Lighting

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USA - Although the recent total eclipse of the sun dominated headlines another celestial-themed event also attracted crowds in August. Moonrise, the annual EDM festival held at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course, drew fans to its four stages where an array of Claypaky fixtures supported a line-up of DJs, bands and rappers.
Moonrise 2017, which grew out of the Starscape rave in Baltimore, marked its fourth year at the Pimlico location. It ran from noon to 11 pm on 12 1nd 13 August. David Hauss, of Denver-based Hauss Collective, served as production designer and production coordinator, designing the festival and handling production management for the fan-filled weekend. Light Action Productions in New Castle, Delaware was the lighting vendor.
Hauss tailored the lighting rigs to meet the needs of each of the four stages. The Stellar Stage exclusively hosted D

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Europe - This month Metallica begins an extended European tour, shredding the continent through May 2018. While the music is Metallica’s own brand of traditional metal, lighting technology and control has come a long way since Metallica’s first gigs. The tour uses 50 Solaris Flare LED fixtures, and DMX distribution based around four ProPlex IQ Two 1616 Ethernet-DMX nodes, all supplied by Premier Global Production (PGP) of Nashville, Tennessee.
“The Flares are used 99% of the time for blasting the crowd,” says Geddy, PGP’s design manager. “Located atop the main centre cube structure and cable bridges, we’re hitting the audience all night with whites and saturated colours. About one-fifth of the Flares are the new brighter Q+ version, which we find mix perfectly with the original Flares.
“The Q+ Flares can be calibrated to match the earlier generation uni

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UK - Adlib supplied sound, lighting and rigging to two main arenas at Creamfields 2017 - CF03 (Armada / Mega) and CF05 ‘The Curve” - plus CF10, the all-important VIP and hospitality area.
The four-day festival was staged at its regular site on the Daresbury Estate near Warrington. Adlib was working directly for creative production specialist LarMac LIVE.
On site, the Adlib crews were led by Hassane Es Siahi (Hass) who also designed the audio in CF03 and Adlib’s Kevin Byatt who was project manager over all of the disciplines.
CF03 (this year co-hosted by Armada and Mega) is a large tent built on a slope presenting immediate topographical challenges in getting even sound coverage. Added to this, the tent skins were swagged - hammock style - over the king poles, creating further reflections, so dealing with the sonic detractions involved conscientious detailin

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Poland - Robe Actor 6 and PARFect 100 LED fixtures are installed as part of the architectural lighting at the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, one of the most significant Roman Catholic buildings in the country.
The Temple is in the final throes of construction bringing to fruition an idea that was first inspired in 1791 - shortly after the adoption of Poland’s first constitution.
The building project got properly underway in the trendy developing Wilanów district in the south of the Polish capital in 2002 - designed by architects Wojciech and Lech Szymborski.
Its capacious interiors – based on an 84m square base with four entrances - and imposing 60m high reinforced concrete columns that form the nave, culminate in a rotunda gallery and a central glass dome at the top, all making high visual impact and defining the space.
The pale coloured rend

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UK - The 40th anniversary of the PLASA Show saw its refocussed direction paying dividends, with an increase in visitor numbers, a sold-out show floor and a 25% increase in the number of audio companies exhibiting. Exhibitors reported continually busy stands and a high quality of visitor across all three days, with a particular increase in the number of international attendees, whilst visitors were pleased with the number of brand new products on show and the content rich seminar programme.
“The quality of the people was bang on,” says Mick Hannaford from the show’s platinum sponsor, Robe. “The amazing thing from our point of view was the amount of lighting designers attending, especially on the Sunday, and not just from the UK, but mainland Europe, too. It was a really impressive. Undoubtedly, the move back to West London is making that happen. Every time I looked, t

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USA - As part of the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game festivities, the FanFest is an indoor baseball theme park experience dedicated specifically to the fans of the game. With opportunities to take photos with MLB Legends, get free autographs, plus pitch, hit and run on an indoor baseball diamond, the FanFest is an event like none other.
Continuing the implementation of technology enhancements designed to heighten the fan experience, the producers once again worked with BaAM Productions and MSI Productions at the 2017 event, and together they created an LED video tunnel entrance using 3.9mm FLEXLite Plus from PixelFLEX.
“Major League Baseball made it known three years ago that they were going to implement a tiered series of capital improvements to the annual FanFest experience at the MLB All-Star Game,” began Tom Bollard, technical director, MSI Productio

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USA - The Maverick MK Pyxis derives its name from a constellation of stars in the galactic halo of the Milky Way. True to its celestial moniker, the newest member of Chauvet Professional’s Maverick family can produce an endless array of out of this world looks, thanks to a unique design that includes an outer ring of RGBW LEDs, a powerful zooming centre pixel, 360° continuous pan and tilt movement and a host of other performance features.
“The Pyxis blazes a new path in design possibilities by incorporating a variety of different design features in ways that have never been done before,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “Designers who we’ve shown Pyxis to have been shocked that one fixture can produce so many different looks.”
At the centre of the Pyxis is a single homogenous 60W RGBW LED with a fixed 3° beam angle. Surrounding this pixel is an outer

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UK - Eaton’s popular Zero 88 lighting control brand continues its winning ways - collecting a coveted PLASA 2017 Award for Innovation for the inventive ‘RigSync’ feature, a feature available with the latest version of its powerful and flexible ZerOS console software.
RigSync demystifies the work of DMX addressing for console users, allowing them more time to focus on being imaginative - while the technical elements sort themselves out via the console communicating with the lighting rig.
The judges commented, “RigSync opens up lighting creativity opportunities for non-technical people in an entry-level environment.”
The PLASA Awards for Innovation aim to recognize and reward new product ideas, and are independently judged by a task-force of industry specialists.
“We live in a world where smartphones assist in accomplishing numerous complex tasks

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UK - The Claypaky K-EYE HCR has won the Plasa Award for Innovation. The award is assigned by a strict jury made up only of expert professionals in the field, who carefully analyse the various products. It is a highly significant prize specifically because it places great emphasis on product innovation, which is one of Claypaky's underlying key values, around which all the company's design efforts and products revolve.
The jury gave the following motivation for the award: “A new approach to accurate colour rendering starting at chip level rather than manipulating existing sources.”
Pio Nahum, Claypaky's CEO, welcomed this acknowledgement with great pleasure and illustrated the original specifications behind the K-EYE's design: "For years, our most demanding customers felt the need for a light that differed from the others not so much for the number of special effect

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UK - It’s hard to imagine how the 40th incarnation of the PLASA show could have gone any better for Elation Professional. Capping an exceptional show, the company’s new full-featured Artiste Dali LED moving head and IP-rated Proteus Hybrid discharge-lamp moving head were both recognized as exceptional innovation with a PLASA Award for Innovation.
On hand to accept the awards were Elation president Toby Velazquez and Elation sales director Eric Loader. “This PLASA will always be special,” Eric Loader said shortly after the ceremony. “We’re humbled and honoured to have won two PLASA awards for product innovation. We continue to listen to designers and rental houses about their needs and continue to break the glass ceiling of perception that quality must be expensive by bringing innovative products to market with excellent price-value ratios. The Artiste Dali and Pr

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USA - Country music fans got a glimpse of the future on a warm August Georgia night at the Lady Antebellum Pavilion. There on stage, performing solos and as a group, were six budding talents visiting from Nashville. Having written hits for some of country’s biggest names like Luke Byran and Florida Georgia Line, the sextet was there to chase the dream, as performers. Supporting them with some colourful, evocative star-worthy looks was a John Berret designed lightshow that utilized 35 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Quest Sound & Productions.
“People familiar with country music know that quite a few stars got their starts writing music for established artists,” said Berret. “The musical talent on stage was pretty awesome. My goal was to give them a look that reflected their talent as well as their potential. I wanted to evoke the stardom yet to come.”<

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Germany - Ahead of the Sturmfahrt tour to promote their new album, hardcore fans of Eisbnrecher (Icebreaker) flocked to their own festival under the name Volle Kraft Voraus ‘Full Force Ahead). Billed as Eisbrecher and Friends, the band invited artists like Lord of the Lost, Combichrist and And She Came into the Ratiopharm Arena in Neu-Ulm to join them for the occasion.
Rain Age was technical service provider for the high-profile event, while LD Martin Heining is also one of the long-time associates of Eisbrecher. "I've been supporting them for a long time and am responsible for the set and lighting design as well as for the special effects at the shows,” he reports. “It was only logical to work together with them on this festival as well.” In fact, it is becoming almost a full-time job for Heining, because the upcoming Sturmfahrt tour and his commitment to VNV Nation

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UK - Philips Lighting has announced that its support of London's Arcola Theatre in staging the popular Grimeborn opera festival helped the venue with its ambition to become carbon neutral. At the same time, the lighting rig also providing lighting designers with a dynamic, beautiful and consistent quality of light.
Arcola Theatre aims to become the world's first carbon neutral theatre, so being able to use low-energy, high-quality LED stage lighting fixtures from Philips Entertainment Lighting contributed a significant advantage to the production of Grimeborn. Arcola estimates that the inclusion of Philips Lighting's LED technology in the Grimeborn lighting rig delivered a 36% power-saving.
Philips Selecon PLprofiles and Philips SL BAR wash lights augmented Arcola's existing lighting equipment. "This dramatically reduced our power consumption," say

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UK - SLX has announced the launch of its new student bursary scheme. The scheme is aimed at second and third year lighting design, technical and event management students across England and Wales, providing five successful candidates with equipment, support and opportunities throughout the academic year.
SLX has supported and sponsored students in many ways through its history, employing student casuals, offering sponsorships and apprenticeships across the business.
Jo Sunners, business development manager at SLX describes the inspiration behind the scheme: “We’ve decided after a few months of consulting with drama schools and industry professionals to launch a new way of supporting the next generation of talent in our industry, something myself and SLX are extremely passionate about. I’m really excited to work with and support the successful applicants in the

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UAE - Dubai Opera, located in what is claimed to be 'the most prestigious square kilometre in the world' in Downtown Dubai, has recently purchased 37 x Claypaky A.leda B-EYE K10s as part of a technical upgrade to the event space's lighting rigs.
Dubai Opera is considered a masterpiece of contemporary architecture. The 'dhow-shaped' building, designed by architect Janus Rostock, houses a flexible, 1900-seat venue which can be transformed into a theatre, concert hall or 'flat-floor' event space.
"Dubai Opera is a first-rate venue and we present and produce top-quality performances," explains Geoffrey Wheel, technical director of Dubai Opera. "Our audiences expect a high standard, and as such we always strive to be the best. We therefore invest in the very best equipment and this is demonstrated in our stake in the Claypaky brand. Its products are of an excellent quality."

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UK - Wayne Howell, founder of Artistic Licence and the inventor of the Art-Net ethernet lighting protocol, has been honoured with the 2017 Gottelier award at the PLASA London show.
Named in memory of Tony Gottelier, the renowned industry innovator and commentator, this annual award recognises product developers who have made significant long-term contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology.
Wayne Howell founded Artistic Licence in 1988. He was a major contributor to the development of DMX512-A in the 1990s, and released his free, public domain Art-Net protocol a few years later. Art-Net is now in its fourth version and has been adopted by hundreds of manufacturers worldwide.
Wayne has continued to expand and diversify the Artistic Licence brand, and is well known for his books, articles and seminars.
Artistic

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Europe - Depeche Mode’s Global Spirit Tour sees the band crossing the globe in support of Spirit, their 14th studio album. During the European leg alone, the boys will play to 1.5m fans in 32 cities in 21 countries. And at each venue a pair of Hippotizer Boreal Media Servers will provide the technology required to manage the show’s video playback.
SRae Productions, the full-service design and production company owned by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long, takes charge of the tour lighting direction for Anton Corbijn’s production design. Commenting on the Global Spirit Tour, Sooner described some of the duties she and her team demand of the Hippotizer gear: “For Depeche Mode, the Hippotizer is a playback machine. We used the system for IMAG effects on the rear wall. We also used the colour block system in some way, shape or form. We trace the screens to give them

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South Africa - Visiting South Africa, and in fact the African continent for the very first time, Oliver Ronshausen, service manager from MA Lighting, presented an elaborate three-day Advanced Service Training session to the DWR Distribution technical and support team.
Oliver joined MA in 1994, and with only a four-year interruption in between, really is part of the family. “I love the MA team, the product, being around the users and distributors and making friends in the industry,” said Oliver who in August last year started pushing service training to new and more structured level. “The training is to educate and enable people in the field to do repairs but the important thing, really, is maintenance. The feeling I have is that many MA owners don’t realize that they have to maintain their consoles in order to operate shows with a reliable product.”
The comp

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UK - Sundown Festival returned to Norfolk Showground for the seventh year this September and Hawthorn once again supplied lighting for the main stage. Attracting a 40,000 crowd, the three-day festival was the biggest ever and featured Craig David, Pendulum, Rag’n’Bone Man and You Me At Six.
Hawthorn supplied the Main Stage flown lighting system, including rigging, drapes, FOH control systems and followspots. On top of this, the company also provided a custom designed lighting package for Saturday’s headline act Craig David and another for Pendulum, who brought the festival to a spectacular close on the Sunday night.
Hawthorn’s head of concert touring, Mick Freer, led the project and consulted with the lighting designers for this year’s headline and supporting acts to produce a design that brought together all their precise requirements.
“The LDs provi

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USA - “Magic is what we do, Music is how we do it,” Jerry Garcia once told an interviewer. Had the Grateful Dead frontman been around to see the fantastical transformation of his namesake forest at the recent Lockin’ Festival, he undoubtedly would have agreed that there can be quite a bit of magic involved in lighting too.
S. Jeremy Peters turned the thickly wooded ‘Garcia’s Forest’ around Lockin’s Terrapin Station Stage (named after the Grateful Dead’s mystical 1977 album) into a transcendental canopy of colour with 150 pixel-mapped IP65 par fixtures that he controlled with his ChamSys PC Wing and Playback Wing.
Peters, the owner of SJP Productions, hung between three and five lights on over 30 trees in the forest. The glow from these fixtures radiated throughout the woods, colorizing other trees and creating a wonderland around the stage. Using modifi

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UK - PLASA 2017 proved a lively, energetic and vibey hub for meeting the UK’s lighting and visual designer community and other creatives commented Robe UK’s MD Mick Hannaford, words echoed by the moving light manufacturer’s CEO Josef Valchar, stating, “We have enjoyed seeing many individuals, companies and organisations from all over the UK as well as several from Europe – the quality of the visitors and the networking opportunities were really excellent this year!”
The annual trade show was again staged at the Olympia exhibition centre in west London over three days, with Robe’s large, high-impact stand right at the heart of the domed ceiling hall, attracting massive attention with a specular dance / light performance live show.
This year, the product focus was on Robe’s just launched MegaPointe multi-functional moving light.
Another stunning boo

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UK - Chroma-Q has appointed Paul Pelletier as global brand manager for Chroma-Q. Pelletier is a 30 year veteran in the performance lighting industry working for industry leaders, most recently Martin Professional in the role of solution manager. Bringing with him extensive experience working with key brands, Paul has been an integral asset in brand development and marketing. He has worked closely with product development, sales, marketing and technical support to develop products, as well as to promote and sell these products within the lighting marketplace.
Reporting to Jean-François Canuel, managing director for the Canadian Operations, Paul will provide the direction to promote and continue the growth of the Chroma-Q brand, with support and training for clients and users. He will also work closely with Chroma-Q’s R&D team to create forward-looking, succe

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UK GDS announced at PLASA 2017 the creation of GDS Korea, a GDS manufacturing and design office in South Korea.
Following its creation, GDS has secured leading lighting supply and integration company, Hansam System Co Ltd as its exclusive distribution partner.
Richard Cuthbert commented: I am extremely pleased to be working with Hansam System and the team in South Korea. With an unparalleled system integration knowledge, it is the right choice for GDS theatre and lighting products. I very much look forward to improving the technical quality of theatre spaces in South Korea, and driving standards higher, as GDS has a long-standing reputation for doing.”
(Jim Evans)

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UK - Sunday 17 September marked the 10th anniversary of the prestigious Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards, held at the Eventim Apollo in London. During the dazzling evening event, 24 respected designers were 'knighted' - and bestowed with the iconic KOI sword.
The event was skillfully compered by the inimitable Ola Melzig, an internationally renowned technical director perhaps best known for his tireless work on the annual Eurovision Song Contest - the world's biggest televised music event.
More than 500 entertainment technology industry professionals gathered together to celebrate the achievements of the many international lighting and video designers whose work on shows across the UK earned them a coveted place on the shortlist for this year's KOI Awards. The winners are as follows:
THEATRE
Winner of The ADB Theatre Award for Plays:
  1. Dropkick Murphys and Rancid fuelled by Chauvet
  2. LumenRadio is ARRI’s new wireless platform
  3. Ayrton appoints regional sales manager
  4. PLASA Show returns this Sunday for 40th anniversary edition
  5. Robe at the Colours of Ostrava festival
  6. SGM luminaires for the ultimate water spectacle
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