Lighting

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UK - Vari-Lite has announced that its new Vari-Lite VL800 Series of fixed and moving head LED fixtures is now shipping. The new series of fixtures can be seen at the PLASA Show (stand E60) at Olympia.
“The VL800 Series has been very well received,” says Martin Palmer, senior product manager, Vari-Lite and Strand Luminaires at Signify. “We’ve taken great care in their design to ensure that they look, move and feel the way you would expect from Vari-Lite, but with a cost profile and feature set that fits installations and smaller rental applications. We’re committed to delivering the tools that our customers need for the wide variety of lighting design environments that they work in, so it’s great to see such a warm response to this cost-effective, complementary, scalable family of event lighting fixtures.”
Comprising three new fixtures designed to work sea

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UK - ADJ has announced the expansion of its UK-based sales team with the recruitment of Ryan Mattin who will serve as ADJ UK’s new southern sales rep. Ryan’s focus will be developing new business in the south of England as well as providing sales support to existing ADJ dealers.
Having worked in the audio and lighting retail industry for over 10 years, as purchasing manager for Audio Visual Commodity, Ryan has a keen interest in entertainment technology.
“Working for ADJ has been a dream of mine for quite a while, so it really is a pleasure to now be representing the company in the south of England,” says Ryan. “With an ever-growing product range for any size event, I am excited to be on board and part of this great team.”
Ryan has already begun his new role and is out on the road meeting customers and demonstrating the latest new ADJ products, with h

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UK - City Theatrical is expanding its line of QolorFLEX LED tape, dimmers, and accessories with five new LED tapes: QolorFLEX HiQ High CRI LED Tape (available in three colour temperatures), QolorFLEX UV LED Tape, and QolorFLEX 5-in-1 LED Tape, RGBACW.
QolorFLEX HiQ High CRI LED Tape has a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 95, making it a suitable high CRI LED tape for the needs of the film industry. Available in three types (3200K, 6000K, and 2700K to 6500K in a single chip), QolorFLEX HiQ High CRI LED Tape offers “exceptional on-camera colour rendition and the ability to match the light sources already being used on set”.
QolorFLEX UV LED Tape was designed to accentuate the fluorescence of surrounding objects or paint, providing a “glow in the dark” effect. With a wavelength of 395nm just outside the visible spectrum, QolorFLEX UV LED Tape works similarly to a

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UK - High End Systems lighting gear illuminated Leith Theatre for the duration of the recent Edinburgh International Festival. The fully LED rig comprised a selection of Sola Series fixtures, but the real highlight was High End’s latest innovation – TurboRay – which made its international debut at the event.
In his role as lighting designer for Leith Theatre’s contemporary music programme for the 2019 festival, Grant Anderson facilitated the lighting needs for a diverse roster that included poetry, rapping and alternative rock. He designed a rig that offered flexibility and a multitude of possible looks for the featured artists including Jarvis Cocker, Teenage Fanclub and Neneh Cherry.
“It’s been great fun having access to the world’s first TurboRay fixtures,” Anderson states. “I put eight of them on one truss and positioned it so the audience could

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UK - The team behind the six-minute immersive mental health installation Blackout will be running a pioneering industry evaluation alongside their exhibition experience at this year’s PLASA Show at London Olympia from 15-17 September 2019.
Bringing academic analysis to the exhibition, research director in clinical psychology at the University of Surrey Dr Paul Hanna has devised a questionnaire to undertake the first evaluation on mental health awareness specifically within the UK technical backstage entertainment industry. Dr Hanna has worked closely with the Blackout creative team since the project launched at Guildford School of Acting (GSA) in May.
Mig Burgess, GSA tutor and creator of Blackout, said: “This is an extremely important first step to address mental health awareness in the UK technical backstage entertainment industry and we are delighted th

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UK - Martin by Harman UK distributor Sound Technology has announced UK shipping of the new Martin MAC Allure Wash PC, with its first UK appearance being at PLASA 2019 (Stand U75).
This washlight variant of the MAC Allure Profile features a solid-state RGBW light engine with unique 7-segmented beam control. With instant colour control and pixelated beam, the MAC Allure Wash PC enables dynamic diffused projection and mid-air effects, previously not possible.
The light and colour engine are divided into seven full colour pixels. Pixels can be focused on projection or in the beam for aerial effects. You have full colour and intensity control over each pixel via DMX or create effects via the fixture’s effects engine.
On top of DMX, Art-Net and sACN, MAC Allure fixtures can be controlled via P3. This allows a rig of multiple fixtures to deliver cohesive content that

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UK - ADJ will use this year’s show to demonstrate the latest additions to its range of professional moving head luminaires, including beam, wash and hybrid fixtures as well as the much-anticipated Hydro Series of IP65-rated models. Visit ADJ at stand H38 during PLASA 2019 (15-17 September, London Olympia).
ADJ’s Hydro Series brings the advantages of weatherproof IP65-rated enclosures to the broad mid-market of the entertainment technology industry. Designed for rental houses, tours and production companies, as well as permanent installation, the Hydro Series fixtures can be used outside in any weather. Their sealed casing design also means that, even if the fixtures are used indoors, their optics are protected from dust, dirt and humidity, resulting in an extended operational life and reduced maintenance requirement.
The flagship of the Hydro Series is the Hydro Be

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Europe - From The Road to the Billboard Music Awards with NBC Universal, to the Thanksgiving Parade Celebrations in New York City, and a recent show in Las Vegas, Production Zync Entertainment are cementing their partnership in the world of design and production, and PRG has supported a diverse range of productions for them across the world.
Over the last seven months PRG has been working closely with newly formed Production Zync Entertainment, on the delivery and execution of a range of television, music, sport and live projects, from studio to arena across Europe, the US, and the UK.
PRG has provided Production Zync with a fully supported ‘one stop shop’ technical production solution across multiple territories, including equipment, crew, transportation, logistics, and pre-visualisation support.
With sites in London and Los Angeles, Production Zync combin

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Poland - Glastonbury 2019 headliner Stormzy thrilled audiences at Open’er , one of Poland’s largest annual music festival.
Held in Gdynia on the north coast of Poland, this popular event has attracted a host of names over the years including The Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Bruno Mars and Radiohead.
This year’s headline acts were Kylie Minogue and Stormzy. Concept for the main stage was undertaken by lighting collective Green Beam Design.
The main stage rig, supplied by Transcolor, included a whole host of Prolights Sunblast fixtures. The external design team requested colour strobes on floor to complete the desired ‘colourful punch’ aesthetic and Prolights Sunblast3000FC were used. The fixtures have a track-record of providing the punch that this performance required, but also the flexibility of the 48 individually controllable groups of RGBW LEDs all

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UK - The Zero 88 team fully embraced the buzz and excitement of the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they were - again - on the ground with training and technical support for a range of their lighting consoles and control solutions.
They also introduced #behindthefringe - a ‘fun and informative forum’ for anyone into fringe performance and involved with a show using Zero 88 products.
Building on this success, #behindthefringe will be launched as a website later in the year as a hub and platform for comments, experiences and opinions, sharing information and connecting people through various Fringe projects linked via Zero 88.
Over 100 different Zero 88 consoles were in action site-wide at this year’s Edinburgh event, which is the largest arts festival in the world, producing nearly 60,000 new performances in over 300 venues across 25 hectic and vibrant

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USA - The first annual Peak to Sky festival in Montana in early July featured Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses), Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) on the bill. Local event producers Outlaw Partners and lighting suppliers Jereco Studios were at the sharp end.
“We knew going in that we would have to put together a package that would be fitting of some of the biggest names in rock n' roll,” says Frank Douglas of Bozeman-based Jereco Studios. With at least 75% of the live production done by Jereco Studios during the summer months outdoors, Douglas says that in southwest Montana at least 75% of those shows experience some degree of inclement weather. “From sustained high winds, to hail, to rain, to snow, our most exposed fixtures need to be able to withstand that. Elation has

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USA - The Tony-nominated The Wedding Singer played Boca Raton’s Olympic Heights Performing Arts Centre this summer, with a lighting design by Clifford Spulock that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures.
“There are a lot of different emotions that go on in this show,” says Spulock. “It starts out with a massive party at a wedding. I light this with huge bump changes and big hits that play off the music. Light from my fixtures cut through the haze into the audience at this point to create a very immersive, energetic opening that encourages the audience to get up and dance to the music.”
Among the lights that Spulock had fun with were two Rogue R1X Spot fixtures that were positioned on the apron electric. Filling a variety of roles in the lighting design, the 170W LED fixtures were used for front light specials as well as to illuminate the mylar drop dur

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Hungary - Robe moving lights helped keep pace with the demands of an eclectic mix of music and creative presentations on the main stage of Budapest’s Sziget Festival.
The stage saw performances from Martin Garrix, The 1975, Florence + The Machine, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran, who played to 80,000 fans a day for seven days.
The base main stage production / house rig was designed by Mark Kontra from rental company Colossal, who have supplied lighting for this stage of the event for the last several years.
The production lighting incorporated 172 Robe lighting fixtures which were a mix of BMFLs, Pointes and ColorStrobes.
It was designed to be practical, bearing in mind the amount of own kit coming in, offering all the breadth, fluidity and capabilities of a properly thought-through house lighting rig.
“We needed a powerful reliable rig with the flex

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UK - ETC has hired Matt Cowles as field project coordinator for its London office.
Cowles will provide technical sales and manage projects across the country, be responsible for sales arrangements of key accounts in this region, and support regional sales manager, Jeremy Roberts in working with ETC and High End Systems’ dealers, distributors and customers.
A familiar face in the UK with 17 years of experience working in the industry, he joins the company from Ambersphere Solutions where he worked in technical sales for seven years. As key account manager, Cowles was responsible for numerous product lines and the development of the business with a focus on theatre. Prior to this, he worked in the live events sector with UK-based dealer Stage Electrics in the role of business development manager.
Regional sales manager Jeremy Roberts comments: “We are deligh

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The Netherlands - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will exhibit an array of specialist TV, broadcast and film lighting solutions from leading brands including Chroma-Q, Vista by Chroma-Q, Quasar Science and RatPac on stand 12.D39 at IBC this week.
Chroma-Q will continue to celebrate its 15th year in LED lighting innovation. Drawing upon this expertise, its latest generation of award-winning solutions utilise proprietary homogenised optics, colour management and dimming technologies to deliver a superior quality of light output and colour consistency.
The new Chroma-Q Space Force onebytwo variable white LED soft light panel will make its IBC debut. Recipient of a Lighting Product of the Year Award at NAB, the unit is a modern replacement for traditional soft sources and is the ideal fit for creating a huge volume of light in standard room ceiling height studios

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UK - Avolites will showcase the Q4 media server, the latest development in the Q server range. Q4 boasts four full 4K outputs, which will be able to drive three layers of visually lossless, 4K content to every output simultaneously.
It also features Avolites’ Ai software, built on the Salvation node engine, which provides the tools needed to create effective shows, whatever the requirements. The new server will ship with Modular Flex Inputs, allowing video inputs to be swapped in and out to suit every situation.
In addition, Avolites will demo Synergy with its latest integration between Titan and Ai. The software, which won a PLASA Award for Innovation in 2018, integrates lighting and video seamlessly, allowing users to turn their stages into one visual canvas. It has been used on shows and installations around the world, including the Temple Stage at Glastonbury th

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UK - Following a critically acclaimed UK tour, the stage adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin promptly transferred to the West End for a recent nine-week season at the Harold Pinter Theatre.
Lighting the show throughout has been Malcolm Rippeth, who as with the touring version, made heavy use of Martin by Harman’s MAC Encore Performance CLD and MAC Aura XB fixtures when the show moved to the West End - supplied as part of the lighting package by White Light.
Based on Louis de Bernières’ best-selling novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a story of romance in the face of the Second World War, set on the idyllic Greek island of Cephalonia.
The creative team did justice to this epic story in just two and a half hours of stage time. “Consequently there were jump-cuts throughout the play, split screens, and montages of years passing,” say

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UK - Leeds Trinity University has upgraded the lighting infrastructure of its TV studio facilities to next generation systems utilising Vista by Chroma-Q lighting & media control.
The university was one of the first establishments to have professional TV studio production facilities as part of its courses. Student applications range from live daily news and culture shows to interviews or scenes for documentary and film productions.
After upgrading its original tungsten lighting to all-LED DMX rigs, the university wanted to invest in a control solution which staff and students would find straightforward to operate, whilst also being widely used professionally.
They invested in new control systems for both TV studios which utilise the latest Vista 3 software, with hands-on controls provided by Vista MV control surfaces.
Mark Willett, the university’s se

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Germany - After taking Las Vegas and London by storm, Channing Tatum’s Magic Mike Live will now move on to Berlin. Inspired by the hit Magic Mike film franchise, the latest production will open at the newly remodelled Club Theatre at Potsdamer Platz in November this year.
Having supported the London show since its opening last year, full service technical production company Hawthorn has been chosen to supply lighting equipment to the new Berlin production.
Conceived and co-directed by Tatum, Magic Mike Live is a large-scale, live production show featuring a group of extraordinary artists who perform an immersive 360-degree dance and acrobatic spectacular.
With a rig almost double the size of the West End production, 500 fixtures to be precise, Hawthorn is supplying lighting equipment to the specification of theatre lighting designer Philip

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UK - Good times mixed with valuable insights at the grand opening of the ChamSys UK head office in Southampton's Brooklands Courtyard.
On 2 September, over 150 lighting programmers and designers from throughout Europe attended the inauguration of the new office, training facility and product development centre. Visitors participated in informative classes, think tanks, and training sessions focused on the new MagicQ and QuickQ software from ChamSys.
Adding a light-hearted touch of drama to the proceedings was a short skit presented by company team members on the history of ChamSys. The skit recounted how company cofounder Chris Kennedy developed his first console at the age of 10. Telling the story of a young man with big dreams, it showed how Kennedy achieved something beyond even his wildest imagination years later when an award-winning ChamSys console was used by A

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UK - Lauren Drinkwater has joined TMB’s Global Customer Development Group. Lauren arrives with an extensive background in sales, support, and business management in the entertainment technology and production field. Drinkwater’s role at TMB is to build customer relationships, increase awareness of TMB’s products and service, and directly assist TMB’s European distribution partners. She will be based out of TMB’s UK office and will be at PLASA 2019.
Drinkwater brings years of experience to her new role at TMB, including management at City Theatrical, sales at Martin Professional, and accounts management at Sound Technology.
“I’m thrilled to be a part of the European arm of TMB’s global presence,” she says. “I’m particularly excited about TMB’s emphasis on long-term personal interaction with top-flight professional companies. To this end, my exper

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USA - Chauvet Professional has appointed Brad Haynes as its national resource manager, concert and touring. Haynes joins Chauvet from AC Lighting and will foster relationships between the company and touring designers in addition to creating a range of educational programmes.
“All of us at Chauvet Professional are excited about welcoming Brad to our team,” comments Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “We have a great deal of respect for his knowledge and integrity. His extensive experience in the concert and touring world will enable us to serve those markets even better than we do today.”
Prior to his experience at AC Lighting, Haynes was director of product and application support at Harman International, where he managed product training and demo programs for internal staff as well as lighting professionals. He also held a series of commercial positions at Marti

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USA - Lighting designer Benoit Richard specified two High End Systems Hog 4-18 lighting control systems for Rob Thomas’ Chip Tooth Smile Tour 2019.
“The Hog 4 controls everything in my design and has an extensive use of the pixel mapping engine on most of the fixtures in the rig,” the LD says.
Since his years as a former High End Systems designer and programmer, Benoit continued to use Hogs on projects ranging from tours and television specials to blockbuster films. “I was super happy when Bandit Lites purchased the two new Hog 4-18s for the tour earlier this year,” he says. “And I love the fact that they are manufactured in the USA.”
Richard programmed the show for the Matchbox Twenty co-founder with lighting director Patrick Hayes, who carries out his design on the road. Hayes was introduced to Hogs while participating (and winning) the inaugural

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Saudi Arabia - Called upon by event producer Maestro Group to light the King Cup Final in Riyadh, lighting designer Koert Vermeulen used the versatility of a rig exclusively from Vari-Lite, a Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) entertainment lighting brand, to deliver his stadium-scale design. His creation utilised 350 Vari-Lite fixtures, including 100 of the new VL10 BeamWash and 100 fixtures from the LED-based VLZ range.
The King Cup, the highlight of the Saudi soccer season, was held in May at Riyadh’s King Fahd International Stadium. The event included three separate shows - a five-minute pre-match entertainment, a 17-minute half-time show, and a post-show entertainment featuring an hour-long set by Saudi popstar, Rabeh Sager.
Vermeulen, of Belgium-based consultancy ACTLD, is no stranger to the challenges of designing on a stadium scale, and the variety of demands it makes
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