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14 March 2016

Lighting designer Martin Beekhuizen used no less than 16 RJ Aramis 2500W followspots on Amsterdam's biggest party night of the year as huge audiences flooded into the Amsterdam Arena for the 11th Toppers in Concert extravaganza.

Billed as 'the singalong festival of the year', the annual event filled the massive arena - home of Amsterdam's Ajax football team - for five nights at the end of May 2015. Audiences of over 70,000 people per night - dressed in white with 'a colourful touch of summer' - sang along with Dutch superstars, Gerard Joling, Jeroen van der Boom and Rene Froger, and special guest stars Danny de Munk, Edzillia Rombley, Andre and Roxanne Hazes, David Bisbal and Village People, at this bright, bold

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14 March 2016

The Awards, which celebrate the creative talents of international lighting and digital content designers working in the UK in the sectors of TV, Theatre and Concert Touring and Events, is delighted to welcome industry heavyweights: OSRAM, Ambersphere Solutions, MA Lighting, Hawthorn, Robert Juliat, Ayrton and XL Video, who have generously supported the Awards for several years running (some since its inaugural year). Alongside them are FIX8Group and Light Initiative, who are new to the event. The ceremony will take place at East London's Troxy club on Sunday 4 October.

"We are very proud to be sponsors of the KOI Awards. It is an amazing ceremony which last year we were very happy to attend," says Valére Huart-Gyors, Ayrton. "Seeing the most

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14 March 2016

To prepare for the opening of the Xiqu Centre, the WKCD and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts are working together on a number of experimental shows being staged at the Academy, where they can test the staging, seating and equipment. ETC LED luminaires feature prominently in the programme, which is being used to shed a new light on the classic operas.

Lighting designer Billy Chan integrates western stage ligh

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14 March 2016

FitzGerald has used Ayrton fixtures on several shows for Mars, including New Year shows at The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas and NBC's Saturday Night Live. FitzGerald's lighting for Mars' one-off Rock in Rio set, however, was an evolution of his designs for the singer's previous shows. "I wanted to create a similar visual vibe to the SNL show but was looking for something very specific that would bring an almost retro lo

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14 March 2016

The school's musical theatre troupe was the first in the state to perform the spectacular Tony Award-winning new musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It.

E2i Design's Josh Holowicki passionately supports the school's theatre in a number of ways - as vice chairman of the board of directors, as volunteer technical director and scenic designer, and as producer. As the technical director, he's responsible for all audio, video and lighting.

"We recently redesigned the entire lighting system in the theatre, investing in 36 Color Force 12 units for the house rig," says Josh. "We use them for cyc lighting as well as general stage washes, and without a doubt they are a spectac

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14 March 2016

"I talked to many sound engineers that I trust about our options, and I decided to go all the way on our biggest stage with Leo," says Aberg. "We have very strict limits on sound outside the festival grounds, with fines for any breaches, so we needed a system that could effectively cover large areas at high levels, but with precise control. The LEO system achieved this goal - I could hear clear, powerful music all the way to the back of the huge crowd."

Main hangs for the Festival Stage were 15 Leo-M

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14 March 2016

With facilities that are second to none and with close industry ties including the famous puppet makers Mackinnon & Saunders and Aardman Animation, the Stop Motion Animation degree course is extremely popular with students wishing to pursue a career in stop motion animation.

But while the department boasts first class facilities and equipment which enable students to get real hands on experience, Manoubi Ben Lamri, the university's specialist technical instructor for animation, had one issue he wanted to solve - how to de-clutter the small studio spaces and enable the students to move more freely around their sets.

Following a chance meeting with Doughty Enginee

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14 March 2016

The award-winning dance festival takes place in Banffy Castle, a 14th century monument in the Romanian village of Bontida. Twenty-two of the powerful Showline strobes, supplied by ASC Systems, were an integral part of the main stage rig, where such big name acts as The Prodigy, Rudimental and Fat Boy Slim performed.

"We've been suppliers to the festival since its first year," says ASC Systems' Raluca Dumitru. "This year several of the lighting designers asked for LED strobes in their brief and so we chose to invest in the SL NITRO 510C. We were confident in our decision on account of Philips' fantastic reputation for high quality entertainment lightin

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14 March 2016

Working with lighting designer Theo Cox, Aurora supplied lighting, rigging and crew to the production to create an on stage lighting spectacular to complement the existing installation at the beautiful medieval venue.

Keeping the power requirement low and the green credentials high, a variety of LED products were deployed including Martin MAC Aura and MAC Quantum Wash to add colour and movement to performances by The Definitive Rat Pack, who kicked off the show with a touch of Vegas, followed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Rigby.

The low power approach was augmented by generator provider Midas who ran Biodeies

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14 March 2016

The tour's "Big Bang" name says it all. So does its tag line The Creation of Color. Asking the big question, "How did colour come to be?" the tour is built around a story line of the world's colour being imperilled only to be rescue

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14 March 2016

The Heaven structure was built organically by Andrew Cross and his team, onsite at the festival, only a few days before the event, and the construction is different every year.

The wide, wooden structure consists of 419 tessellated triangles, which were mapped using photogrammetry and stitched into two composites - one a 2D map and a second 3D model.

XL's technical team, led by Christian Dickens, collaborated closely with Nick Diacre, and together they selected XL Video's Avolites Ai media servers for the project. Their plan was to explore Ai's abilities and to test its live mapping skills on an organic structure. In addition, th

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14 March 2016

The main elements of Brilliant Stages' construction comprise a main stage with apron and artistic performer staircases, a multi-level band stage backed by a series of nine box lifts, an upper stage with an integral service lift, and a forestage with piano lift, all of which connect to a runway which loops out into the arena to a B-stage.

As usual, Take That are delivering a full-on production, this time with a high degree of theatricality and a large number of performers in support of the main artists. The consequence is a set which demands as much activity below stage as on-stage - a major feature which Brillia

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14 March 2016

In our current digital age, these numbers may seem quaint, but in 1985, there was no World Wide Web, no email, no live blogging and no Twitter. Most people still listened to music by listening to the radio or playing vinyl records and cassette tapes; compact discs only became widely available this same year.

The event was a spectacular success, though not without its problems. Satellite links between London and Philadelphia failed several times. But in an ultimate triumph of technology and good will, the event raised more tha

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14 March 2016

The Radisson Blu Resort Goa Cavelossim Beach traded its holiday atmosphere for one of hi-tech visualization and industry-leading projection. Throughout an action-packed two-day event, Barco offered its local business partners a series of workshops and hands-on product demos. "Staying abreast in a fast-evolving industry is not always easy," says Mandar Gupte, Barco E&C sales director. "Hence we took this opportunity to give our business partners a comprehensive overview of recent trends and new product launches."

Barco along with High End Systems turned the venue into a blank canvas onto which several of its newest solutions could shi

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14 March 2016

The event was staged over two days at Shoreham Airport in Sussex near Brighton, and enjoyed - together with excellent weather - by capacity crowds of 35,000 music fans each day.

Colour Sound won a competitive quote to supply the four main stages of the event which was organised and promoted by SJM. Haydn 'H' Cruickshank comments, "It's always really exciting to be involved in something fresh, new and different and we were delighted to be working on this one. It was a great chance to put the new screen thr

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14 March 2016

Developed with an industry specialist and trialled during 2014, Star Events' handrail has had an immediate impact at sites this summer, clipping in and out of adapted sockets on performance stages, simply and quickly.

Rookie Manning, Health & Safety advisor to SJM Concerts at Summer in the City, Manchester, comments, "Star Events' system provides an excellent solution during build and strike phases of a production and I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't be used at all future events.

"The handrail can be erected or removed by two crew in a matter of minutes and having seen a number of people fall from stages over the last 16 years, I will have no hesitation in recommending it to cl

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14 March 2016

Southside, which took place in Tuttlingen in southern Germany, featured over 100 bands but with a distinctly more "alternative pop/rock" flavour. This time, around 60,000 fans turned out over three days to enjoy the music and a mix of sunshine and rain. DirectOut was on hand for the duration of both festivals to ensure seamless audio transmission from the stage to OB van for regional public broadcaster SWR.

DirectOut product manager Christian Müller was on site to assist SWR engineer Björn Lautenschlager throughout the two

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14 March 2016

The precinct features a number of interactive installations including Mission Control which gives the public the opportunity to create their own two-minute light show. Once you've selected your music track, you then get to play with forty-four Clay Paky Sharpys and ten Mythos fixtures positioned on The Star building and Sky Terrace.

Control, housed in a glass booth located in the park opposite The Star, consists of a large 60 inch touch screen controller with selectable colour, movement and effects.

"There's also a Leap Motion Controller, which is an infra-red detector that allows you to control the intensity of the lights by

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14 March 2016

As announced in January, the resort's world famous illuminations display will this year be enhanced this year following a £2m cash boost from the Coastal Communities Fund.

With a further £420,000 being contributed by Blackpool Council contributing and public arts body LeftCoast, the £2.42m 'LightPool' project will give a new lease of life to the flagship attraction by enhancing the display and creating new exciting new light shows, events and features across the town centre.

New state-of-the-art signage will be included at key sites, guiding people around town and leading them to the different installations and new Illuminations 'ambassadors' will also be employed, supplemented by additional volunteers, to improve the visitors'

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14 March 2016

The BroadWeigh portable wireless system offers real-time, simple, effective and accurate load monitoring for rigging professionals, safety officials and site managers, enabling them to monitor and log the precise loads on any given rigging point.

Central to the design of the BroadWeigh system are wireless shackles equipped with a high accuracy load pin that reports data remotely to a computer or a handheld display. The system is able to monitor multiple load cells and can trigger an alarm should a load exceed a pre-set parameter.

"We are very pleased to be appointed as a distributor for the BroadWeigh equipmen

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14 March 2016

"This has been a great collaborative process with creative and technical dialogue between professional designers, students and projection mapping experts. We are seeing the work in a completely new way," remarked Make/Believe curator Kate Burnett.

The Special PQ Jury Award, judged by a team of top international directors and designers, recognises "the richness and diversity of an exhibition that shows high quality work from across the spectrum of contemporary performance design - in a variety of venues, and embracing space, light, media an

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14 March 2016

Laserworld India will mainly act as sales hub, but will also maintain a service department for show laser service and repairs for India and surrounding countries. All brands that are manufactured or distributed through the Laserworld Group will be available through Laserworld India for the Indian market.

The new website for Laserworld India will provide further in

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14 March 2016

Starting 15 July, tickets can be purchased online: http://behindthescenescharity.org/btshh. They can also be ordered through your LDI registration once available.

Current sponsors for the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour include: Altman Lighting (Executive), Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. (Platinum), Ultratec (Platinum), Hea

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14 March 2016

It was the second time that Boston-based Preston, also LD for headlining jam band moe. had worked at the four day event. The lighting equipment was supplied by Chicago-based Performance Lighting, a recent investor in BMFLs and Pointes.

A major challenge for the Moonshine Stage lighting design was that any equipment - trussing, set, lighting, etc. - had to be rigged off two roof beams with limited weight loading that were part of the semi-permanent stage's structure. Similar to the concept of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, this encapsulates the spirit of the Festival, and has b