UK - A searing exploration of power, control, death and life, The Master Builder opens at The Old Vic theatre this evening. In this lively new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic play, the show stars Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes as master builder Halvard Solnessand and has been adapted by award-winning playwright David Hare. White Light is supplying the equipment on what promises to be an unforgettable production.

Following its opening performance, The Master Builder will run until 19 March 2016. It is being lit by Hugh Vanstone, who is working on the play for the first time. He comments, "This is a fantastic piece that deals with many dark and sometimes unexplained strands. Throughout the evening, the mood veers from naturalism to heightened reality an

UK - The Theatres Trust reports that five small theatres in London will benefit from the first round of its new London Theatres Small Grants Scheme, made possible through a donation from the Mackintosh Foundation.

The five successful projects are:

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) in Wandsworth is awarded £5,000 to replace their temporary wheelchair ramp leading to the café / bar and first floor performance space with a new permanent ramp. This improves access to BAC and contributes to the major Haworth Tompkins-led BAC capital redevelopment and restoration project.

Bush Theatre in Hammersmith & Fulham is awarded £5,000 to repair the pitched roofs and dormer windows of their former Old Library building. These repairs help to maintain the condition of this locally listed theatre's façade.

The Cockpit in Camden is awarded £5,000 to repair their leaky

Germany - After half a century, German hard rockers the Scorpions are still playing live all over the world and showing no signs of slowing down. Ticket demand for the 60 shows of the band's 50th Anniversary world tour in 2015 was so great that more than 30 extra dates have (so far) been added for 2016.

With Yamaha CL5 digital consoles available to rent wherever they go - even in the Faeroe Islands - the cost and logistics of touring are kept down and the band can continue taking their music to their fans - in even in the most remote territories!

Achim Schulze and Glen Schmeling - respectively the band's front of house and monitor engineers - first used the CL5 in 2013, when the band played three MTV Unplugged shows at the open air Lycabettus Theatre in Athens. Supplied by Hamburg-based Blue Noise and supported by the company's chief audio technician Michi Gerhards, three CL

Namibia - The first dot2 XL-F lighting console has recently entered Namibia, a new investment by leading full production solution and rental company, dB Audio Namibia, based in capital Windhoek.

The company is active in all areas of corporate and entertainment live event production - from boardroom meetings to stadium concerts - which is currently a buoyant and developing sector in Namibia.

dB Audio Namibia's David Benade explained that the decision to purchase the dot2 was made by a combination of people from company's management and lighting department, including himself and head of lighting, Desmond Coetzee. It is also dB Audio's first MA purchase. They had been considering getting a new console for some time, then an extremely busy peak event season started to ramp up and decided the time was right to make the commitment.

The dot2 XLF was delivered by MA Lighting's So

Germany Rock band KARAT's recent acoustic tour featured an old school rock and roll floor package lighting design by LD Michael Kiefert programmed on the latest addition to the Philips Strand Lighting line of consoles, the 500ML.

The band - who formed in 1975 and celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2015 - played such cities as Cottbus, Magdeburg and Wismarin in venues of varying sizes. Kiefert therefore needed a versatile control solution and so turned to the compact and intuitive 500ML, supplied by Philips Entertainment German distributor Feiner Lichttechnik.

"When planning this tour, my main interest was to use a console with the ability to include local venue lights," explains Kiefert. "With the 500ML I was able to shrink the setup to one single universe, which meant I could use the second universe to accomodate the floor package and swap between the two w

USA - Technical Productions, Inc. has added award-winning lighting/set/production designer Seth Jackson as a full time member of its executive creative team.

"This is a huge step forward for both of us, and we're both able to service our existing and potential clients better because of this synergy," says Michael O'Keefe, CEO of Technical Productions Inc. (TPI). "For Seth, he has better facilities at his disposal and the support of a full service office. And TPI gains full-time access to his design talent - Seth is absolutely one of the most creative designers working today."

This merger comes at an opportune time for both. "TPI is expanding in a lot of new areas, and we need what Seth brings to the table on a daily basis, from conceptual ideas to final design," he says. "At the same time, Seth found himself increasingly in demand and spend

UK - To continue its dedication to supporting the lighting and stage technology markets in the Middle East, ETC is introducing Darren Beckley as its new regional manager for the area. He brings to ETC many years of experience working in the industry and across the Middle East.

In his new position, Beckley will be responsible for the sales territory that includes the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq. He will be based out of ETC's London office, with much of his time spent in the Middle East, working in symphony with ETC's distributors, dealers and integrators.

The son of a theatre manager, Beckley spent much of his childhood in the theatre, which sparked a lifelong passion for the entertainment industry. After completing his studies, he did a vocational apprenticeship in mechanics and engineering, where he gained valuable fabrication a

The Netherlands - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will be showcasing a selection of the very latest products available from their vast portfolio of over 200 marques and five specialist sales divisions - on stand 7-A220 at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2016 tradeshow next week.

Chroma-Q's premium performance lighting solutions are designed and built in North America, and have been adopted by many leading designers and specifiers for some of today's most demanding and prestigious lighting applications, from Broadway to airports. The stand will showcase the award-winning Inspire family of colour-changing LED house lights, which enables users to integrate practical illumination requirements with their artistic vision. In addition, catch the innovative Color One 100 LED PAR, which features a fully homogenised beam delivering above PAR performance from one source, and t

USA - With only weeks away until the music industry gathers for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Nashville's Grammy chapter gathered for an evening of celebration with nominees such as Little Big Town, Ashley Monroe, Point of Grace and Mr. Talkbox.

Bandit Lites provided a lighting package for the event with Chris Lisle Lighting Design and Erik Parker as programmer. Clay Paky's Scenius fixtures helped to set the mood for the evening, with some placed in the media room for texture along the back wall while others were placed in the gathering space with a small stage and cocktail tables. VL 2500s were loaded with custom Grammy gobos and projected in each room along with an additional 2500 fixture as a special on the stage.

GRN Battens and ColorBlazes illuminated the set pieces in the media room, while Par 64s and Lekos provided general washes on both the step and repeat and the s

USA - High End Systems and LightParts have announced an updated agreement between the companies for service and repair of High End's Legacy products. Since their inception over a decade ago, LightParts has served as the authorized service provider for the automated lighting manufacturer's early fixtures. Products such as Intellabeam, Emulator and Dataflash raised the bar for performance in the industry by continuing to operate decades after their introduction, in part due to LightParts continued service and support of these fixtures.

The new agreement has been expanded to include the second wave of High End's 'Legacy' lighting instruments; the expansive list of products covered includes Trackspot, AF1000, Studio 250 and 575 Series, Studio Beam, x.spot, Hog 500/1000, SHOWGUN, Studio Command series, DL 1/2, Hog 3 console series (including RH3, FB3 and wings), Cyberlight and Cyber

UK - Kevin Hart is one of the most in-demand comedians in Hollywood, having starred in countless films such as Think Like a Man and About Last Night, in addition to several TV and stand-up appearances. He has also been making considerable waves on the other side of the pond.

As part of his What Now? stand-up comedy tour, Hart recently headlined two sold-out shows at London's 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. Tour lighting designer Ken Delvo turned to Chauvet Professional's Rogue Series to provide stunning wash effects for the shows that were every bit as smooth, fast and multi-faceted as the star performer's comedic style.

Delvo specified 24 Rogue R2 Washes and eight Rogue R1 Washes for the shows from London-based SXS Event. So confident was the LD in the Rogue's capabilities, that, in fact, they were the only wash fixtures to be specified on the entire lighting rig. H

Australia - Lexair Entertainment has announced that it has entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Elation Professional for Australia and New Zealand.

Alex Mair, managing director of Lexair Entertainment, comments, "Elation is a very strong and exciting brand to add to Lexair's portfolio. Sitting alongside High End Systems, Green Hippo and TMB, the Elation product family fits within our vision to offer entertainment lighting customers in the region a much wider breadth of quality products, offering the 'one stop shop solution' our customers expect in the current market. We are very excited and proud that Elation has chosen us as a long term partner in Oceania, and we look forward to bringing their extensive, high quality product range to our customers, delivered with the same best-in-class service and support we are known for."

Chuck Green, internatio

UK - For more than 25 years, the charity Children on the Edge has helped marginalised and forgotten children living on the edge of their societies. Working in partnership with local communities, they create safe, friendly environments to ensure that those who may possibly be ignored receive the childhood they deserve. The organisation is constantly looking to raise funds to support its work and recently held a fundraising evening as part of Chichester Festival Theatre's Winter Season. With its strong reputation in theatre, along with its frequent charity work, White Light was asked to provide its support on this occasion.

The fundraiser, entitled Spotlight on the Edge, was held on Sunday 24 January at the Festival Theatre, Chichester. The evening featured a colourful array of music, songs and dance, with all of the proceeds going directly to the work of Children on the E

UK - The family business of ASG Stage Products Ltd. has been sold; hence the current directors Stan, Marion and Paul McFerran will no longer be involved, effective from close of business on Friday 12 February 2016. The new owners will retain the ASG name, personnel and premises, so for suppliers and clients, most business will continue as normal.

Says a statement, "The company has been purchased by one of our primary suppliers and installation partners, Daniel Slade, managing director of Lighting Controlled, together with other investors. They will focus on the well-established name, customer base and 43-year history of ASG to further develop the scope and complementary services offered by the combined companies.

ASG has been successful over many years, but the time is now right for the present directors to move on, allowing ASG to progress and grow with a new dynamic m

UK - Hastings-based LED lighting specialist CLD - part of the Penn Elcom Group - has supplied Osram Colormix Protect Flex IP67 rated LED tape, complete with drivers to a spectacular swimming pool lighting installation at a private residence in Northamptonshire.

This was specified by CLD's Nigel Howes and Razvan Vasiliu in close conjunction with Keith McCormack of KM Specialist Electrical Services from Banbury, Oxfordshire, who delivered all the electrical installation elements including lighting control design, specification and installation of the project.

The new pool area is designed by architect Juliet Colman from Towcester, Northamptonshire. It has involved the complete refurbishment of an existing building the construction for which was undertaken by RC Spencer building contractors.

The Colormix Flex is ensconced in a series of recessed ceiling coves around the styl

UK - Cable specialists VDC Trading have recently supplied essential cabling assemblies to Paul Hatt at CS Audio for the 2016 Massive Attack Tour.

Paul explains, "I've worked with Massive Attack for the past few years mixing monitors, and also supplied equipment for their 2014 festival tour via my company, CS Audio. VDC Trading manufactured a new 64 channel splitter and line system for that tour, which I was very happy with.

"I was invited to work with the group again for the current European tour, for which again CS Audio are providing the monitor system & stage package.

I felt the time was right this time to invest in a new multicore system, and so approached Adam Jafrabati at VDC to assist with this."

The band is visiting a wide variety of venues on this leg of the tour, using house PAs in the smaller places and bringing in PA for the bigger rooms, and

UK/USA - After 25 years of working at Allen & Heath and being an integral part of their Xone DJ division, Andy Rigby-Jones left the company in 2014 and partnered with Richie Hawtin to combine their expertise and vision to create new innovative instruments for the DJ and electronic music market.

Over the past two years, the pair have been developing and testing their first prototype of an instrument that they feel is missing from the professional segment of the market. Assessed at various leading worldwide events including ENTER.Ibiza, Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix in Los Angeles last month, the first prototype has already seen a number of iterations and is nearing completion.

At the recent NAMM show (Anaheim, California), the pair revealed their PLAYdifferently brand, a partnership with the Audiotonix group, known for their strength in audio engineer

The Netherlands - German connectivity specialists, DirectOut, will be presenting a number of updates to their existing product range at ISE 2016. All updates are available for download from the DirectOut website at www.directout.eu

The first is updated firmware for DirectOut's MONTONE.42 MADI-to-AoIP bridge based on RAVENNA audio networking technology. Fully AES67 compliant, the device is equipped with four MADI and two gigabit network ports. The new firmware supports 32 RAVENNA/AES67 compliant multicast streams. Up to 256 channels are available per stream and up to 256 channels are possible, making MONTONE.42 a highly versatile link for broadcast, live sound and studio applications.

New firmware is available for the M.1K2 scalable 16-port MADI router. M.1K2 offers a powerful routing matrix for up to 1024 x 1024 audio channels that fills the gap effectively between small-sca

UK - CP Electronics has announced the launch of its first range of smartphone apps which will enable contractors and end users alike to control their lighting remotely.

Suitable for infrared-enabled mobile phones working on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and above, the UHS7 and UHS5 apps will replicate the functionality of their handset counterparts. Broadly, users will be able to raise and lower lighting levels, turn lights on and off and select scenes - all from a smartphone.

Available from Google Play Store, the intuitive user interface also provides information around basic programming and installation of CP Electronics' infrared enabled devices. Consistent with CP's mission to deliver sustainable, energy-efficient lighting controls solutions to the market, the two new apps allow for the possibility of energy and cost savings by granting customers complete control over their lig

UK - FBT UK has announced the launch of a new addition to the FBT Vertus range, the CLA active, portable line array system. Featuring high quality B&C neodymium drivers in steel reinforced birch ply housings and driven by advanced Class-D amplification, the Vertus CLA system offers a stylish, highly versatile, easy to use line array for demanding applications.

The new system is built around the CLA406A, a metal braced, birch ply enclosed line array column housing four custom 6.5" (165mm) woofers and a 1.5" (35mm) large format B&C neodymium compression driver with a 2.5" (64mm) voice coil - the combination operating across a frequency range of 65Hz-20kHz. The specially designed waveguide has a horizontal dispersion of 100° and 25° vertical. The height dimension of the waveguide allows excellent vertical control.

Powering the CLA406A is a convection cool

UK / UAE - London- and Dubai-based Maestra Group, specialist in premium event production, design and solutions, has made a large investment in new sound, AV and lighting equipment for 2016, which follows the launch of the new Maestra London office on 4 January.

This is to ensure the London office hit the ground running as business has, as anticipated been brisk in the first weeks of the year, and also to consolidate and boost the production resources available in Dubai.

SMaestra London has spent around half a million pounds on sound and AV technology which includes a range of d&bs Y, T and E series speakers complete with associated rigging accessories for all the flying and ground-stacking options, plus their new D20 proprietary amplifiers and Y-SUBS.

A selection of Sennheiser 2000 range of wireless radio mics join the audio inventory together with DPA headset mics and se

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