Denmark - Martin Professional has announced the kickoff of their annual Young Lighting Designer Contest that offers aspiring LDs from around the world a chance to have their work internationally recognized. The winner will be awarded an all-inclusive trip to the Prolight+Sound 2015 show in Frankfurt, Germany, the Martin M-Touch controller and an M-PC kit. The runner up also receives an M-Touch controller and third place wins an M-PC kit.

To enter, young LDs must design and programme a DMX lightshow using M-PC to a music track of their choice and submit a video recording to the Martin Professional Facebook contest page. Contestants can share the video to their own social networks and throughout the contest friends, colleagues, and other Facebook users can vote for their favourite shows.

When the contest ends, the three shows with the most votes enter the final stage of the cont

USA - From its fixed colour wheel with 14 slots plus white to its variable speed scrolling, the Rogue R1 Beam has a variety of special features. Lighting designer Dougie Lazer needed every last one of these capabilities recently when he worked the boards for Out of the Ashes: Phoenix Rising, a party at Manhattan's Stage 48 that commemorated the rebirth of the city's Sound Factory.

"I ran the lightshow for about 10 straight hours from before 11 until after 8 in the morning for this party," said Lazer. "Anytime you're on for that length of time, you're going to lean on everything a fixture has to offer. I made great use of the Rogue's ability to give me different gobo looks, tightly collimated beams and split colorus. We kept the show fresh looking the whole time."

By working well past the wee hours of the morning, Lazer was upholding a tradition that

UK - Electrosonic is to host an 'Open Week' in March 2015 at its new office in Cults, just outside Aberdeen City Centre. This will be an opportunity to meet the new installation and service team, view the office and rack building facilities, and pick up a redeemable voucher for either an Audio-visual Systems Health Check or a Communications Technology Risk Assessment.

The open week will take place during 23-27 March. This is a free, drop-in event to both existing clients and new companies looking to find out how Electrosonic's service and installation teams can support their audio-visual and communications technology and systems.

The new Aberdeen office will serve the corporate, oil & gas and entertainment markets in and around Aberdeen. It has full workshop facilities, storage and a fabrication space. Services offered include systems integration, and support services such as

UK - PSCo is holding a 'personal preview event' from 16-27 March for rental partners, system integrators and consultants to visit the PSCo Assessment Centre, to experience the latest in display screen technology.

A new development is the installation of a new DigitalMedia control system from Crestron, to deliver seamless support for all demonstrations. Catering for all trade needs, the space features five individual zones, displaying an impressive selection of solutions - and is currently the only place in the UK for the industry to compare such technologies in an independent environment, says the company.

Stuart Holmes of PSCo explains, "This destination will give visitors a true insight into the breadth of technologies on offer. The five zones within the centre give our clients a clear understanding of the whole range of products and support services we offer to our cha

USA - TV Lighting director, Kathleen Dobbins, has been involved with the popular NBC talk show Late Night with Seth Meyers since its launch in February 2014, working alongside lighting designer, Rick McGuinness and show producer Mike Shoemaker.

And although the sets remain largely the same, in September she started to adopt GLP's compact impression X4 S LED fixture for the subtle nuances that were required from show to show.

She explains, "I was looking for a fixture with a very small footprint, but which was still sufficiently versatile to add to my rig for guest bands. I also wanted to use the flexibility of the fixture as eye candy on the deck during a musical segment or to light a wall in a comedy sketch."

She had mentioned this to Drew DeCorleto [director of lighting production at New York rental / production company WorldStage Inc], and he arranged a d

Australia - Since being founded in 1930, Temple Beth Israel (TBI) has been shaping Jewish life in Melbourne, and from a technological perspective has become the first synagogue in Australia to stream Shabbat services online.

However, its sound system had aged to the point where it was no longer meeting the expectations of its increasingly technology-savvy congregation. Aside from its poor directional control and inability to deliver sufficiently intelligible speech, the inflexibility of the system infrastructure was restricting the new clergy's creative development and exploration of new formats for services and events.

Thus the time was right to improve the usability of the synagogue's sanctuary spaces and provide the congregation with effortless listening conditions.

Rabbi Gersh Lazarow's vision for a modern, flexible worship space in combination with the strong musical as

Belgium - Painting with Light lighting and multimedia designer Luc Peumans created a multi-layered, colour-rich show for Belgian superstars Clouseau's Christmas dates at the Antwerp Sportpalais, utilising an array of powerfully versatile Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 fixtures.

Peumans designed an 'in the round' set, allowing the band to interact with the 21,000 fans that filled the venue to capacity each night. The stage was therefore centrally located, hence the show's name Clouseau Central, with four runways so that charismatic frontman Koen Wauters could get close to fans all over the arena floor. The B-EYEs, supplied by PRG Belgium, were rigged around the arena on the lowest balcony level, or first 'ring'.

"From a practical point of view, I lit the show as if it were a stadium, with several levels of lighting that could work independently or combined with one another,&q

USA / Switzerland - IP audio and control specialist Barix has appointed LineQ as their distribution partner in the United States. For years, the company now known as LineQ operated under the name of Barix Technology in the U.S., exclusively distributing Barix devices and solutions to partners and end users in the broadcast, security, live entertainment, professional AV and digital signage industries.

Led by longtime Barix Technology president Andy Stadheim, LineQ is well-positioned to expand Barix's market share in the United States as the new company establishes partnerships with complementary hardware vendors, software companies, network operators and systems integrators.

"The appointment of LineQ as our US distributor reflects the global sales strategy of Barix through regional channels worldwide, where we commonly work with distributors who integrate Barix with comple

Belgium - In the city of Antwerp, in Belgium, lies the luxurious shopping street Meir, connecting the town hall with the central station. Bringing in the highest rents of any street in Belgium and known to be the most expensive shopping street in the Benelux, Meir embraces the monumental department store, the Inno building consisting of two units dating back to 1901 and 1903.

Redevco, one of the largest investors in European retail property, recently carried out the restoration of this architectural heritage of Flanders. For the celebration of the completion of this considerable project, a special event was held in December putting the spotlight on the façade through an astonishing light show accompanied by a contemporary musical selection.

CST Production was commissioned by event management company Fabulous Moment to lead the lighting design and production supply. Lighting d

UK - XL Video UK has announced a large investment in d3's Pro range of media servers, adding 12 units to its inventory.

The addition of the units to its existing fleet now makes XL Video the largest rental stockist of d3 media servers worldwide.

The company has made the investment as a result of growing demand for d3 from all sectors of the rental market including concert touring, and events agencies.

To ensure XL Video is able to provide the highest levels of support for the new d3 machines, XL's media server and control systems manager, Christian Dickens, has become a d3 certified trainer.

As well as providing training, XL Video has a team of in-house technicians with high-level d3 expertise who can provide support with 3D modelling and previsualisation for shows, enabling clients to see how their show will look, even from the early design stage.

XL's Christian Dickens

Belgium - When Martin Schulz was re-elected President of the European Parliament and Jean-Claude Junker for the EP commission, DB Video was tasked with illuminating the seat of the European Parliament in Brussels, indoors for the Hemicycle, Passerelle, Agora set and Forum set as well as outdoor for the main entrance & Protocol entrance at rue Wiertz.

Lighting designer Thomas Boets was in charge of the light setting of this event, creating atmosphere in the several venues which also targeted the live broadcast for international television.

For the outdoor illumination Boets deployed SGM's P-5 wash light: four matrixes of each 16 x P-5 on scaffold towers and 24 luminaires to uplight the flags of the member states. In a different section, another 64 x P-5s washed the trees and some PVC signs.

"The idea was to create an atmosphere in the alley and at the main entrance, wher

USA - Originally an internationally best-selling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time made its stage debut in London at the National Theatre and has since made its way to the streets of Broadway. The production, called one of the most fully immersive works to ever hit Broadway, relies heavily on pixel mapping technology and uses an ETC Eos Titanium (Eos Ti) lighting system.

The show follows the story of Christopher, a 15 year old boy with an unnamed form of autism, who attempts to solve the unexpected murder of a neighbour's pet poodle. Lighting designer Paule Constable faced a challenge: interpreting Christopher's subjective sensory experiences into something audience members can experience. "I imagined how Christopher would have made the show," says Constable. To bring Christopher's acutely attuned reality to life on stage, the show's creat

UAE - At this week's CABSAT 2015 in Dubai, Sennheiser Middle East confirmed a new partnership with Rycote, the award winning U.K. manufacturer of microphone windshields and suspension systems. While the agreement makes Sennheiser the exclusive Middle East distributor for Rycote's entire range of microphone and camera accessories, the company's main focus will be on promoting the recently launched Rycote Cyclone Windshield System.

Sennheiser is ideally suited to this role having been the distributor for Rycote in the UK for a number of years. "We are looking to extend our partnership to include the Middle East where the combination of our market leading microphones with Rycote's innovative protection accessories will help address many of the challenges that field production teams face," ," said Mig Cardamone, director of sales and marketing at Sennheiser Middle Eas

UK - The nominees for the Olivier Awards 2015 were announced this week by James McAvoy and Lesley Manville at Rosewood London. Technical nominations include:

White Light Award for Best Lighting Design - Jon Clark for King Charles III at Almeida theatre and Wyndham's theatre; Paule Constable and David Plater for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies at Aldwych theatre; Howard Harrison for City of Angels at Donmar Warehouse; Jan Versweyveld for A View from the Bridge at Young Vic and Wyndham's theatre.

Best Sound Design - Tom Gibbons for A View from the Bridge at Young Vic and Wyndham's theatre; Matt McKenzie for Sunny Afternoon at Hampstead theatre and Harold Pinter theatre; Gareth Owen for Memphis The Musical at Shaftesbury theatre; Brian Ronan for Beautiful - The Carole King Musical at Aldwych theatre.

Eurovision Electro-Swing - Britain's entrant at this year's Eurovision Song Contest will be Electro Velvet, the BBC has announced. Consisting of Alex Larke and Bianca Nicholas, the newly formed pop duo will perform Still in Love With You in Vienna on 23 May to an estimated global audience of more than 180m viewers, in what will be the 60th Eurovision.

Larke is currently lead singer of tribute act The Rollin' Clones. Nicholas appeared in the 1999 Johnny Depp adventure Sleepy Hollow before, at 15, deciding upon a career in music. She has since duetted with Will Young, performed for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and performed her debut solo single at the turning on of the 2011 Regent Street Christmas lights.

Described by the BBC as "an up-tempo electro-swing" track, Still in Love With You was chosen from hundreds of entries received by the BBC after

Serbia - Clay Paky Sharpys lit the Serbian launch of BMW's latest model in the X-series, the X6. Taking place at the prestigious Crowne Plaza Hotel in the capital's business district, the event was technically produced by award-winning rental operation Studio Berar, who supplied 16 of the super powerful fixtures for the light show.

Working alongside Belgrade-based marketing agency M2Communications and creative director Miro Antic, Studio Berar was commissioned by Serbian BMW dealer Delta Motors to create a highly sophisticated and visually stunning environment for the guests. Lighting designer Marko Malesevic positioned the Sharpys on the floor to create a runway, where contemporary dancers performed and the car appeared through a smoky, coloured haze.

"Marko used the powerful beams of the Sharpys to pierce through the smoke and cross over to create 'X's, signifying the X

USA - The recently opened Adoro Lei is a sophisticated lounge, restaurant, and pizzeria in the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. NYC foodies will recognize its veteran owners and chef, who have gone to great lengths to give Adoro Lei - which means "I adore her" in Italian - a killer combination of irresistible food and a hip, but comfortable, vibe that will have customers bursting to tell friends how great the place is.

To that end, they imported a wood-fired pizza stove from Italy and hired New Jersey-based Essential Communications to design and install a music playback system that would avoid the indistinct mutterings typical of the average restaurant and replace them with solid, articulated sound that will set bodies in motion. Essential to Essential Communications' design are Ashly's new nX-8004 four-channel 800W amplifier and the four-channel nX

UK - Award winning theatre designer Lucy Osborne and lighting designer Emma Chapman of Studio Three Sixty, will join James Grieve, joint artistic director of Paines Plough, and Gavin Green of Charcoalblue theatre consultancy at the UK Theatre's Touring Symposium 2015 to discuss Paines Plough's award winning, pop-up Roundabout Theatre.

Commissioned by Paines Plough's artistic directors James Grieve and George Perrin, Roundabout is an intimate, dynamic and socially democratic space. Conceived as a portable venue, Roundabout enables the forward-looking theatre company to take their own brand of production anywhere they want and maintain their own strong production values without a large technical staff.

Designed and delivered by a collective headed up by Osborne and Chapman alongside special effects and lighting designer Howard Eaton, the technical and space planning consultation

South Africa - Second year students from the Department of Performing Arts Technology at The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) visited DWR Distribution for an introduction to product training on 14 February 2015.

With a revamped syllabus, developed by Hardus Koekemoer (lighting lecturer at Department of Entertainment) and Wandile Mogodo (technical manager at the Breytenbach Theatre, the TUT training venue) this was the first time the 36 students were taken on a field trip, particularly to a lighting supplier to see the latest technology available.

"It's a matter of getting the students switched on," commented Hardus. Many students sign up for the three year diploma not fully aware of what the course entails. Some have never seen a live show before; others still have never stepped inside a theatre.

"That said, our retention rate is 99%, if not 100%,"

USA/Canada - With over a million albums sold, Canadian post-hardcore group Silverstein has defied expectations as well as easy categorizations. Moving seamlessly from reflective emo tunes to pop punk power chords, these young artists are bent on keeping their creative options open. This independent streak is enthusiastically shared by the band's LD Victor Zeiser.

Wanting to expand his creative direction as a lighting designer, Zeiser recently started his own rental company, Squeek Lights, and purchased his own gear so he could pursue his unique design vision. Included in this mix of fixtures are a collection of Rogue R1 Spot moving heads and COLORdash Batten-Quad 6 linear washes from Chauvet Professional.

Zeiser is using both of these Chauvet Professional LED products to stunning effect on Silverstein's current Discovering the Waterfront 10th Anniversary Tour. "After gett

USA - At SoundBox, the Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system plays a keystone element in the San Francisco Symphony's radical new strategy for attracting younger audiences to diverse live music. The brainchild of symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas, SoundBox has reshaped music discovery by removing the constraints of many typical classical music venues, including the acoustics.

"SoundBox is a new and experimental space for music of all kinds," Tilson Thomas explains. "Part of the experience of being in this space is to hear music of many different eras - from ninth century Gregorian chant to music composed today. Constellation from Meyer Sound provides the optimal acoustics for each genre and has helped us create a space where audience and musicians can explore a new kind of musical journey together."

SoundBox occupies Zellerbach A, a lofty, 7

South Africa - DWR Distribution has been appointed as the exclusive South Africa distributor for Quartzcolor and IFF.

"These products are truly standard setters within the television and film industry," said Dave Whitehouse of DWR Distribution. "The brands are synonymous with quality and will be a fantastic addition to our stable."

Quartzcolor was founded in 1954 and has since been a leading lighting brand with a strong reputation based on pioneering fproduct innovations that have now become common names and standards in the lighting industry such as Redhead, Blonde and Bambino.

IFF offers a comprehensive range of lighting suspensions, from simple telescopic posts to pantographs, self-climbing hoists and modular systems with a wide range of mounting brackets and accessories.

Massimo Cecchini, Cosmolight international sales director, commented, "We

UK - You Me At Six celebrated the conclusion of their 2014 Cavalier Youth" album campaign with a UK arena double-headliner with US pop punk band All Time Low, bringing an interesting fusion of genres and uniting thousands of enthusiastic young fans equally into both of them.

Lighting and visuals designer Louis Oliver from creative practice Okulus specified 18 x Robe BMFL Spots and 40 x Robe LEDWash 600s among other fixtures for this final leg of the tour which were supplied by lighting contractor Zig Zag Lighting from Leeds.

Zig Zag was the second rental company in the UK to commit to purchasing BMFLs, and the lights have been working hard ever since on a variety of shows.

The You Me At Six design evolved and was developed over the year according to the venues and the format of the shows, and for these final arena dates, there was a general up-scaling of the orig

USA - Florida Georgia Line have begun their Anything Goes 2015 world tour, in support of their latest album, with a large complement of Clay Paky lighting fixtures.

Lighting designer and programmer Scott Cunningham selected the equipment from the inventory of Morris Light & Sound in Nashville. He is deploying 40 new Clay Paky Mythos fixtures, 24 A.leda B-EYE K20s, 14 Sharpys and 24 Sharpy Washes in the lighting rig.

"I've been using Sharpys since I started to work with the band," says Cunningham. "They love a good bright, poppy show, and Sharpys really make themselves known in clubs and arenas. And they're a real workhorse."

Cunningham surrounds the stage with Sharpys, which act as floor lights to accent the sets; he also positions them on the thrust. "They fill out the space from ground to ceiling," he says.

The tour is his first carrying Sha

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline