USA - Ever since Dropkick Murphys burst on the music scene in the late ’90s, bold, colourful backdrops have been almost as much a part of their show as their music.
This year, the band added a new twist to their stage presence by having five separate sections of drops that were revealed in stages. Accenting the unveiling of each section, while also furnishing an endless stream of bright and colourful looks to support the band’s thunderous performance, was a Jeff Maker lighting design that featured 17 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, supplied by JRLX, Inc.
“Things were a bit different this year compared to Dropkick Murphys’ other tours when it came to their drop setup,” says Maker. “They went with five separate sections of drops, each of which had a Velcro reveal in front of it. We would reveal the drop during a blackout at mid-set. The Rogues p

Chile - PR Lighting fixtures were in action recently at Duo Pimpinela’s concert at the 4,000-capacity Gran Arena Monticello in Chile, which was a complete sell-out.
LD Adair Rodriguez has been lighting the Argentinian artists for the past six years, not only in Latin America but also in North America and Europe. This time around he acted as lighting programmer and operator, and was also in charge of full technical production. “We adapted our lighting plot to the house plot with minimal difficulty,” he said.
The inventory was supplied by Urdile Audio & Iluminación, PR Lighting’s Chilean distributor. “In my opinion Urdile are the best in Chile,” notes the LD.
Adair Rodriguez has been a regular user of PR Lighting fixtures, including the 200 and 300 Series, over the years. This time he selected 24 XR 440 BWS fixtures, which integrate three features

UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians’ Annual Theatre Awards took place after the first day of the 2019 ABTT Theatre Show at Alexandra Palace, London.
The five awards for lighting, sound and engineering products of the year, widget and stand of the year, were complemented by the announcement of the ABTT’s technician of the year for 2019.
The lighting product of the year went to the Robe T1 Profile. The judges said: “This is a new moving light that has clearly had a great deal of thought put into its development. Robe’s new T1 fixture delivers an immensely useable theatre lantern. It is light weight, quiet and extremely well featured. Of particular note, the scrim function and the brown/blue focus tweak on the hard edge on the PC lens version is a welcome addition to the lighting designer’s pallet.”
Mick Hannaford, managing director, R

Mexico - Lighting designer Miguel González, of Madrid-based Colorcode Studio, chose the new Vari-Lite VL10 BeamWash fixture to enhance his design for the Mexico leg of Spanish star Enrique Bunbury’s recent world tour. Running since 2017, the Expectativas tour was Bunbury's most ambitious production to date.
As show designer, González’s task was to convey the themes of the Expectativas album to the audience, within an innovative and original visual design. “For this type of tour,” he explains, “with great visual and technical demands, we must have a guarantee of quality, so that all the demands of the show are fulfilled every night. The lighting fixtures are a fundamental part of that, they will mark the quality of what the public sees. The fixtures should always work like on the first day.”
As well as quality and reliability, González looks f

USA - ADJ has announced the immediate availability of its flagship IP65-rated moving head, the Hydro Beam X2.
Part of ADJ’s Hydro Series, the luminaire is designed for outdoor events, tour production and permanent installation in environments where rain, humidity, dust or sand could impair the function of regular fixtures.
“Since we first announced the Hydro Series at LDI last year, the interest we have received - especially in the X2 model - has been incredible,” explains ADJ USA’s national sales manager, Alfred Gonzales. “There is clearly huge demand for a powerful, robustly-built and IP65-rated moving head beam fixture at this price point. This incredibly punchy fixture offers phenomenal brightness and is ideal for 200ft+ throws. The applications for the X2 are many and varied.
“Obviously, it will appeal to the festival and outdoor events market,

Europe - Prolight Concepts Group eLumen8 has expanded its Kudos series with the addition of the 700 Beam.
With a 110W light engine, a large, 150mm lens, the luminaire projects a concentrated 2° beam, creating aerial effects for the touring, events, theatre and installed lighting markets.
Key features include: two circular rotating prisms, 12 colours + CTO + CTB, 17 gobos, 12° frost filter, motorised focus and 80,000 Lux @ 5m. RDM along with 16-bit pan/tilt positioning and smooth dimming are also included in this fixtures’ impressive feature list.
“We’re committed to beating our previous fixtures every time we design and release a new product,” says Andrew Jeffrey, managing director for the Prolight Concepts Group. “We’ve upped our game considerably for the 700 Beam, which features motorised focus and a large glass lens to offer big, sharp beams that

Germany - ETC is bringing a host of new products as it returns to Stage|Set|Scenery, the exhibition for theatre, film and entertainment technology, taking place at Messe Berlin from 18-20 June.
The company will occupy three stands this year - 340 and 240 in Hall 20, and 301 in Hall 21.
Showcasing its extensive range of lighting technology on stand 340, ETC will present Augment3d - its first integrated 3D programming environment. Live demonstrations of the Eos v3.0 tool will take place during the trade fair, displaying how users can control and design in a 3D space whilst interacting with their fixtures through augmented reality. Augment3d will be shown on the leading Eos Ti and Gio @5 consoles during the three-day exhibition.
Further products on stand 340 will include the latest lighting fixtures and architectural systems. Relevé Spot is the first member of a ne

Belgium - Is Er Een Dokter In De Zaal? ( Is There A Doctor In The Room?) a TV show starring well-known Belgian comedian Philippe Geubels, offers a humorous take on medical issues of the day.
Contributing to this show’s stylish and sophisticated setting is studio lighting by Jim Mattheus of ICP Belgium that features a collection of Chauvet Professional Maverick and COLORado fixtures, supplied by Splendit.
“We have worked with Philippe Geubels and his production company, Pretpraters, on projects in the past, so when he asked if I would be interested in being DOP for the new show, I was happy to oblige,” explains Mattheus. “Because of our previous relationship with the producer, we were totally free in choosing our fixtures.”
Mattheus opted to move away from traditional incandescent studio lighting and build his rig around the Maverick MK2 Profile

USA - The Reliability Conference, held on 6-10 May at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue in Seattle, highlighted strategies and technologies companies can use to drive production, lower costs and create a ‘culture of success’ within their organisations.
With over 132 speakers tackling issues covering a wide range of topics, from maintenance management to asset health, it was important the lighting worked organically with a variety of different skin tones and make the staging pop, while providing a smooth, focused light that wouldn’t overpower the video screens on stage.
Lighting designer Corey Easterbrook of Hothouse Productions chose six Chauvet Professional Ovation E-260 WW ellipsoidals, supplied by Harmon’s Audio Visual, to help him meet this goal. The Ovation fixtures’ smooth dimming curves and flat, even fields added impact to the general sessions, while the li

Australia - The Pavilion, a multifunctional event space right in the heart of the Arts Centre Melbourne, offers panoramic views of the leafy green surrounding Arts Precinct nestling between the Yarra River and the Royal Botanical Gardens.
It’s a vibrant hub for a diversity of cultural and creative activities, accommodating anything from around 280 - 300 people for dinner, 450 for a concert set up and 500+ for a cocktails or standing event.
A new lighting rig of Robe VIVA CMY Spots, ParFect 150s and LEDWash 300s, six of each, has recently been installed which has dramatically changed the way in which the space can be used for many events.
Arts Centre Melbourne’s technical manager for corporate events Jason Fordham explained that, in addition to the pre-existing generic rig, the new lights have expanded the capacity to stage multiple daily events in the Pavili

USA - Altman Lighting has announced that Victoria Fisher has joined their North American sales team in the position of southern regional sales manager. Based in Houston, Texas, Fisher joins Altman from Barbizon Lighting Company and will now manage the Altman Lighting partnerships with the many theatrical and architectural lighting professionals throughout the region. She will oversee the Altman Lighting sales efforts in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
“We could not be happier to be announcing Victoria as the newest member of our North American sales team,” says Nick Champion, Altman Lighting vice-president of North American sales. “She has an intangible combination of knowledge from both the d

UK - Creative technical event production company Hawthorn has appointed Jolene Price, who has joined the company as business development manager.
Price will support the development of new business for Hawthorn’s live event technical production service. Before joining Hawthorn, she held the position of sales, events and marketing director at Rail Media and brings with her over 19 years of experience in sales and events.
Scott Rooney-Ashby, account director at Hawthorn, comments: “We’re delighted to welcome Jolene to Hawthorn. She brings a wealth of experience to the position and with her previous experience in the industry, I believe she will be a great asset to the team. Investing in our people is vital to developing the service we provide to our clients and maintaining the extremely high-standards we are renowned for delivering.”
(Jim Evans)

USA - Vari-Lite has announced the Vari-Lite VL6500 Wash. This wash lighting fixture combines the arena-scale performance of the VL6000 Beam with a visual attraction reminiscent of the classic VL5 wash luminaire.
Sharing the big-picture format of the VL6000 Beam, the VL6500 Wash is a fully featured wash fixture with the same form factor and colour-matched pre-sets as its award-winning sibling.
"The VL6500 Wash is a direct response to requests we have received from lighting designers," explains Martin Palmer, senior product manager, Vari-Lite and Strand Luminaires at Signify. "We partnered with designers every step of the way when creating this fixture, improving the colour system while matching the pre-sets for a consistent experience. The result is a perfect partner wash for VL6000 Beams large-format presence on the world’s most ambitious rock stages."
While it

USA - Since 1975, the Houston Chinese Church has established a voice within Houston’s vibrant Southwest District, offering weekly worship services in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
As the church grew, serving more worshippers in its diverse community, its leaders realised they needed a more flexible lighting system that would allow them to create a more modern, welcoming environment inside their sanctuary. Vincent Ng, CEO of Ving Media LLC, was called in to improve the lighting system and make it more flexible to meet the church’s growing needs.
“The church wanted to upgrade their lighting system for good reason,” says Ng. “The fixtures they were using were over 30 years old, and all the coloured lights were already dead. They decided a switch to new LEDs would not only illuminate worship better, but be more eco-friendly by consuming less power.”

Belgium - Lighting and visual design practice Painting with Light (PWL) was commissioned by interactive media and attractions specialist Alterface to light the new Popcorn Revenge dark ride at the Walibi Belgium theme park.
This showcases Alterface’s new innovative ‘erratic ride’ concept, an environment combining multiple projection techniques, spectacular HD video, 3D mapping and 3D shooting plus special effects in a ride that follows a non-linear path. Wireless-controlled ride cars are routed ‘randomly’ through a selection of different rooms over their three-minute journey, allowing guests to return to Popcorn Revenge multiple times and receive a completely different and equally exciting visual and sensory experience each time.
Luc Peumans and the PWL team including principal designer Iiris Roskou and project managers Peter Vandenbosh and Céline Cuypers co

USA - At InfoComm 2019, Elation Professional has a number of North American debuts to show that complement further its comprehensive product line. Making their North American debuts will be the Proteus Maximus and Smarty MAX, as well as new luminaires in the popular Fuze and Paladin series.
Proteus Maximus, a powerful wash/beam and profile LED luminaire kicks out 50,000 lumens and houses a top-of-the-line design package. With a custom designed 950W LED engine and large 180mm front lens, Maximus has the power to cut through at even great distances and an IP65 protection means it can be used exposed on outdoor shows.
Smarty MAX is an extreme-output Spot/Beam/Wash hybrid moving head featuring a new Platinum FLEX 400 lamp rated at 480W with up to 4,000 hours of smart lamp life. Combining CMY and variable CTO, this hybrid incorporates a full iris for dynamic beam effects. C

Denmark - ELC Lighting, manufacturer of the dmXLAN Ethernet distribution system and the Green-GO digital intercom solution, saw both ranges deployed with great success on the recent national tour by Danish rock band Nephew.
Provided by tour supplier Comtech, the ELC dmXLAN system included three 10GBX and two 18GBX switches, along with two ELC NODE8 nodes and six NODE8SL slave units on a fibre network, providing the main backup switch at front-of-house and switching for both dimmer city and video city. These latest models in the ELC dmXLAN range were part of a recent investment for Comtech, from ELC Lighting and Green-GO’s Danish distributor, Light Partner.
With short load-in times, the need for a fail-safe network was paramount. Light Partner’s Johan Kvartborg, who provided technical support on the tour, says: “We didn’t have time for fails on the network. We u

UK - Going Through, a play about an asylum seeker fleeing conflict in her native land, has finished its run at the Bush Theatre in London where ADB Klemantis asymmetric cyclights and Claypaky Axcor Spot 300s played key roles in the innovative staging.
The play by Estelle Savasta was translated from the French and performed in English as well as British Sign Language. The words of the asylum seeker, Nour, are also expressed in projected text.
“The show was a really intricate combination of moving set panels, projection and lighting,” says lighting designer Joshua Pharo. “Both performers used British Sign Language throughout, so the lighting needed to work very rigorously to keep them suitably illuminated at all times. My challenge was to integrate seamlessly with Nina Dunn's projections so the audience couldn't tell what was projection and what was light.

UK - London’s Saatchi Gallery is hosting Beyond The Road, an immersive exhibition and independent project developed by Punchdrunk creatives Colin Nightingale (creative producer) and Stephen Dobbie (sound designer and creative director).
Presented by Beyond Projects in collaboration with the gallery, Beyond The Road merges the worlds of visual arts, music and film, and offers visitors a chance to leave behind their modern day lives and lose themselves in a multi-sensory world led by sound.
Collaborating with contemporary artists, filmmakers and photographers, the exhibition deconstructs a soundtrack by music pioneer James Lavelle (UNKLE), to create a completely new and multi-disciplinary sound experience.
Nightingale and Dobbie now seek to reinvent how people experience and interact with music, so it becomes an environment which visitors are fre

Europe - Popular UK band The Kooks have just completed the latest UK and European leg of an ongoing world tour in support of their fifth studio album, Lets Go Sunshine, released late last summer.
Jordon Cooper of Moth Lights is their lighting designer and lighting equipment for this latest tour was supplied by LCR including 69 x Robe LEDBeam 150s and 32 x Spiider LED wash beam as the moving lights, plus a pair of BMFL WashBeams being controlled by a RoboSpot remote follow spotting system.
Jordon has worked with the band since the album launch last year. He was recommended by their stage manager Will Matthews with whom he’d previously worked on Band of Skulls, and when he and The Kooks production manager Dave Skelton saw Jordon’s design for Skindred at Brixton Academy, it confirmed his credentials as well as his talents as a designer and he was offered The Ko

UK - Production designer, Tom Campbell used multiples of GLP’s award-winning impression X4 Bar 20s, as well as the new FR1 compact automated light and innovative KNV Cubes in a GLP-dominated stage when guitar-dominated band The Hunna played a small UK tour of mostly O2 Academy theatres recently.
The MIRRAD lighting designer, who has been working with the band for the past two years, adopted completely different scenography from that used when the band last played Brixton Academy in January 2018.
“We started from scratch this time,” Tom Campbell confirms. “We wanted to drive video content but without using a video wall or projection - instead doing something a bit more obscure.” His solution was to light the back wall with 48 of the X4 Bar 20s, pixel-mapped into an Avolites Ai Q3 video server, provided by MIRRAD (while Liteup Productions supplied the Bar 20’

Israel - MA Lighting was once again the control solution of choice for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest staged at the Tel Aviv Expo Centre which featured lighting design created by Ronen Najar and Dakar Azulay.
Fifteen grandMA2 consoles graced the FOH technical area, controlling 71,061 parameters and a mix of over 2,500 light sources and LED fixtures.
These were lighting the main stage – another elegant design by Florian Wieder – the auditorium and the green room.
MA was chosen by several on the creative and technical team co-ordinated by ESC’s head of production Ola Melzig, including Jack Collins, the event’s lighting systems and control specialist who has worked on several ESCs in recent years.
“The multiuser functionality and ability to control every fixture from every console and to alter fixture types to suit your needs were two big advantag

South Africa - In response to popular demand, lighting designer Michael Taylor Broderick will once again present a two-day theatre lighting workshop on 19 and 20 June at DWR Distribution, Johannesburg.
Michael instils a sense of passion to those working in a theatre environment and topics include stage lighting, controllable properties of light, lighting positions and angles, light and colour, elements of design and lighting instruments.
The workshop will be held at DWR, Block C, Unit 1, Kimbult Industrial Office Park, 9 Zeiss Street, Laserpark, Honeydew. The cost is R1 700 for both days and includes lunch and refreshments. Kindly let us know if you have any dietary requirements.
Bookings can be made online.
(Jim Evans)

Australia - TMB has announced that Firefly Lighting has been appointed as TMB’s regional distribution partner for Australia. Offering signature TMB brands, including Solaris, ProPlex, IMS, and more, Firefly will provide sales, support, service, and stocking inventory to the Australian professional market.
“Local commerce is beneficial for all. Australian customers will now enjoy all the benefits of having a distributor close at hand with the full confidence of TMB,” says TMB sales manager, Tim Obermann. “We are confident that the benefits of an intermediate distribution channel with local associations and personal relationships will become immediately apparent. We couldn’t ask for a better partner than Firefly.”
“Our association with TMB goes back many years,” explains Firefly manager James Whittall, “and we’re very pleased to be exclusive distrib

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