UK - The award-winning, opulent grounds of 18th-century villa, Chiswick House, served as the canvas for an illuminating display where classical architecture met modern technology, care of renowned lighting designer, Nick Gray from Renegade Design. Several art installations by up-and-coming artist Finn Thomson also featured at the event, which was launched on Thursday 15 November, and ran from Thursday to Sunday until 30 December.
After Dark was billed as a festive extravaganza like no other - which meant no reindeers, fake snow or Santa Clauses in sight. Instead the event organisers opted for vibrant state-of-the-art light displays that offered a sleek, modern and classy experience - as well as providing stunning picture content for snap-happy social media fans - in a breath-taking historical setting with delicious food and drink aplenty.
One of the main attrac

UK - Harman Professional Solutions has announced a new distributor partnership with Exertis in the UK.
The agreement entitles Exertis the right to distribute the collaboration and retail products range offered by Harman Professional Solutions. The agreement covers the entire AMX Acendo product family in addition to a selection of AKG, JBL Professional and Martin by Harman products.
“We are delighted to partner with Exertis,” comments Richard Hutchinson, regional lead UK and Eire at Harman Professional Solutions, EMEA. “By appointing Exertis as one of our retail and collaboration space distributors in the UK, we will be able to address the new segment demands of the market. We are confident that with Exertis’ vision and high level of expertise, we can significantly enhance our market reach.”
“We are delighted to be distributing Harman Professional So

UK - Recognising the work and achievements of National Health Service employees is the annual Celebrating Success Awards, with awards reflecting the organisation's core values of care and compassion, dignity and respect, quality, teamwork, openness, honesty and responsibility. For the recent awards, which took place at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, LD Ollie Wilkinson specified Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash, Rogue R1 Spot, and Rogue R1 Beam fixtures in support of his overall lighting concept.
With the night itself very much centred around the guests themselves, Wilkinson decided to focus his lighting concept accordingly, placing special emphasis on illuminating the tables with the Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, which were flown from a centrally positioned truss.
“This year, I wanted to place visual emphasis upon the tables without exposing the guests to unsightly

UK - Def Leppard continued their 2018-19 Hysteria tour in UK and Irish arenas just before Christmas, celebrating 31 years since the release of their seminal Hysteria album, which was played in its entirety in track order.
HSL supplied lighting equipment plus rigging, with over 100 motors including a 25-way Kinesys automation system, to the tour which features a striking lighting design by Kenji Ohashi, who has lit the band for 17 years.
The lighting and rigging - which also included supplying motors for video and PA - was co-ordinated for HSL by Jordan Hanson, who comments that they “were delighted to be back working alongside production manager Chris Adamson and ‘universal’ lighting crew chief Kevin Cassidy again. It was really interesting to see Kenji’s work and the vitality and energy his lighting brought to a great looking and sounding product

Europe - The Human League completed their 2018 UK and European tour with an eye-catching production and lighting design.
Colour Sound Experiment was once again the lighting supplier, working closely with award winning lighting designer Rob Sinclair on his 10th Human League tour, the ninth in the LD hot seat.
The set design was initiated by the band’s manager, Simon Watson, who takes a keen interest in production values and their stage visuality. He wanted something new and different, especially with the video element. Video has played a big part in Human League tours for the last 10 years, and on this one, he didn’t want a stage filled with LED.
Instead, the concept that he and Rob developed utilised a series of aluminium framed projection cubes covered with gauze sides which were mapped to receive animated projections. This introduced a lively, highly effec

USA/UK - City Theatrical’s Show DMX Show Baby 6 and QolorFLEX NuNeon products are currently being used for holiday performances and installations around the world, including The Polar Express Train Ride in Chicago and St Michael’s Parish Church of Edinburgh, Scotland.
As a live Broadway-style show aboard a real Amtrak train, The Polar Express Train Ride uses Show DMX Show Baby 6 units in combination with City Theatrical’s External Weatherproof Antennas as a plug and play wireless DMX solution that transmits 760 DMX channels and one cue list from the console on each train to the boarding platform wirelessly.
“The Show Baby 6 units have blown us away again this year in terms of their range and reliability in the heavily-congested downtown Chicago RF spectrum,” said Guy Rhodes, lighting designer for The Polar Express Train Ride. “We are a

USA - Dustin Bates, frontman of the Sci-Fi rockers Starset, tells a story about the quartet’s formation in 2013. The band, it seems, was created by the Starset Society, an organisation dedicated to alerting the public about “The Message,” a cyrptic signal they picked up from the outer reaches of space.
A fictional tale? Perhaps, but one that certainly felt real to the fans who packed houses on the band’s recently completed European tour. Contributing to the galactic mood of the band’s shows was a time and space bending lighting design by Rodger Pugh of Dveus Designs that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures and atmospherics, supplied by Elite Multimedia.
“Starset is a great group to design for, since their Sci-Fi orientation lends itself to powerful visuals,” says Pugh. “The overall idea behind our design on this tour is ‘Sci-Fi.’ We want everyone

USA - Early in his career, Zach Scott found part-time work supplying small audio and lighting packages to a local video gaming venue in Chicago. One of its managers, Brad Weir, later branched out to organise gaming tournaments across the Midwest.
Weir employed Scott for a few years, but eventually the two separated, Weir to pursue his passion of video gaming tournaments, and Scott into lighting, eventually creating his own design firm, Illuminate Collective. But old connections have a way of resurfacing. Seven years after losing contact, Scott received a call from his former venue manager asking him if he’d be interested in working at this year’s Hi-Rez Expo at the Atlanta DreamHack.
Accepting the offer, Scott went on to create sleek, camera-friendly stage designs for Hi-Rez Studios’ SMITE stage. A friend of his, fellow designer Dustin Derry of Stonewolf Studio

USA - Tirso Lighting has installed an all-LED Elation lighting package for another Wahi Group club opening in northern Manhattan, this time Bar 151, an upscale lounge and performance space in the neighbourhood of Inwood, a quieter and more affordable enclave of New York City that has become increasingly popular of late.
Tirso Lighting has been around since 2009 and has been using Elation lighting since its inception. Nevertheless, Bar 151 was the design and integration company’s first all LED lighting project. “I was really looking forward to doing an all LED project and this was a good chance to realize that,” says Tirso Lighting owner Tirso Pelaez, who served as lighting designer on the project and suggested the green approach to the client. “Elation’s choice of products allowed us to put together an all LED lighting package for Bar 151 that can stand on its own.

Europe - Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures have accompanied British alternative rock band Nothing But Thieves (NBT) on their extensive tour around Europe and the USA. The band’s long-term lighting designer Steve Bewley specified the Mythos 2 for the fixture’s versatility to help him to deliver a dramatic and dynamic set.
“I’ve used Claypaky on many occasions and I knew the Mythos 2 would be a great fit for the NBT show,” says Bewley. “I needed a multifunctional hybrid light to get as many looks out of the rig as possible. I used them to create bold beam looks, as well as spot and wash looks throughout the show.”
In spotlight mode, the Mythos 2 has a 4-50˚ electronic zoom range, while its advanced colour system consists of a CMY system based on three gradually fading colour wheels, plus 14 colour filters on three wheels and two CTO filters to offer designers bot

UK - Elation Professional has confirmed that Entedi will begin to distribute Elation Professional products in the UK from 1 February.
Entedi was formed in 2016 by a team of experienced industry professionals to service the ever-growing demand for professional high-end equipment in the UK and Ireland. The company serves both rental and installation customers across the wide spectrum of dynamic lighting applications.
“As the recent PLASA show demonstrated for us, there is growing demand for Elation products,” states Marc Librecht, head of sales and marketing for Elation in Europe. “Expanding our brand in such an important European market is an essential piece of our growth strategy. Entedi is a company that appreciates that relationships are the key to success and we are delighted to be working with them to spread the Elation brand.”
With the exclusive par

UK - The team at LSi will be taking a break now until the 2nd January 2019.
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers for following LSI Online news throughout 2018 and wish you a very happy holiday season - however you might be celebrating.
The daily online news will resume on Wednesday 2nd January.
Merry Christmas!
(LSi Online)

USA - The announcement by American rapper Post Malone that he intended to stage his own festival at the Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas, Texas recently, featuring himself, Tyler, the Creator and Travis Scott, created a wave of interest.
LD Ben Dalgleish has been using 36 of GLP’s X4 XL moving LED heads for Post Malone’s worldwide festival tour that started back in June, and he was keen to return to the brand, this time specifying 133 of the X4 Bar 20 battens as the feature light for Posty Fest.
Working with creative director Lewis James, whom he said “provided excellent creative direction on the look he envisaged for Post Malone’s performance”, Dalgleish said that the aim was to have the artist stand out as the headline act. “Other acts had a large LED screen, but this was removed during the changeover and revealed a large structure lined with GLP’s X4 20 B

Canada - For Canadian shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of Protest the Hero’s Fortress album, lighting operator/programmer Michael ‘Herk’ Herkimer deployed a comprehensive suite of Elation lighting fixtures. Provided by Hamilton-based Soundbox Productions of Canada, the rig was comprised exclusively of Elation ACL 360 Matrix panels, Cuepix Battens, Fuze Pars and ZW19s.
To say Herk maintains a busy schedule is an understatement. In mid-October 2018 he’d been touring for roughly 29 months, splitting his time between Rise Against, Billy Talent and Protest the Hero (PTH). With his previous knowledge of the PTH gig, Herk knew he’d require a lighting rig that was economical and utilitarian, with every fixture offering a high degree of flexibility. In all, the PTH light show consists of roughly 2,300 cues and Herk’s approach is to build intensity constantly

UK - Back in the late 1530s, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries that had been familiar fixtures on the English landscape prior to the Reformation. Most of the stately buildings were destroyed, their material scavenged for other purposes. But one survived thanks to the intervention of Augustine Steward, Mayor of Norwich, who convinced the king to deed the impressive friary in his city to the people, so it could be used for fairs, feasts and other public functions.
Today, almost 500 years later, the monastery complex (the oldest surviving one in the UK), is still thriving as The Halls, a community cultural centre with architectural features that provide a dramatic backdrop for a variety of events. Among these performances was a recent high school choral concert sponsored by Norfolk Music Hub that was animated by an evocative lighting design featuring Chauvet Professional Ov

Brazil - Ivete Maria Dias de Sangalo Cady is one of the best-selling Brazilian female singers, with 15m copies sold from her six albums released with Banda Eva and seven more as part of her solo career.
For her recent DVD production Ivete Sangalo Live Experience in the Allianz Park in São Paulo, lighting designers Paulinho Lebrão and Guillermo Herrero used two grandMA2 full-size consoles, one grandMA2 light and four MA NPUs (Network Processing Units) to control a set with more than 800 fixtures.
Lebrão explains: “We have been using grandMA2 consoles since 2011, and the experience, knowledge and confidence we have in the system leaves us no doubt in the choice. When art director Gringo Cardia presented this project, the mission for us was create lighting that could show the big size, plus all the details of the scenography. Another request was to transform t

UK - The Association of Lighting Designers has announced the winners of this year’s Michael Northen Awards.
The awards offer an opportunity for students leaving education to gain practical skills and experience in creating a portfolio that sells their design ideas. The strongest lighting or video designs are then showcased to experienced lighting and video designers and the wider industry.
The Michael Northen Award, named in honour of the first credited lighting designer in the UK and his work on the The Mousetrap, was awarded to Sophie Bailey of Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. The judges described her design as ‘sculptural and controlled’.
Johanne Jensen (Royal Central School of Speech & Drama) was awarded the ETC Award for Excellence in Lighting Design. The judges felt the process was presented well an

UK - The Maestra Group in London and Dubai have switched from their existing server-based equipment rental software to HireHop’s cloud-based rental equipment software to manage their productions, hires and inventory.
Maestra is an international event production and AV rental company based out of London and Dubai, with a large portfolio of iclients and events under their belts.
HireHop’s director Keith Jacobs says: “We are delighted to have such a prestigious and well-respected company on board, and we look forward to facilitating Maestra’s growth in the future.”
Justin Hammond, managing director of Maestra London, adds: “We had encountered numerous limitations with our previous rental software and needed a replacement. We switched over to HireHop because it could do everything we needed and more, due to its speed and the wealth of functionality, ma

USA - The Department of Theatre at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo has added 12 Claypaky Axcor Spot 300 moving LED fixtures to its inventory. The lights serve three theatres in the department’s complex as well as an additional performing space elsewhere on campus. The spots are making their debut during the 2018-19 theatre season.
The Axcor Spot 300s replace ageing moving lights, which are at the end of their lifecycle. “I had been looking for LED-based fixtures capable of projecting patterns and with a varied range of colours,” says Matthew Knewtson, professor of theatre and lighting design. “I found the Axcor Spots in doing online research, and colleagues recommended the Claypaky fixtures as a viable option.”
The Axcor Spot 300s were purchased from BMI Supply in Queensbury, New York. ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Claypaky light

UK - Working with production company Attention Seekers, LED Creative provided a selection of products from their Sigma LED range to help build the clean, modern look created for the semi-final of the McLaren Shadow Project.
Staged at the prestigious McLaren Technology Centre and streamed live via the project’s YouTube Channel, the event is a highly contested battle for a place on the McLaren E-Sports Team. Having been whittled down from over half a million applicants, the final eight ‘virtual drivers’ were tested over a series of racing challenges, competing at legendary tracks in iconic McLaren machinery.
The custom-built Shadow Project studio features eight ‘racing sleds’ configured specifically for the event. Sited on raised podiums edged with crisp LED Highlights, the ‘sleds’ house the individual drivers in cockpits fronted with a colour coded ‘V’

Europe - High End Systems has announced OS v3.10, the latest software upgrade to the Hog 4 lighting console range.
The release offers several new features and enhancements, including Virtual Wings, Playback Bar docking, Compound Fixture Explode, Inhibitive Masters in the background and new Pixel Map stock content.
With Virtual Wings, multiple virtual wings can be opened on a single system, providing additional playback controls when needed.
Playback Bar Docking allows users to swap playback bars easily on the console front panel and wings, providing quick access to more playbacks on a single surface.
Inhibitive Masters (default in new shows) can ‘leave inhibitive masters in the background’, allowing page changes to happen without adjusting/restoring active inhibitive masters. When inhibited, groups in the Groups Directory will indicate their current max

USA - Tenth Avenue North released their gold certified Over and Underneath debut album in 2008, but the Dove Award-winning Christian band’s musical virtuosity stretches back much further in time. This is evident in their current Decade The Halls tour, which features a decade-by-decade cornucopia of Christmas music covering more than a half century.
Supporting this musical mix with richly coloured visuals that evoke images of different Christmases from times past is a Mike Marcario lighting design that features Chauvet Professional Rogue and Nexus fixtures, supplied by Bandit Lites. Marcario’s transformative lighting seems to move through time with the music, changing colours and the tempo of its movement to reflect the passage of holiday seasons through the years.
“This show is definitely fun to do from a lighting standpoint,” says Marcario. “

Japan - Ayrton reports that Tokyo’s Studio Tanta chose the French manufacturer’s lighting products for its rehearsal studios. The successful installation includes 10 Ayrton NandoBeam S3 units, six WildBeam R fixtures and four Arcaline 2 100 battens which were permanently installed in Rehearsal Studio-C.
Studio Tanta is an impressive seven-storey building which took five years to build from planning to completion. It has two recording studios, a rehearsal studio, two artists’ rooms, and a restaurant. Hibino Lighting, Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Japan, was responsible for the supply and installation of the Ayrton fixtures and a lighting console.
Takahisa Hasegawa, the owner and CEO of Studio Tanta, comments: “It has always been my long-term goal to build a large-scale studio in Tokyo so, before designing Tanta, we went on a study trip to visit famous s

The Netherlands - Navarone, one of the best, most energetic and appreciated rock bands in the Netherlands returned to their home base in Nijmegen, launching their fourth studio album with help from the new CLF Orion hybrid.
Lighting designer Roy Baarslag was looking for an extensive floor setup to emphasise all the accents in Navarone’s dynamic musical style. “The band wants me to create a lively and energetic show with a lot of variety. I needed fixtures that offer a huge amount of effect versatility, so that’s why the CLF Orion definitely caught my attention.” A powerful light source and efficient optics enable the Orion to produce heavy mid-air effects. “Their output really surprised me, sometimes I even had to reduce it to achieve a balance with the house rig.”
In addition, the extensive feature package of the Orion was a useful tool for Baarslag. “I

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