USA - Quickly becoming on the of the hottest stars in country music today, Cole Swindell has recently set out on the What the Hell World Tour with fellow country music superstar Dierks Bentley. Fresh off his very successful Down Home Tour, Swindell and his production team were looking for a fresh tour design to take on the road in 2017.
Once again working with tour provider Elite Multimedia, production manager James “Mo” Butts began the process of finding the ideal tour design and in the end, it was the creativity of Sooner Routhier at SRae Productions that was chosen to highlight the Academy of Country Music award winner.
“When we started outlining the new tour design we chose four designers that we really felt were doing great work and asked them to submit design proposals for a completely new production design,” began Butts. “As an artist, Cole loves video

USA - Versatility is a key ingredient in any lighting rig that Creative Production & Design builds for a multi-artist show. This was especially evident recently when the Austin, Texas-based company created a lighting and video show for CRUSH Dallas 2017, part of a four-city Insomniac production. Their immersive, high octane rig engaged the packed house at the South Side Ballroom, while also supporting the diverse musical styles of artists on stage, thanks in part to a massive collection of PVP X6IP LED video panels from Chauvet Professional.
“My business partner Justin Jenkins and I always try to make our show designs flexible and well rounded,” said Dan Wyatt of Creative Production & Design (CPD), who served as the production manager and designer on the project. “This event was no different. Not only did we have DJs like Yellow Claw that just need a table full

USA - Country music star Brantley Gilbert has launched The Devil Don’t Sleep tour playing arenas in North America through early spring in the first leg. Nathan Alves and Howard Jones co-designed the show, which features Claypaky Scenius, Mythos 2, Sharpy and Stormy Strobe fixtures.
The tour supports Gilbert’s new album of the same name. Jones’ company, Nashville-based DCR, is supplying all of the show’s equipment; it has provided gear for Gilbert since before his first record deal. The tour marks Alves/Jones second collaboration for the artist.
The Devil Don’t Sleep is a departure in design from Gilbert’s recent tours. “In the past tours used truss structure to define a shape, like the motorcycle motif for last year’s tour,” Alves explains. “Now we’re using digital scenery with videowalls front and center. That gives us more flexibility to take hi

USA - The Nashville Municipal Auditorium hosted the Youth Evangelism Conference in March. Bandit Lites provided the lighting package for the event for Orchestrate Experience with lighting designer Trey Meares and Orchestrate Production director Alex Fleming. Featured guests included Dave Edwards, The Skit Guys, Luke MacDonald and the YEC Worship Band.
Due to the audience size and the nature of the conference, Meares created an 'in the round' setup to an end stage in the arena, giving attendees the maximum amount of impact, while still being mindful of the calling of the conference. “Lighting always has the ability to drive the ‘mood’ of the room, and I make an effort to not let the technology overpower the message that is being delivered by the organisation,” Meares shared.
“On the other hand, lighting can make the room exciting for the attendees and can als

Mexico - Chauvet Mexico has opened a new office, warehouse, service centre and showroom facility in response to “rapidly increasing demand for its products among dealers and rental houses”.
Speaking at the ceremony, Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet, thanked Carlos Zamora de Martino, general manager of Chauvet Mexico, and the entire Chauvet team. “The hard work, enthusiasm and talent that so many people have devoted to Chauvet Mexico has been remarkable,” he said. “We know that the tremendous results that we have achieved in Mexico the past year could not have been possible without contributions from so many people, and we deeply appreciate their efforts.”
Over 100 assembled guests representing dealers and production houses joined Albert and Berenice Chauvet at the grand premiere festivities, which featured a buffet dinner, speeches and DJ entertainment.

UK - Designed and built by the LED Creative in house Technical Team, the Byte Controller is a controller unit developed specifically to work in unison with the LED Creative Sigma product range.
Created to allow maximum artistic control with minimum programming time and a greatly reduced DMX footprint, Byte offers precise, intelligent pixel management, easily handling up to 300px per output or up to 1200px across an eight-output unit.
Accurate and flexible, Byte permits outputs to be addressed individually or grouped, thus solving several common ‘real world’ LED pixel issues by allowing control as individual fixtures, the same fixture or as part of grouped fixtures. For added variability, the system’s unique on board algorithms can manipulate built in effects to provide almost infinite, instantaneous results.
Commenting on the new units, LED Creative’s Ada

Australia - Lighting specialist Resolution X, a company based in Melbourne and Sydney with an impressive track-record of high-profile production services, has recently supplied White Night Melbourne with lighting and rigging services. White Night is an outdoor art festival that attracts over 500,000 attendees each year.
The team deployed over 25 W-DMX transceivers and receivers over the White Night weekend through several spaces, from the Royal Exhibition Building (REB) and surrounding gardens.
“Our control position was at the heart of the Carlton Gardens, where we had our new compact GrandMA onPC command wing Systems, running two separate W-DMX networks, each with a BlackBox F-1 G4S transceiver, and an 19dBi directional antenna,” commented Mark Hopkins, of Resolution X.
The first receiving point was 80m away, on a roof, feeding DMX to IP64 ShowPro Quad PARs,

UK - Situated at the heart of The University of Manchester’s campus, the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama recently underwent a significant refit, including the installation of a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient production lighting package, featuring a control desk, LED luminaires and power controls from ETC, and auditorium lighting from GDS, all supplied and installed by Stage Electrics.
An important arts venue for north-west England, the Martin Harris Centre offers students a fantastic space in which to study and perform, as well as hosting many professional musicians, performers and prize-winning authors. It provides an excellent space for contemporary and classic theatre, music and comedy events, and holds a reading series that has in the past featured such literary luminaries as Martin Amis, Will Self, John Banville and Clive James.
The project, which w

USA - Most of the fans who turned up at The Holding Company to hear a St. Patrick’s Day concert by the popular Irish band The Fooks were appropriately dressed in green. They weren’t alone. The well-known Ocean Beach music venue was also adorned in brilliant emerald, thanks to some imaginative lighting by Matt Collier and a collection of fixtures from Chauvet Professional and Chauvet DJ.
The touring LD for Brothers Gow, Collier took time off from the road to light the San Diego nightspot. He transformed its stage and exterior into a sea of green using Rogue R1 Spots and SlimPAR 64 par-style fixtures. “The Rogues and SlimPARs both render excellent greens, so it was pretty easy to create something that looked good,” he said. “It added to the spirit of the evening. Everyone wears green on St. Patty’s Day, but we got the whole building green, so it stood out.”

UK - Colour Sound Experiment supplied a lighting and video floor package for the latest run of live shows by talented music producer Bonobo (Simon Green), with a new lighting look for the stage designed by Will Thomas.
The tour is in support of Bonobo’s recent UK Top 5 album, Migration, released in January on independent label Ninja Tune Records. Will Thomas has previously worked on Bonobo’s extensive Black Sands and The North Borders tours, which culminated at the end of 2014 with a sell-out show at London’s Alexandra Palace.
Will has produced an energising and refreshing show to match the vibe of the music of Migration and its transitory themes. A major starting point for this was the visual material commissioned by Bonobo and produced by Strangeloop from LA, who also created the screen design which brought an architectural presence to the stage.<

Germany - The new Proteus line of IP-rated arc-source moving heads will headline an outstanding line-up of lighting innovations for Elation Professional at this year’s Prolight+Sound exhibition.
Both the Proteus Beam and Proteus Hybrid are now available. Proteus is a next-tier product line of IP-rated moving lights built specifically to empower designer creativity. Compact, robust and budget-friendly, Proteus fixtures are designed to unleash creative vision and excel under any conditions, says the company.
Proteus will debut alongside other Elation innovations like the new Artiste DaVinci, a full-featured and high-output theatrical-grade LED moving head spot luminaire. A number of other cutting-edge products are set to impress as well including the new Platinum 1200 Wash, Elation’s brightest LED wash to date, and the flexible seven-colour Platinum Seven LED wash l

UK - Winner of the 1991 Olivier Award for Comedy of the Year, Ray Cooney’s Out of Order is making a triumphant return to the stage. Starring television favourites such as Shaun Williamson and Sue Holderness, this classic farce will now embark on a nationwide tour. White Light is providing the lighting equipment on this production.
Out of Order tells the story of Richard Willey, a Government Junior Minister, whose plans to spend the evening with one of the opposition’s typists go disastrously wrong. This revival is being produced by Tom O’Connell and the lighting designer is Jack Weir. He comments, “Out of Order is a purposefully over-the-top, hilarious farce and typical of Ray Cooney’s work. The show takes place in real time, in the one location of a hotel room overlooking the London skyline. My role was to light the action and highlight the f

Austria - World renowned lighting designer Björn Hermann employed 60 x Claypaky Mythos2 and 20 x Claypaky Supersharpy2 to deliver two titanic light sculptures as part of global crystal producer Swarovski's Festival of Light, hosted at their seven-hectare fantasy park Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds) in Wattens, Austria.
Lead creative agency for Festival of Light was Berlin-based international creative production company StudioNOW, who originated the project's concept. StudioNOW worked alongside Hermann and German art collective phase7 to create an adventure park of sound and light that included the two colossal light sculptures crafted by the beams of Claypaky's award-winning long-throw arc lamps. The Mythos2 and Supersharpy2 fixtures were supplied to the event by German event production and rental specialist satis&fy.
"The inspiration for the project cam

UK - The European RDM and sACN Developers Conference and Plugfest for 2017 will take place Wednesday 26 through Friday 28 April, in the UK, at Gatwick Manor, London Road at Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport.
The Developers Conference provides a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and aims to ensure that the adoption of standards achieves the desired levels of interoperability and reliability. Conference sessions will cover the understanding, implementation and use of the published E1.20, E1.37-1 and E137-2 RDM standards.
Other projects in the current ESTA Technical Standards Program such as “E1.33 : RDMnet” and the E1.37-5 and E137-4 extensions will also feature. Updates on Art-Net and RDM will also feature.
The Plugfest is a hands-on opportunity for product developers to try out their hardware and code

Germany - LEDBlade is presenting its new generation LED strip, visual technology system to Prolight+sound. The system comprises both a straight component, the original LEDBlade Stripe, and the recently launched LEDBlade Curve.
Both will be showcased on stand A25 in hall 4. LEDBlade creates depth of space or three-dimensionality; it enhances edges, expands the visual area or links together to create any geometric design. LEDBlade adds extra dynamic to the video design toolkit.
LEDBlade Curves and LEDBlade Stripes can be used in any combination together – deployed as an independent visual item or integrated into a complex visual design – to create an impressive and memorable visual experience. For creatives and event designers, LEDBlade offers fast and easy mapping through any media server or projection control device, for a perfect image, on TV or live.
Handm

Germany - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will be showcasing some of the latest lighting innovations and related services from its extensive portfolio of over 200 brands, at Prolight+Sound 2017, Frankfurt, Germany, stand B25, Hall 5.0, 4-7 April 2017.
Visit the AC-ET bar to enjoy the company's hospitality whilst speaking to representatives from its International Sales Team about the choice of industry-leading and popular-selling brands available for a huge range of applications - including touring, theatre, venues, education, film & TV, corporate and other markets. The company can also supply audio, rigging and video solutions.
The stand will feature a selection of Chroma-Q’s recently launched lighting solutions. Products include the new, multi award-winning Color Force II batten range, which features proprietary homogenised optics to provide a superior R

USA - Shaping Sound, the mash-up of contemporary dancers, musical genres and dancing styles has returned to the road with a new production with Shaping Sound: After the Curtain.
Bandit Lites is providing the lighting package for the spectacle which is cultivated under the artistic direction of Emmy Award winner Travis Wall and co-created with Nick Lazzarini, Teddy Forance and Kyle Robinson. The dazzling show follows the story of a man as he struggles to come to terms with the loss of his one true love, his struggle to find his creative voice and grasp the reality around him.
Co-lighting designers Nathan W. Scheuer and Teresa Fensler created a plot based on a typical dance set up, with four booms for side light and spreading out overhead electrics for high sides and a good down wash.
“In dance, the most important aspect of the design is obviously showcasi

UK - Aliens have invaded earth and in order to save humanity you need to create a capsule with the best the human race has to offer – what would you choose?
That’s the very loose premise behind the new ITV show Harry Hill’s Alien Fun Capsule. Lit by lighting designer Martin Kempton, supported by Richard Martin Lighting, the show sees the responsibility fall to the wacky comic who gathers a panel of celebrities each week to deliver judgment on comedy moments, some of which are dug up from television gone by, some created in the studio to help fill the capsule. All to sway our new alien overlords to spare the human race.
The celebrity panel each week are put through their paces like all of Harry Hill’s victims in previous success TV Burp, with clips from television appearances dug up and commentated on with the dry and witty asides Harry is famed for.

Algeria - French lighting designer David Seligmann-Forest of Paris-based Lite4Life chose 10 Robe DL4S LED profiles to be right at the heart of his lighting rig for MasterChef Algeria, which was recorded in a new purpose-built studio and former envelope factory in El Hamis, a suburb of the bustling, vibrant capital of Algiers.
David was working as both LD and director of photography for broadcaster the Allégorie Group who produced eight episodes of the series plus the finale, which was a huge hit with the public. He is one of France’s leading TV lighting specialists and has also worked on the French version of the series, which a few years back gave him the initial opportunity to use the first generation of Robe’s then DLS units.
He has been a fan of Robe for some time and is a bit of a pioneer when it comes to introducing LED lighting into French TV. A coup

USA - Multi award-winning and Tony-nominated lighting designer Justin Townsend finds that he is using Elation Professional lights more and more since his first experience with them in 2013/2014 on the Broadway musical A Night with Janis Joplin. Currently, he is using Elation Satura Profile and Platinum Seven LED-based moving heads on the world premiere of Joan of Arc: Into the Fire, an exciting new Off-Broadway musical penned by David Byrne.
“Elation has stepped up in the last few years and you see Elation gear used more and more in theatre,” Townsend stated. “They have some fantastic products with great features and they make them very quiet as well. In an industry where more is more, the fact that you can afford twice as many lights with the Elation product is exciting. With more fixtures we get more colour and more effects on our productions. It’s a

China - A new three-day music festival, Dragonland, made its debut on the Hong Kong event scene recently.
Billed as the region’s first outdoor festival to combine pop with EDM, it joins Clockenflap as the only large-scale event of its kind in Hong Kong.
The venue was the Central Harbourfront - part of the latest land reclamation in the Victoria Harbour. where Clockenflap also took place last year. It is thus perfectly located on the waterfront - in the heart of Hong Kong Island - with the amazing skyline as a backdrop.
Promoted by Playerone, a crowd of 15,000 people per day had been estimated, and in terms of production AHM Engineering supplied 20 of GLP’s award-winning X4 Bar 10 battens and 90 impression X4, as one of the mainstays of the stage set.
On the opening day, Leon Lai, one of the four heavenly kings of Canto Pop, presented the latest in his P

USA - Chauvet & Sons LLC has announced the completion of the acquisition of ChamSys Ltd, the Southampton, UK-based designer and manufacturer of lighting controllers. ChamSys provides Chauvet a strong presence in the controller market that complements its Chauvet Professional lighting fixtures and LED video panels.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to join forces with ChamSys,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet & Sons LLC. “ChamSys has a well-deserved reputation for innovation, quality and value, the same principles that are at the heart of our own Chauvet brands. Together ChamSys and Chauvet are now in a position to better cover and serve worldwide markets.”
ChamSys will continue to operate as an independent business unit from its facility in Southampton, UK. ChamSys founders Chris Kennedy and George McDuff will remain as managing directors

World - In a bid for the title “The hardest working band in show biz”, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have 52 dates booked for The Getaway tour across the US, Canada, Europe, and Latin America. Such a rigorous schedule requires rugged and reliable lighting fixtures, which is one of the reasons why the tour’s lighting rig features the Solaris Flare.
“We have 22 Flares arrayed on moving torms across the backline, 11 of them with two Flares each,” says the tour’s programmer Leif Dixon. “The Flares are great because they’re bright, bright, and bright! We also use four more on the deck as shin-busters. They don’t get as hot as conventional lights, which can be disappointing if you’re looking to heat up tacos like we used to do with the old-fashioned lights.”
Dixon adds, “The Flares are also extremely reliable. We love that they can just be on for long dur

Estonia - The new Eesti Rahva Muuseum (Estonian National Museum) in Tartu has recently opened in a new single story state-of-the-art 350m long architectural masterpiece resembling a portion of a runway lifting upwards. It is built on the former Raadi Air Base just outside the cultural hub and second city of Tartu, and near to the site of the original Muuseum at Raadi Manor.
Around 100 x Robe LED fixtures – a mix of DL4S Profiles, DL4X Spots, LEDBeam 1000s and CycFX 8s have been specified and supplied for the Muuseum’s three main performance, event and conference spaces.
A government tender was issued for all the various technical elements. Andres Sarv, head of lighting at Tartu’s Vanemuine Theatre was brought in as a consultant for lighting and visuals, and he recommended the choosing of Robe after having an excellent experience with various Robe moving light and

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