large investment in IP-Rated LED video panels and processors.
DPL, founded in 1989 by Darren Parker, has offered professional lighting equipment, rigging and technical production services to the events and entertainment industries for over 30 years.
ESL managing director Mike Glover comments, "We are excited to bring the DPL name within the ESL Group. Darren Parker and DPL have an amazing amount of history and experience within the rental production market including supp

Details
UK - When Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts decided to bring a bold new actor-musician interpretation to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s musical adaption of the Stephen King classic Carrie, it was Mountview’s former head of lighting training, Louisa Smurthwaite, who worked with the students to create the visceral, yet retro lighting design. Keen to introduce fixtures that bought an era-reflecting feel to the classic story, yet still introduce the students to the latest lighting technology, Smurthwaite specified the VL5LED Wash luminaires by Vari-Lite, the originator of the modern moving head and a Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) entertainment lighting brand.
With a lighting design brief from show director Rich Fitch that specified ‘Stranger Things meets ‘80s horror gameshow,’ the scenic design, created by Sophia Pardon, was a torn-up school, ravaged by the
  1. The Week in Light & Sound
  2. Astera launches multi-lingual website
  3. Ayrton Ghibli S goes back to college
  4. Ayrton Cobra takes to the water in Hannover
  5. Maximus chosen for Fan Controlled Football
  6. BMFLs light Cirque du Soleil Fuzion show
Page 134 of 1201

Latest Issue. . .