UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment now holds the largest stock of Robe BMFL Spot moving lights in the UK with the purchase of 50 new fixtures, which have been delivered by Robe UK.

The new BFMFLs join Colour Sound's stock of over 800 moving lights of which around 450 are Robe products. They will be in action all over the country this summer, helping to service an impressive run of 60 plus major music festivals for which Colour Sound is already confirmed as lighting and LED screen supplier, including We Are FSTVL, Glastonbury, Creamfields, Reading / Leeds and numerous others.

Says Colour Sound's Haydn 'H' Cruickshank, "BMFLs are starting to appear on riders. I know that any Robe product is likely to be reliable and 'a good bet' for us, and we also needed a new bright and versatile moving light for the festivals generally. The

USA - The trusses above the CMA Music Festival's main and satellite stages at Nashville's LP Field sported a fleet of ten RF Venue collapsible CP Beam helical antennas. The four-day festival shattered attendance records and featured country music's biggest stars.

The show's RF designer and technician, Jason Glass, principle at Clean Wireless Audio, retained by veteran touring audio provider Sound Image, used CP Beams for both transmit and receive antennas which were available to all guest engineers.

"This is my third year doing the LP field show," says Glass. "The lighting rig that encompasses the stage is a veritable faraday cage. We deploy a number of antennas up in the trussing. This configuration is designed to give the best possible line-of-sight link between the performers on stage and the antennas."

Jason and Sound Image wanted to give guest artist

UK - As well as the major stars, Glastonbury is also known for hosting a series of other types of performance, such as dance, circus, comedy and theatre. This year renowned dance group Michael Clark Company took to the stage and performed over two days at the festival. Making their Worthy Farm debut, they called upon White Light, a company with which they have a long-standing relationship, to provide production support

Richard Godin, lighting designer for Michael Clark Company, states, "The company performed an extract from an existing piece called Come Been and Gone. There were three performances in total during the festival: one on the Pyramid Stage and two more in the Astrolabe Tent. It is extremely rare for a dance group to perform on the Pyramid Stage and I can only think of one other time this has happened."

The piece performed by Michael Clark Company w

Romania - When Cultural Centre House of Arts District 3 in Bucharest promoted a two-day summer garden party in the Romanian capital's Titan Park recently, Temple Media Romania were brought into provide sound, lighting, LED screens and staging. This included a number of premium discharge and LED fixtures from PR Lighting, for whom they handle local distribution.

The event was designed to bring together Romanian music and dance of various genres. From the traditional costumes and folkloric music of the opening day, headed by the violin orchestra Lautarii Chisinal to the pop rock line-up headlined by Connect-R on day two, Cristian Simon's inspired lighting design for the event dubbed Music & Art in Titan Park brought the setting to life for an audience of up to 10,000 people.

Simon's stage design was built around 16 PR XR 200 Beams, 10 XLED 1061 Wash and 16 XLED 2007.

The two f

UK - SKY Arts Sessions is a new TV music series which invites a host of artists to perform some of their favourite songs in an intimate setting. With no presenter or audience, the focus is solely on the music as the guests play songs fully live and reflect on their influences and inspirations.

Richard Martin Lighting (RML) has a long standing relationship with SKY and its lighting team. LD Richard Bowles returned the light the show after the success of the first series and we were also asked to return. The main lighting rig is made up of Sharpy, Sharpy Wash, 2 Lites, Jarag-L and Patten 2013. It also includes one of RML's most recent purchases the Clay Paky Mythos.

"Mythos is a highly advanced form of hybrid light: first of all, it is an excellent 470 watt-lamp spotlight, which produces an outstanding large light beam, featuring a zoom that ranges from 4° to 50&

UK - Serious Stages designed, manufactured and installed the new 'Other Stage' at this year's Glastonbury Festival. Artists have been appearing on Serious Stages for four decades at the world's most famous festival. But their focus is on the future, as Serious Stages managing director Steven Corfield states:

"The ever-increasing production expectations of bands combined with Michael and Emily's desire to give audiences the best experience led to discussions about creating a new Other Stage better suited to Glastonbury. Those conversations went through our CAD designers and engineers, on to keeping our fabrication facility this spring manufacturing the new flat roof system. Then our on-site team under project management of Simon Fursman have done a phenomenal job constructing this new stage for the first time at Glastonbury."

The new look Other Stage presented an impr

Korea - A comprehensive HK Audio Elements system has been chosen to provide sound reinforcement at the recently completed 500-capacity Siksa-dong catholic church in Korea.

The three-floor church, which was built over a five-year period and completed in early 2015, required a powerful yet inconspicuous sound system, and Daikyung Prosound Seocho - an appointed dealer of HK Audio's South Korean distributor, Sama Prosound - was called upon to perform the installation.

To match the church's size and interior stylings, Daikyung Prosound Seocho settled on an Elements system composed of two E435 A Install Kit units, six standard E435s, two E110 Sub As and two E110 Subs for the main speaker system, alongside two E435 A Install kits with two E435s for subs. In addition, two E435 A Install Kit units and two E435s were installed to act as a monitor system for the church's choir.

Jin-woo

China - Allen & Heath's iLive digital system has been installed as the FOH mixer in the central theatre at the New Yuanming Palace of Zhuhai. A reproduction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, which was destroyed in 1860, the popular tourist attraction covers an area of 1.39 km², and includes an imperial garden, lake, pagodas and a new central outdoor theatre to stage theatrical performances.

The theatre is a multi-functional venue with a 10, 000 m² seating area that can accommodate 6,000 people, and hosts regular cultural performances and festival events. The FOH system comprises an iLive-T112 Control Surface with iDR-48 MixRack, fitted with an M-DANTE network card to support 64 channels of multi-track for live recording and playback.

"iLive provides flexible control and extensive operational capabilities, including live recording, which means our sound system can eas

Mongolia - The art delegation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), comprising 106 members, recently held the first of three shows at the Ulaanbaatar Central Palace of Culture during a 10-day visit to Mongolia.

The delegation consisted of people from the Song and Dance Troupe of the PLA General Political Department, the PLA Academy of Arts and the Acrobatic Troupe of the PLA Guangzhou Military Area Command (MAC).

During their visit, the delegation carried out artistic exchanges with the song and dance troupe of the Mongolian military, where spectacular effects from PR Lighting were provided by the Chinese manufacturer's Mongolian partner, D-light. This involved 36 pieces of XR 200 Beam and 36 XPAR 336.

The lightweight and compact XR200 Beam is equipped with a Platinum 5R or Osram 230 HRI lamp, to provide a parallel, laser like 'pencil' moving beam with a brightness of 67,76

USA - Every dimension of Air Supply was on full display at a recent concert in the Boston area, supported by a Troy Stubby-designed lightshow that featured Legend 230SR Beam moving fixtures in a variety of stage positions. JDI Productions provided the Chauvet Professional fixtures for the sold-out performance, substituting them for "more famous name movers" that were in the tour's original rig design.

"Troy's original design called for these other fixtures to be used, but we've been using the Legends back to back on so many shows that we felt very comfortable with them," said JDI's Freddy Thompson, who, along with his colleague Pete Therrien, oversaw the lighting rig. "So with Troy's approval we made the switch. In the past, Troy had been using the SR beams on the floor to cross shoot the backdrop with a rotating prism. It created a really great effect,

Belgium - Performing all over Europe and the Middle East, Exclusive Strings is an all-female string quartet that plays a mixture of classical and contemporary music. With Yamaha's new TF series consoles already shipping from dealers, a TF1 recently aided a very exclusive performance.

Developed and managed by Jan Ceulemans, Exclusive Strings all perform with Yamaha Silent Strings instruments, whose compact designs, detachable frames and high quality electronics provide the sound and feel of an acoustic instrument, with the portability and low maintenance of an electric one.

Freelance sound engineer Kevin van Lieshout of Advanced Music has been working with Exclusive Strings for the past five years. The ladies perform in any of three live packages - with backing tracks, a contemporary band or a full orchestra - so Kevin needs a flexible console, but one that is compact as he tou

Haiti - In the aftermath of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed the infrastructure of its major cities, new construction is renewing hope among the Haitian people, albeit slowly.

The earthquake destroyed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, one of the struggling nation's prized architectural and cultural landmarks. Although plans are underway to rebuild the cathedral, its completion is still a decade away, in the best case.

To bridge the time between now and then, the Catholic Church recently completed a steel-frame open-air cathedral that seats 1,600 adjacent to the old church's ruins. Miami-based Revelation Sound, Inc. designed and installed the sound reinforcement and electronic clarion systems for the steel-frame cathedral, counting on Ashly Audio processing, amplifica

UK - "The Ayrton MagicBlade-Rs that we have purchased from Ambersphere Solutions are undoubtedly the lighting fixture of summer 2015," says Rob Merrilees, director of Dry Hire Lighting (DHL). DHL now hasa substantial number of MagicBlades in stock although they very rarely actually see them. "The Blades are constantly in demand," continues Merrilees. "We're grateful that their quality of build and excellent reliability factor means we can pretty much guarantee they can fly in and fly out of the warehouse in perfect working order. Even so, we are having to turn away requests for Ayrton Blades at the moment."

The continuous rotation on both Pan and Tilt axes is the central characteristic of this seven RGBW LED unit. Compact, light and economical, the MagicBlade-R offers the lighting designer imaginative and creative possibilities with an almost endles

India - Dutch trance music DJ and producer Armin van Buuren's radio show A State of Trance (ASOT) has been going strong since 2001 and its 700th episode on 6 June was celebrated in style with a huge live show in Mumbai, India, lit by Elation Professional's new Platinum SBX moving head along with the popular Platinum Beam 5R and ELAR 180 PAR fixtures.

Propelling him to superstardom with trance fans around the world, ASOT attracts 33m listeners weekly through 100 FM radio-stations in more than 80 countries. A State of Trance milestone is always an occasion to party and ASOT 700, held in association with Sunburn, saw The Dome in Mumbai decked out in a large intelligent lighting package for performances by Armin van Buuren, Cosmic Gate, Orjan Nilsen, Super8 & Tab and Ruben De Ronde.

Star Dimensions India provided lighting, trussing and LED screens for the event with lightin

UK - dbn Lighting returned to Heaton Park in Manchester to supply lighting to five out of the eight stages and video to two of those - for the popular Parklife Weekender music festival with which they have been involved since its inception in 2010.

The crew - which peaked at 24 technicians, programmers and operators - was led by dbn's Pete Robinson, and they started their various get-ins across the site on the Wednesday. There were a few logistical curved balls thrown into the mix for good measure, including a Friday night concert by the Courteeners which was slotted in by promoters SJM on Stage 4. While dbn were not lighting this, the licensing restricted access to other areas which therefore had to be ready ahead of time.

The main stage this year was up-scaled to a 24m Space roof from Serious three weeks before the event to accommodate the two headliners - Disclosure and Rud

Azerbaijan - A spectacular two hour opening ceremony featuring US pop star Lady Gaga, inspired by Azerbaijani culture and starring more than 6,000 athletes from 50 countries in front of 68,000 enthralled spectators, launched the inaugural European Games in Baku.

The Ceremony, held in Azerbaijan's ancient city Baku, featured the history of the nation, its paintings, poetry and industries represented by images and shape shifting scenes using special effects on the stage set designed as the shores of the Caspian Sea.

The opening ceremony is the latest in a long list of major ceremonies delivered by Creative Technology (CT) which includes the last three summer Games alongside Commonwealth, Asian and Arab Games in India and the Middle East. The opening also represented the culmination of over a years' work for Creative Technology in the negotiation, planning and ultimately delivery

Germany - The Sennheiser Group has presented its annual results for fiscal year 2014, showing a rise of 44.3 million euros to 634.8 million euros over the previous year - an increase of around 7.5 percent. Net earnings also increased by 20.4 million euros to a total of 34.7 million euros. The company, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2015, grew in all regions worldwide - and Sennheiser significantly increased its sales in Asia and Australia in particular, the company reports.

With this further increase in sales revenue in fiscal year 2014, the Sennheiser Group is sustaining the continuous rise in sales seen in recent years. "We are very pleased to see a new record result," said Dr. Frank Heinricht, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG. "The positive sales development in all regions has once again confirmed the strate

UK - A.C. Video, a sales division of A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) - and the exclusive UK distributor for the Hippotizer media servers range - will be hosting a Hippotizer V4 UK Open House event on Friday 14 August 2015, in conjunction with the manufacturer at their headquarters in North London.

The occasion will showcase the new V4 range alongside other leading video brands available from AC-ET, including AViary Video Tools, Prolights, Luminex, Philips Signage Solutions and Christie Digital.

The informal event consists of a choice of morning (10:00am - 2:00pm) and afternoon (2:00pm - 6:00pm) classroom-style sessions providing hands-on training with the completely redesigned line of Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers running the new V4 software, which is designed to meet the demands of shows today and tomorrow. The previous Hippotizer V3 range received multiple awa

USA - Over 30,000 of the leading cancer researchers and specialists from around the world journeyed to Chicago's McCormick Place recently for the 51st annual ASCO conference. The official theme of this year's meeting, Illumination and Innovation: Transforming Data into Learning reflected the shared commitment of those in attendance to exchange trending research and insights that can help combat the disease. Among the learning tools used to advance this worthy goal was an impressive 36ft x 6ft LED wall made of 54 Chauvet Professional MVP Ta8 Curve panels.

Supplied by Image Productions Services, which built the videowall, the panels were used at an exhibit by Sirtex Medical Ltd., an award-winning Australian-based global health care research company that is pioneering a targeted radiation therapy for liver cancer called SIR-Spheres Y-90 resin microspheres. (The therapy place

USA - NYC's Marriott Edition Hotel is one of the latest projects created by US entrepreneur Ian Schrager, who originally rose to fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54 in the late 1970s. To take care of the audio solution, Schrager's director of development, Michael Overington, enlisted the services of Ernie Lake's specialist AV firm, EL Media Group.

"We knew exactly what was needed from the start. Working in cooperation with Schrager's designers and the head of branding, Ben Pundole, we were asked to put together a system able to handle a DJ and other general audio duties, which could perform well and at different levels. Quality and even sound dispersion were an absolute must," says Lake. "The client also requested remote access for volume and source."

As a long-time Symetrix system user - "we've been specifying their processors for many years

USA - Prolific multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer Todd Rundgren has just released his new Global album, and is one of the highly innovative artists in the current portfolio of lighting and visuals designer and touring lighting director Martin Thomas.

Martin has been touring regularly with Rundgren for around six years and is now out with a tower and floor specials lighting package comprising just 18 moving lights - 12 Robe Pointes and six Robe MMX Spots - plus LED video panels.

With lighting and visuals absolutely at the essence of the energetic and fast-paced show, Martin was confident he could deliver all the dynamics needed with just these few touring elements, as well as hooking in to a different 'top' rig each night at the various venues on an eclectic itinerary.

Initial phone conversations between Martin and Rundgren revealed the desire to cre

UK - Holo-Gauze, the 3D display solution for hologram effects, is instrumental in realising the video projection effects for Damon Albarn's modern musical reimagining of Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland. The show's projections are by 59 Productions, with Lysander Ashton acting as creative director.

Appearing at Manchester's Palace Theatre until 12 July as part of the Manchester International Festival, wonder.land is a co-production between National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris, scriptwriter Moira Buffini and Albarn, who wrote the score. The musical is set to transfer to London's National Theatre from 27 November.

In wonder.land, Lewis Carroll's fantasy world becomes an online game, to which Aly, who is bullied at school and unhappy at home, escapes. However, some of the people Aly meets online - Dum, Dee, the Cheshire Cat and Red Queen

South Africa - During Mediatech, One of South African's leading lighting designers, Michael Broderick will present a carefully orchestrated performance using one Robe BMFL fixture and a dancer. The 15-minute shows will be held every day from 15 to 17 July at 10:30am, 12:30am, 2:30pm and 4:30pm. Bookings can be made at the DWR Distribution stand (J47).

"We are trying to push the boundaries and wanted to see what we could do with a single fixture," said Michael Broderick. "The act consists of story which paints a picture of the relationship between the light and the graceful dancer, Belinda Henwood."

David Gouldie is the choreographer and director. He worked closely with Michael Broderick, who programmed the show on a grandMA 2. Sound design is by Liam Magner, with final sound mastering by Colin Peddie form Sonic Studio.

(Jim Evans)

Sweden - Electronic dance musicians Join The Riot are recording their debut album for all to see in a glass box in the middle of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, this month, using an Audient ASP4816 analogue mixing console.

The five-piece band have commandeered the display window of a hotel situated on the corner of one of Stockholm's busiest streets, built a studio in it, and are spending the whole of July working on the album, in what they have aptly named A Glass Cage Of Emotions. Throughout the month passers-by can watch what's going on through the many windows and even listen to their sessions via headphones on the street.

"We've been working on the album for a little over a year, and figured that when it came to recording it, collaborating with the Scandic Malmen hotel to promote its music profile at the same time as our new album, would be much better than re

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