Lighting

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UK - Edinburgh Fringe Festival returns for four weeks of innovative, provocative and entertaining new theatre and performance embracing all genres.
Over 100 x Zero 88 lighting consoles - including the new FLX range and a variety of legacy products - are working hard across the 300+ venues running in and around the city during the event, and the company has once again been at the forefront of offering comprehensive onsite training and support.
At least 25 of Eaton’s new Zero 88 FLX S range consoles alone are involved, just nine months after the desk was launched.
Zero 88 consoles and control packages are featuring at some of the busiest and most popular venues, with FLX range products at Assembly, Underbelly, Gilded Balloon, Summerhall and Pleasance, all of which offer multiple performance spaces throughout the Festival, each staging approximately eight to 10

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USA - The Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa, AL was originally a depression-era public works project. It opened its doors in 1938 as a combination city hall/movie palace and quickly became a symbol of its community’s determination to prevail during challenging times.
Now a state-of-the-art performing arts centre, Bama Theatre hosts over 200 shows a year, ranging from full-scale Broadway-style productions and music recitals, to dance programmes and film festivals. Supporting this diverse range of offerings is a flexible lighting rig featuring Chauvet Professional fixtures.
David Jones, the facility’s technical director, reports, “I have been working at the Bama Theatre in some capacity since I was 15, which is 26 years ago. I started with audio only and in the last 15 years or so I delved more into lighting. I started diverting most of my funds to improving the lighting

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UK - The Three Festivals Tall Ships Regatta 2018 saw a fleet sail from Liverpool to Dublin and then on to Bordeaux. Marking the fifth time Liverpool has hosted a Tall Ships event, extensive celebrations were very much captain’s orders and Stage Sound Services who, complete with Green Hippo tech, was on duty to deliver a brace of projection-mapped light shows.
Taking place during late May Bank Holiday weekend, the two events brought the power of projection mapping to huge audiences. In Birkenhead’s Hamilton Square, the Stage Sound Services team, working with the creative at Illuminos, used a pair of Hippotizer Karst Media Servers to help map a spectacular show - inspired by Birkenhead’s people, places and history - on to the Town Hall.
The same team also put on another example of projection mapping in Liverpool’s Cunard Building - one of the three graces of Live

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Israel - Ninja Warrior is a sports entertainment competition that features hundreds of competitors who attempt to complete a series of obstacle courses of increasing difficulty in a bid to make it to the national finals and become a ‘Ninja Warrior’. The format originated in Japan and has since been sweeping audiences off their feet in hundreds of countries.
After gaining immense popularity worldwide the television format has finally landed in Israel, with the Israeli version hosted by Asi Azar and Rotem Sela.
The exhausting obstacle course was built at the Haifa Port in two weeks with a team of over 80 professionals using 4.5 tonnes of trusses. The rigging and obstacle course were built by the production riggers who arrived from the US and accompany the production worldwide.
Gil Teichman from Lighting Design Systems was in charge of lighting and sound.

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France - For the main celebrations for the French National Day in the centre of Paris on 14th July, pyrotechnics company Groupe F contracted Belgian firm Laser System Europe to stage a spectacular lighting and video display. In turn, they went to PR Lighting’s IP catalogue, drawing heavily on the Aqua range.
These annual celebrations traditionally kick off with a formal military ceremony, followed by a huge military parade down the Avenue des Champs Élysées and flyover by military aircraft. This is followed by a spectacular fireworks and laser / light and video show at the Eiffel Tower on the Champ de Mars, which starts at 11pm and lights up the sky for the next 30 minutes, to the amazement of crowds reaching some 700,000 people.
Laser System Europe were working at the event for the first time, projecting the same show onto two faces - one the Champ de Mars and th

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USA - Rock band Slightly Stoopid is bringing the party to the people with their Schools Out for Summer Tour. Known for their signature blend of reggae, punk, rock and punk sound, the band tours extensively every year, with Pollstar ranking them in the top 20 summer tours for the last two years.
Bandit Lites is once again providing the lighting package for the band, who dropped their ninth studio album, Everyday Life, Everyday People mid-July. Lighting designer Scott O’Connor wanted to design a rig that was simple and clean, but bold.
This summer’s production evoked the look of a backyard house party, giving the audience the sensation they’ve dropped in on an epic summer bash.
Bandit Lites supplied a lighting package consisting of festoons (a feature O’Connor shared as his favourite look), Martin MAC Viper Profiles, Martin MAC Auras, GLP X4S

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UK - ER Productions has announced the appointment of Jean Pierre Jammaers to the role of project manager. He joins ER with over 10 years of experience in the lighting and production industry and was the lead in lighting the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the Chinese New Year Celebrations in 2016 and 2017. He has also produced various installations for light festival Vivid Sydney.
Alongside Jammaers, George Baker has been appointed as special effects project manager for the organisation. Baker has over eight years of experience within the live events sector and has delivered special effects for international stars, including Robbie Williams, and for a number of popular festivals.
Based in the London office, the duo will be responsible for managing the communication for worldwide client projects, ensuring lasers and special effects have been successfully delivered for

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South Africa - DWR Distribution will host a grandMA2 training course this month.
Presented by Jannie de Jager from DWR Distribution, the grandMA2 Advanced Training will be held on 16-17 August from 9am to 5pm in DWR’s Johannesburg office. The cost is R2,550 per person and includes lunch and refreshments. Delegates are requested to supply their own grandMA2 console and laptop for the MA 3D Visualiser.
After completing the training, participants should be able to programme and operate mid to large-scale productions using advanced techniques including building macros, timecode programming, advanced effects, XYZ programming, moving data between shows and building custom fixtures.
The training takes place at DWR Distribution, Block C, Unit 1, Kimbult Industrial Park, 9 Zeiss Road, LaserPark, Honeydew.
To book your place, please visit the DWR Distribution web

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USA - Indie pop/folk rock band Rainbow Kitten Surprise are touring with High End Systems SolaFrame 750s as the focal point of their production. Described as Kings of Leon meets Modest Mouse, the North Carolina band is selling out venues on their 2018 tour, How to: Friend, Love, Freefall.
Cour Design’s Erik Anderson and Gordon Droitcour of Nashville designed the show, specifying the SolaFrame 750 LED automated fixtures from tour vendor 4Wall Entertainment for its wide range of features in a compact unit. “We have been very happy with the SolaFrame 750s,” says Anderson, citing speed and multi-functionality on a small club tour as key reasons for their spec. “They are doing a whole lot of work, since overall this production is quite minimal.”
As this was the first tour with production for RKS, Anderson says the design key was to balance the aesthetic and

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Malaysia - CAST BlackTrax has appointed Acoustic & Lighting System (A&L) as its South East Asia distributor.
A&L serves the local market as well as Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand through a network of nine offices and 200+ staff. It already represents Avolites, Claypaky, disguise and Luminex among others.
Andrew Gordon, BlackTrax director of business development, comments: “BlackTrax has already executed over 9,000 events around the world, but we continue to look for strategic opportunities to grow the business, and the South East Asia market represents a considerable market potential. A&L is the ideal team to help us establish a strong presence in the region. Their extensive experience, technical expertise and commitment to customer support represent what we strive for in a partnership.”
Eugene Yeo, general manager of Acoustic & Lighti

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UK - With the exceptional summer in the UK, festival season has been basking in a bumper year.
For the first time, this year, Gunnersbury Park in West London has seen part of the festival action, hosting Lovebox and Citadel festivals which took place in mid-July. Pearce Hire continued working with their client MAMA Festivals (a Live Nation company) as long term contractor at these festivals, supporting the festival re-location with their temporary power infrastructure and site lighting services.
Jake Vernum, project manager for Pearce Hire, explains: “At Pearce Hire we relish a challenge, and know the team at MAMA Festivals incredibly well - this being our eighth year working with them on these festivals. With a well-established format for Lovebox and Citadel, we needed to ensure that we played our part in providing a seamless transition

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New Zealand - Bay Audio Visual recently upgraded their lighting inventory with Martin by Harman RUSH MH 7 Hybrid fixtures, which were supplied by Show Technology.
Bay Audio Visual is an AV production company that works on a range of indoor and outdoor events from the Coromandel to the Whakatane regions, including concerts and conferences, rentals, sales and installations.
In order to service their wide range of clients, Bay Audio Visual needed to update their inventory with a flexible and affordable fixture capable of creating lighting effects for everything from corporate events to live concerts. To achieve these goals, Bay Audio Visual reached out to Show Technology, who suggested Martin Professional RUSH MH 7 Hybrid fixtures for their versatility, power and dynamic effects capabilities.
"The versatility of the RUSH MH 7 really appealed to us," said Jordan Ba

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Belgium - Thomas Boets has been creating spectacular production designs incorporating lighting, set and video for Belgium’s high-profile gay techno party La Demence for several years, and has known the phenomenon’s mastermind Thierry Coppens for over 20.
Regular La Demence parties are staged throughout the year including three large weekenders that currently include a ‘main night’ in the 11,000 capacity Palais 12 at Brussels Expo centre. This challenges Thomas to produce an epic look and ambience as a suitable backdrop to 12 hours of techno and non-stop raving.
The most recent one coincided with Pride Weekend and Thomas populated his lighting rig with around 200 Robe moving lights.
Assisting Thomas in glamming and glittering up the lumens were 24 x Robe LEDBeam 150s, 48 x LEDBeam 100s, 24 x BMFL WashBeams, 18 x Spiiders, 48 x Pointes and 48

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UK - Currently playing to packed audiences at Trafalgar Studios in London’s West End, Tracy Letts’ black comedy Killer Joe is the queasily gripping play that’s got everyone talking. Full service technical production company Hawthorn is supplying lighting equipment to the production which sees Orlando Bloom take to the West End stage for the first time in more than a decade.
Killer Joe follows The Smith family who plot to murder a wealthy matriarch and claim her insurance money. They hire Joe Cooper (played by Orlando Bloom), a detective who doubles up as a part-time hitman, to go through with the job, but the plan takes a turn when Killer Joe meets the family’s innocent daughter.
Hawthorn have worked closely with the show’s lighting designer Richard Howell to supplying lighting equipment to his specification.
“All of the action plays out

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UK - A host of Blackpool’s famous entertainment venues have upgraded to Avolites consoles and dimmers to supercharge their new season shows.
Perhaps best known are the Blackpool Tower Ballroom, which has enhanced its control ability with a Tiger Touch II and The Winter Gardens, which has purchased Quartz and Tiger Touch II consoles.
The Blackpool Tower Ballroom hosts the hit show Legends, which features tribute performances to icons including Elvis, Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury.
Oliver Wilkinson, from entertainment lighting specialist ArranPaul, supplied the Tiger Touch II (TTII) to Legends and designed and programmed the show, which is run nightly by in-house operators.
“This is an energetic, fast-paced show, along with some beautiful dramatic moments and solos - it’s certainly not a ‘flash and trash’ experience,” says Wilk

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USA - Lighting designer Justin Townsend is using Elation Professional lights more and more since his first experience with them on the Broadway musical A Night with Janis Joplin. The multi award-winning and Tony-nominated LD was recently one of the first designers to use the new Artiste Picasso LED moving head, employing them along with the company’s ZW37 LED moving head on the record-breaking premiere of the musical Jagged Little Pill, featuring the music of Alanis Morissette.
The world premiere of Jagged Little Pill ran for 79 sold-out performances - 5 May to 15 July - at American Repertory Theatre’s Loeb Drama Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the longest run of any production at the theatre. The show, which incorporates music from Morissette’s 1995 Grammy Award-winning album such as Ironic and You Oughta Know, is an original story tha

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South Africa - DWR Distribution has announced details for its annual Vectorworks Training presented by Francois van der Merwe in September at DWR Distribution in Johannesburg.
Basic training will be held on 17 September and will cover the fundamentals of Vectorworks, Layouts, Palettes, Basic Tools, Classes and Layers. The cost for this one-day training session is R850.
Intermediate Training will be held on 18 & 19 September, with a focus Preferences, Basic Spotlight, Basic Renderworks and Intermediate Tools. The cost is R1 700.00.
Advanced Users are invited for training on the 20-21 September. The course will cover Working Planes, Advanced Modelling and Advanced Renderworks. The cost is R1 700.
Training will be held every day from 9am to 5pm and will be hosted at DWR Distribution, Block C, Unit1, Kimbult Industrial Park, 9 Zeiss Road, Laserpark, Honeyd

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USA - R&B rising star R.LUM.R, played That Tent at this year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, beneath an Elation lighting rig supplied by Genetic Productions.
Most known for his breakout 2016 single Frustrated, the former classical guitarist is a multi-talented artist whose debut EP Afterimage showcases his passionate vocals and insightful lyrics.
Genetic Productions served as the design firm, crew provider, and gear provider for R.LUM.R's Bonnaroo performance, a setup that included Elation Artiste DaVinci and DARTZ 360 moving heads along with IP65-rated Paladin hybrid lights and ACL Curtain battens.
Genetic has been working with R.LUM.R for about four months now and Bonnaroo was their first live performance with him. “We worked with R.LUM.R and his management team to integrate a new design that utilized custom-

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USA - Philips Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam luminaires have been selected to enhance the current Legacy of The Beast European tour by Iron Maiden. The VL6000 Beams are helping to convey the production’s set-piece themes and proving a complement to the heavy rockers’ richly-designed stage show.
Lighting designer Robert Coleman chose fixtures to reproduce the ‘classic’ look of an Iron Maiden rock show. The production features three distinctly themed but equally spectacular sections. Beginning with War, the set then changes to a stunning cathedral interior, and finally to Hell – and the broad reflector face and punchy output of the VL6000 Beam fits the bill.
Coleman makes full use of the VL6000 Beam’s heavy duty output. “They are incredibly powerful - they’ve been hitting the back wall of the stadiums,” he said. “And the beam doesn’t loo

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USA - Harman Professional Solutions recently equipped Princess Cruises Golden Princess with a full complement of Martin by Harman lighting fixtures.
Golden Princess is a grand-class cruise ship accommodating 2,600 passengers and 1,100 crew members. In addition to a main atrium, guest rooms, formal dining rooms, high-end restaurants, swimming pools, children’s recreation areas and a miniature golf course, the Golden Princess features multiple live entertainment venues.
The 1000-capacity Princess Theatre and two intimate show lounges host a wide range of live events including musical performances, Voice of the Ocean talent shows and major original productions including several created in partnership with Stephen Schwartz - Oscar, Tony and Grammy award-winning composer of Wicked, Pippin and Godspell.
Princess Cruises recently decided t

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Sweden - Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Centre (Stockholmsmässan) is a expo and conference facility in Älvsjö comprising four halls, the longest of which stretches 365m, and a busy schedule of events.
The venue owns a substantial amount of rigging and production technology and has a full-time staff of 25 riggers, overseen - together with crew from all the other technical departments - by head of production Fredrik Zetterberg.
Over the last two years Stockholmsmässan has invested in 48 Robe moving lights - 36 x VIVAs and 12 x DL4S profiles, specified by Fredrik.
When he took up the post six years ago, his predecessor had identified the need for and had made the first steps towards purchasing their own moving lights to give them a fully flexible in-house lighting rig to support the diversity of shows and events being staged.
Fredrik followed

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Belgium - Kozzmozz, on of Belgium’s leading EDM festivals, continues to grow after 23 years on the international calendar. Providing visual support for this year’s event was an intense and hard-edged lightshow by Vince de Schinckel that was power-driven by Chauvet Professional Maverick and STRIKE fixtures, supplied by Euro PA.
De Schinckel deployed eight Maverick MK2 Washes and eight STRIKE 1 multi formatted fixtures to create a hard-hitting industrial look that reflected the festival’s music. While the term “industrial” is often used to describe the atmosphere evoked by the harsh, stoic and unforgiving beats of techno, it fit de Schinckel’s design equally well.
“For the techno lighting concept, I took inspiration from the linear and angular elements within industrial architecture," said de Schinckel. "I was able to combine the different looks of my fixt

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Namibia - The 2018 Namibia Annual Music Awards (NAMAs), an annual awards ceremony set up to recognise accomplishment in the Namibian recording industry, was broadcast live on Namibian national TV and saw the work and creativity of some of the best and most talented artists, performers and music producers rewarded in 24 different awards categories interspersed with 12 live performance showcases.
Production designer and technical director Micky Lehr and his team from Eventplus have been involved with the NAMAs since 2015 and were involved once again. South African LD Kurt du Preez was asked to design the lighting and around 140 Robe moving lights were prominent on the rig at the Dome in Swakopmund.
These were supplied by Namibian rental companies dB Audio and Mikel-Jes Productions plus MJ Event Gear from Johannesburg. All of these rental specialists have

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USA - When Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, the duo that is Sugarland, got together to record their new Still The Same album, they pulled out all the stops, even having Taylor Swift do some song-writing and appear in one of their music videos.
Sugarland carried this enthusiasm over to planning the 2018 summer tour in support of their new album. Nettles, who had worked with lighting designer Chris Lisle on her solo tours during the duo’s time apart, called on the Nashville designer to come up with some out-of-the-ordinary festive looks for the 48-city tour.
Lisle and his team at CLLD, which includes associate designer and programmer Erik Parker, obliged, conveying the excitement of the duo’s reunion in light with help from 22 Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrids, supplied by Bandit Lites.
“During an early discussion with the artists, they mention
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