Lighting

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UK - Specialist LED lighting manufacturer GDS has announced the creation of a new service department. By offering bespoke service contracts to end-users of its installed products, GDS aims to ensure that systems run smoothly and reliably and that potential problems are pre-empted by its onsite engineering team.
Service contracts will extend existing product warranties and are offered at affordable rates which guarantee onsite fixes, emergency cover and replacement parts.
The support offered by the GDS service department also includes help and advice regarding all other existing systems and consultation in respect of upgrades or new LED installations.
(Jim Evans)

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USA - Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) has announced the appointment of entertainment lighting executive Brian Friborg as head of its Entertainment Lighting Group. The appointment of Brian, an experienced leader with a deep understanding of the unique requirements of the entertainment lighting business, is a clear signal of the company's commitment to this specialist sector, says the company.
Danish by birth and a United States resident, Friborg has over 25 years of business experience, including 14 years at Martin Professional in North America where, as president and CEO, he had an outstanding track record in developing sales performance. After the company's acquisition by Harman, he played a key management role in the integration and in establishing the Martin by Harman brand.
"I am excited to join Signify and to help fulfil its enormous potential in our wonderfu

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will demonstrate its extensive portfolio of leading theatrical technologies - including new lighting, rigging, audio and video products from Chroma-Q, Spotlight, Follow-Me, Sixty82, BroadWeigh, Tourmate, Sennheiser, Shure and Green Hippo - at the ABTT Theatre Show 2018 this week. Highlights include:
Lighting: Chroma-Q's premium performance Color Force II LED cyclorama & effects light, and Inspire XT RGBW LED house light - both multi award-winners - and new Studio Force II high output variable white fixture; ProLights' Eclipse LED Fresnel in a choice of white colour temperatures, plus various effects lighting models; a preview of Spotlight's Hyperion 6-colour LED Profile and Fresnel, alongside many other theatrical LED fixtures; Follow-Me's remote follow spot control system for harnessing multiple moving lights from any brand i

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UK - The PLASA 2018 Members’ Day and AGM took place on Thursday 31 May at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, London to reflect upon a year of specialist projects, industry collaboration and growth.
Members and guests enjoyed a productive day with an insightful AGM, followed by a networking afternoon in the venue’s unique ‘physic’ garden. The lively guest speaker, Caroline Russell from The Ideas Centre Group, encouraged audience participation with her creative approach to problem-solving, then attendees were invited to stay for drinks into the evening.
PLASA Treasurer Mark Surtees presented the 2017 accounts and announced that PLASA is in a place of financial stability, highlighting an increase in profits due to commercial growth within Events and Media. Newly elected Chair, Adam Blaxill, added later that all profits funnel back int

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USA - On the press junket for the premiere of special effects-laden Pacific Rim: Uprising, David Kane and Brian Fisher of Kite & Key Technologies used a special effect of their own: the new High End Systems’ SolaFrame Theatre. Kane and Fisher, working with production company Junket Productions, Inc. were blown away by the quality of the light, its extensive gobo pack, and the fixture’s biggest superpower: its quiet operation.
“Typically, any place where sound is critical - such as the shooting suites at press junkets - are a no-go zone for automated fixtures,” says David Kane. “But the SolaFrame’s dead silent operation allowed us to put the fixtures right next to the talent, and the sound department never even knew they were there.”
Press junkets are one-on-one sessions meant to create a sense of intimacy between the interviewer and

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USA - St Paul held its annual Winter Carnival from 25 January to 10 February, a winter tradition the Twin Cities area has marked annually since 1886.
This year’s celebration was especially well attended as it happened to coincide with the throngs of guests in the area to celebrate the 2018 Super Bowl. The St Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation of Minnesota brought event production company Showcore in to design and run the event’s nightly light shows, which included illumination of a 70ft tall ice palace using Elation Professional IP65-rated lighting.
The massive St Paul Winter Carnival Ice Palace was built out of ice blocks harvested from a lake in Minnesota and constructed in Rice Park in downtown St. Paul.
Showcore used Elation SixBar 1000 IP LED battens within the structure to glow the palace walls; IP65-rated Proteus Beam moving heads to shoot moving pi

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Germany - Christian von Kaphengst, Till Brönner, Wolfgang Haffner, Torsten Goods, Bruno Müller and Ida Nielsen are just some of the well-known German and international artists to have graced the stage at Musik Kontor in Herford – a high-profile club that has been making waves on the Nordrhein-Westfalen music scene since opening its doors in 2012.
Looking to stay on the cutting edge of entertainment, the club recently updated its visual presentation with a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures. Emphasising movement, intensity and vivid colours, the new lighting package includes Rogue R1 Spot fixtures, with Amhaze Whisper foggers added for atmospherics.
“We arrived at a point earlier this year when we decided it was time to inject more feeling into live performances with a set of dedicated moving heads,” said Musik Kontor’s Christian Eder. “The combina

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World - American rockers All Time Low know how to deliver high-impact, adrenaline-fuelled arena shows. Backed by a huge, fractured LED screen and stadium-scale lighting rig, their current world tour is a blaze of eye-candy glory.
The band's long-time lighting designer, Jeff Maker, is armed with an Avolites Sapphire Touch console networked with a bank of media servers for complete lighting and video control.
"I'm obsessed with getting things perfect - I needed to programme a punchy and exacting lighting design that worked with the video wall for maximum impact," says Maker, who collaborated with the band and video content creator Oliver Hutchinson to achieve a slick, solid and synchronised show aimed squarely at enhancing audience experience.
For the tour's recent UK leg, ZigZag Lighting supplied Maker with the Sapphire Touch. The LD is a big fan of the console'

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China - PR Lighting has released a new weather-proof LED wash luminaire, Polaris (PR-6805).
An IP67-rated fixture, Polaris has seven 15W RGBW 4-in-1 SMT LED lamps, with a colour temperature of 3200K-10000K. Each pixel is independently controllable.
Other features include: electronic strobe (0-25fps, with preset strobe pulse effect); dimmer (0-100% linearly adjustable); Rainbow, Wash, Beam Spot modes (swirl, kaleidoscope), with many macros and unlimited mixed colours; 4°-40° light angle; bi-directional and continuous rotation of front lens module; 14-channel control (standard mode), 39 channels (extended mode); DMX wireless control function; overheating protection.
The net weight of Polaris, is just 8.4Kg, and the first batches are expected to ship in mid-June.
(Jim Evans)

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Germany - The 2018 edition of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS) featured another eye-catching lighting design created by the show’s long-term LD Manuel da Costa and Jonas König of MDC Lichtgestalten, utilising over 100 Robe Pointes which were supplied by Magic Light+Sound from Cologne.
Manuel has been involved with the top TV series since the very start in 2002. It was again recorded in studios 30 and 31 of the Coloneum complex in Cologne and broadcast on RTL’s Saturday night prime time. Now the 15th series, DSDS has become one of the most successful shows on German TV.
The set was designed by Florian Wieder of Wieder Design who also has a long-standing relationship with the series. He always produces a spectacular, multi-layered environment fusing interesting structural and geometric elements with innovative video and digital aspects.
This year

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UK - With a string of recent hits such as Chewing Gum, The Best You Had and Somebody Special, Swedish-Scottish singer Nina Nesbitt has earned critical success both in the UK and throughout Europe.
After a successful string of US concerts, Nesbitt recently returned for a UK tour. Lighting designer Ollie Wilkinson, managed to craft equally catchy visuals with the help of Chauvet Professional Maverick MK Pyxis fixtures supplied by Arranpaul.
After searching for a fixture to complement his existing rig, Wilkinson decided to utilize the Maverick fixture’s dual beam and wash features to provide something special to round off his lighting concept. "I wanted a fixture that could be used to fulfil a number of practical functions in addition to providing eye candy," commented Wilkinson. "After considering a number of options, I decided to give the Pyxis a

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UK - MBSi, the Pinewood MBS Lighting innovations think-tank, has collaborated with Chroma-Q in the development of the Brute Force - a new LED alternative to a quarter Wendy light.
Extending the Chroma-Q range of energy efficient products, this new fixture has been rigorously tested by PMBS in a variety of ‘real world’ scenarios to ensure optimal functionality across a variety of applications.
The technical teams at both companies worked closely together to create a true LED full colour RGB-W lamphead that draws just 15 amps @ 240V. Robustly designed and fully dimmable, the Brute Force has an extended CCT range between 2,000K and 10,000K. Each unit features 96-way mappable pixel control with RDM, DMX and optional wireless operation. For greater flexibility, the on-board multi-point fixings allows units to be easily combined to form a full Wendy.
Although devel

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UK - ETC and High End Systems will be side by side at the upcoming 2018 ABTT Theatre Show, marking the first time that High End Systems has exhibited at ABTT since joining the ETC family last year.
Visitors can indulge in the renowned ETC ABTT Theatre Show hospitality on stand B40, while speaking to representatives about the many products on display. There will be an opportunity to see several new releases, including the Element 2 console and ColorSource Pearl luminaires. The affordable and easy-to-use Element 2 offers the award-winning Eos software with an interface and price point that is accessible to a broad range of users and venues. ColorSource Pearl fixtures feature cold and warm white LEDs for a seamless colour temperature range, from 2,700K to 6,500K. Available in PAR, Spot and Linear configurations, they boast the same user-friendly interface as their established

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Portugal - The Eurovision Song Contest lighting designer Jerry Appelt, working alongside stage designer Florian Wieder, specified a total of more than 600 GLP lighting fixtures for the mega event.
Among the most impressive elements of the show were eight rings, set within truss circles over the audience area, for which Jerry Appelt used the KNV Arc modules from GLP for the first time on TV worldwide. "The most secret light in the world", as production manager Ola Melzig described the modules, at the same time making no secret of how powerful these modules really are. "They're damn bright,” he said, describing his first impression. “It's best to put on the sunglasses before these things come on."
GLP product manager, Michael Feldmann, explains: "The KNV is a modular LED system and combines strobe, blinder and pixel block. There are two basic shapes, the cube-shaped

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UK - Europe’s largest digital marketing conference, the Adobe Summit EMEA 2018 returned to Excel London earlier this month. Creative technical event production expert, Hawthorn was once again chosen by agency Taylor Bennett Partners to deliver the full technical design and production for the two-day event.
Focused on the future of digital marketing, over 5,500 delegates from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa gathered to hear the latest’s updates from Adobe Marketing Cloud and its partners.
Led by group creative director Pete Harding, Hawthorn was tasked to bring Taylor Bennett’s impressive vision to life, delivering the technical production for the main conference plenary, exhibition space, break-out rooms and the Summit Celebration evening event.
Hawthorn collaborated with Cinimod to create a spectacular 6m interactive projection mapped globe that

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Portugal - Ampco Flashlight played a major role as supplier of all lighting, rigging, video and motion systems for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.
Preparations started as early as October 2017. The dedicated team of commercial, technical and logistics specialists, working closely together with local Portuguese partner Pixel Light, laid a solid base for a flawless production in the Altice Arena. Build-up started early April and ended with a 60-hour speed load out.
Over 2500 fixtures, almost four kilometres of truss and a huge amount of, cabling, dimmers, distro’s and a state of the art data network was used in this massive TV production attracting over 350m viewers worldwide.
Marc van der Wel, project director, commented: “It was very exciting being part of the team, and seeing how our specialists put so much effort, experience and knowledge into this proje

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North America - Media and real-time visual processing specialist ArKaos has widened its distribution network in North America by appointing Elation Lighting as a distributor in the USA and Mexico.
Elation will be promoting, distributing and servicing all ArKaos PRO’s video server range and the MediaMaster software.
ArKaos MD Agnes Wojewoda comments: “With the on-going diversification of our product range, ArKaos wants to become established in the segments like architecture, architainment, churches and houses of worship, television and broadcast. Elation is a well-established independently owned company with an excellent base, track-record and contacts network.” 
A.C. Lighting, which was ArKaos’ exclusive distributor in North America since 2012, will continue to support and supply existing US customers and remains the brand’s exclusive distributor in

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USA - AV Stumpfl will allow InfoComm visitors a first look at their next-generation media server software solution PIXERA, scheduled to be released later this year. The 64-bit system for real-time media processing, compositing and management is built around the key theme of usability.
Users can gradually discover the options and features and can smoothly transition from being a beginner to becoming a specialist. Actions in the 2D and 3D space follow the same mechanisms. The system was designed so that users can execute the most important basic actions in record time and with only a minimum of effort.
A radical new interface logic enables even first-time users to intuitively understand the main software mechanics.
AV Stumpfl global business development manager Horst Damoser explains what makes PIXERA so special: "In order to have a real impact on the highly

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USA - Ultra Music Festival, turned 20 this year and the occasion was marked, in part, by big beam lighting effects from an array of Elation Professional IP65-rated Proteus Beam moving heads that lined the top of the festival’s Main Stage.
Production and lighting design for the Main Stage was by The Activity, their ninth year of involvement with the festival. The Las Vegas-based production and design firm, headed by lighting veteran Patrick Dierson, wanted to do something special for the festival’s 20th year and chose the Proteus Beam for a prominent look
“Because this was Ultra’s platinum anniversary we wanted an element within the design that would specifically represent its 20 years of celebration and the Platinum Beam’s bigger brother, the Proteus, seemed like the perfect choice,” stated Dierson, who served as lighting and production designer on this ye

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UK - Taking in selected venues, Tokio Myers, who stunned the judges to claim victory on Britain's Got Talent has been showcasing his genre straddling fusion of classical and contemporary musical experiences on stages across the UK.
Collaborating closely with Vision Factory show designer, Sam Tozer, the VER London operation has supported the tour with a comprehensive video, projection and lighting package that helped realise the designer’s creative vision for the shows. Set against a 9 x 4m upstage LED wall, the show blends live performance with filmed footage, cutting edge graphics and intense colour that silhouettes the artist at work.
Speaking about the show’s visual elements, Sam says: “Tokio Myers Our Generation tour design revolved around the basic idea of cinematography and immersing Tokio in a halo like parallel cube of light. I found using VER high

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UK - Eaton’s Zero 88 will highlight its FLX range of consoles at the ABTT show on stand E23 in the West Hall at London’s Alexandra Palace next week (6-7 June).
The all new FLX S24 and FLX S48 consoles, the original FLX and the ZerOS Wing will be demonstrated at this event. The desks will run with the latest ZerOS 7.9.4 software.
FLX S24 is a new console that runs up to 48 LED, moving lights and conventional fixtures and is easy to learn and straightforward to use, delivering huge flexibility and multiple features at an affordable price.
FLX S48, also new, has double the power of FLX S24, offering intuitive and hands-on control of up to 96 fixtures, and a touch monitor output for quick access to palettes / show overview. The quantity of available playbacks, groups and palettes are all also doubled.
Both FLX S24 and S48 are portable, powerful controllers

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USA - After recently expanding its inventory with a large complement of Claypaky Scenius Unico and Mythos2 fixtures, Elite Multimedia Productions has provided a portion of that equipment to Cole Swindell’s nationwide Reason to Drink Tour.
The country singer-songwriter kicked off his headlining tour in Allentown, Pennsylvania in February and wrapped the first leg in LA in April. He resumed the tour a month later in Austin and will continue to play dates across the country through September. Nashville-based Elite Multimedia is the production provider for lighting, LED, video and IMAG video support.
Production designer James ‘Mo’ Butts deploys 16 Claypaky Scenius Unico and 24 Mythos2 fixtures for the tour. His design for the show, in which video plays a key role in the storytelling, depicts Swindell’s evolution as an artist from playing cover songs at a c

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USA - Pomona College’s Seaver Theatre is tucked away near the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains outside LA. The school’s leafy campus is reminiscent of a New England Ivy League institution, with academic standards to match having been ranked among the top 10 colleges by Forbes and US News & World Report.
The college holds an attraction for visiting designers in the form of a lighting system that’s been enhanced with greater colour-mixing and zooming capabilities thanks to the addition of 60 COLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour fixtures and 14 Ovation B-2805FC cyc lights from Chauvet Professional.
“Excitement and joy have been the main reactions to these lights by the designers who’ve used them,” said Janelle Asti, the master electrician and sound engineer of the school’s Department of Theatre and Dance. “The designers who have come in and used our new fix

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Europe - Singer-songwriter Adel Tawil is again on tour in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Prior to the tour, he used a number of festival appearances to present his current album So Schön Anders before embarking on an extensive theatre tour that ended with three sold-out arena shows last autumn. These included all the essential production elements of his other shows.
The man responsible for the lighting design is Bertil Mark, who wanted to implement a symbiosis of clear spaces and chaos. Production rehearsals took place over three days at Black Box Music in Berlin, where most of the band now resides, and where the lighting designer now runs his own studio.
"Since the band is well-rehearsed, we were able to use the three days in the rehearsal studio almost exclusively for the design," reports Bertil Mark with satisfaction. "I had listened to the album in adva
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