Rolling On - The Rolling Stones returned to the London stage on Sunday night in the first of five concerts to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood were joined by their original bass player Bill Wyman at the 02 Arena. Music critics hailed the rockers' return a success. Reviews of the gig described the band as "still leading the pack" and "at the cutting edge of pop".

"They have a combined age of 273, but the four Stones remain an extraordinary live proposition," John Aizlewood wrote in the Even

Australia - Over 200 Robe moving lights were used on the 2012 Australian International Motor Show (AIMS) staged at the Sydney Exhibition centre in Darling Harbour.

Lighting equipment for 10 of the highest profile stands - including Ford, Holden, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Lexus, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes and Toyota - was supplied by Clifton Productions.

Lighting was designed by Ziggy Ziegler for the Toyota booth and by Mark Hammer for Ford, and for the rest of the stands by the Clifton Productions lighting team.

Robe fixtures were specified by both the LDs and by Cliftons - which

UK - Stage Electrics have appointed Jon Smith as the company's new service manager. Jon is taking over from Steve Chappell who was the service manager for over 10 years. Chappell is moving into the newly created role of a full time commissioning and design engineer, responsible for lighting control system design and programming. This new challenge is a reflection of the company's busy order book requiring a dedicated full time position.

Jon Smith takes responsibility for the company's field service engineers and maintenance workshop, planning and directing the activities of all servic

France - The French distribution company Dimatec has made a substantial investment in a range of Philips Selecon LED luminaires.

Dimatec, which distributes and imports the world's leading lighting equipment brands to service film, television, events and architectural applications, has purchased a considerable palette of luminaires from the Philips Selecon PL range and Studio Panel LED luminaires.

Olivier Bordini of Dimatec says the company made the investment in order to "stay ahead of the game as LED lighting technology progresses."

Bordini praised the Philips Entertain

France - An array of Clay Paky Sharpys helped global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi launch the New Directors' Showcase at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase is one of the Cannes Lions Festival's most popular events and premieres films by some of the world's best new talent. The event is renowned globally for the ambitious, sometimes outrageous theatrics of its opening events. And this year was no exception.

Sixteen free flying Quadrotor Robots, designed and built by Kmel Robotics, featuring mirrors o

USA - Marc Janowitz, long time lighting and production designer for Kentucky psychedelic rock band My Morning Jacket, has kept up his tradition of using the evolving series of GLP impression LED heads by specifying 50 of the latest impression X4's on the band's recent US tour.

The LD admits to having been a fan of the GLP impression since the first impression 90 and later the 120RZ zoom. But he says that by embracing new technology, the X4 provides a higher level of functionality entirely.

Incorporating 19 quad colour RGBW LED's, each rated at 15 Watts, in a breakthrough design, the

UK - Multi Grammy Award-Winning Evanescence have just completed their UK arena tour. The Arkansas rockers, who released their self-titled third studio album in October last year, played four arena shows. The band kicked off the tour at Nottingham's Capital FM Arena on 5 November and finished up with a show at London's Wembley Arena on 9 November.

PRG account manager Roy Hunt was pleased to supply Live Nation with a moving light rig. Working with celebrated lighting designer Dan Hardiman (Moby, Goo Goo Dolls, McFly, UB40), PRG supplied a mix of VL3000 and VL3500 Spots, VL3500 Washes an

Venezuela - The ever popular Miss Venezuela Pageant saw the radiant addition of 54 Chauvet Professional fixtures, used as principal downlighting and audience lighting by lighting designer Roberto Penso.

Penso worked with a smaller-than-usual stage for this type of show and to design lighting for the audience in the venue and for TV. Trying to find suitable lights to work around the low ceiling at Hotel Intercontinental in Caracas, Penso tested Chauvet Professional Q-Wash 560Z-LED fixtures -provided by VLPS of Venezuela - and decided they were perfect for the show.

"The colours

Australia - Currently playing at Sydney's Lyric Theatre, Legally Blonde The Musical is lit by Kenneth Posner and Paul Miller with Hugh Hamilton acting as associate for the Australian tour. The set and lighting design for the Australian production comes from the London production of the musical held at the Savoy Theatre.

The rig houses only Vari-Lite moving lights: forty-four VL2500 Spots, 22 VL2500 Washes and five VL3500 Spots whilst conventional lighting consists of over 200 ETC Source Four fixtures. It's a fairly straight forward rig that was, according to Hamilton, expertly

USA - ANSI E1.35 - 2007, Standard for Lens Quality Measurements for Pattern Projecting Luminaires Intended for Entertainment Use, is being revised to increase the accuracy of the measurement procedure, while keeping it simple. The draft of the revised standard is available for free download and comment through 21 January 2013 at the web address below.

E1.35 describes a method for measuring and stating the sharpness of the image projected by a stage and studio luminaire. It's meant to be a simple way to distinguish quantitatively between luminaires as to the crispness of their projecte

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light continues its commitment to the backstage industry by once again sponsoring TheatreCraft, a careers fair for those aged 17-25 exploring non-performance careers in the entertainment industry.

The one day event, which takes place today (30 November) at the Royal Opera House, will give visitors the opportunity to take part in workshops delivered by skilled professionals from across the arts, and to meet representatives from more than forty exhibiting theatres, training providers and education institutions. Topics up for exploration inclu

UK - Buckinghamshire based Lightsmiths, owned by Bruce Rutter, has made a significant investment in Clay Paky's first professional LED lighting fixtures.

The Clay Paky A.LEDA Wash range offers three models, all incorporating high output RGBW LED engines with a massive zoom range (14°-70°) and unprecedented output. In addition to these features, the Italian manufacturer has also incorporated the capacity for individual pixel mapping. Lightsmiths has invested in a notable number of all three models.

These fixtures are a viable alternative to traditional discharge washlights, a

Italy - Nearly 300 people attended the Illuminando le Star (Lighting the Stars) conference with Patrick Woodroffe, organised by Clay Paky in Rome. The event was sponsored by AILD, APIAS, the British Embassy in Rome and the University of Rome Tor Vergata, with the technical support of Agorà and DOC.

Lighting fans were not put off by the circumstances that made travelling difficult on the day: flooding, blocked streets and motorways, transport strikes and street demonstrations. The event's appeal - the only one of its kind in Italy - overcame every obstacle and drew people from every r

USA - LD Jason Robinson used Martin Professional's new MAC Viper Profile for the first time on the 2012 version of Farm Aid, the yearly benefit event that raises money for family farmers in the US, and found they had "all the stop I needed and more".

"The Vipers really came through for us with their intensity and zoom," Robinson commented about the award-winning 1000 W profile, supplied for the event by Upstaging. "I used them as aerial effects and as my backlight / keys for the band members."

In order to stay out of the large upstage video wall, Robins

China - Robert Juliat's Hong Kong distributor, Pacific Lighting (HK) reports an extremely healthy market across the region with a bumper crop of Robert Juliat sales over the last quarter.

"The increased appetite for Robert Juliat profiles and followspots is very evident," says Pacific Lighting (HK) Ltd director, Hugh Chinnick. "We have experienced almost unprecedented non-project sales in the last few months, with some very high profile venues choosing to replace their old lantern stock with Robert Juliat fixtures or augmenting their existing RJ inventory with further a

UK - With only four stands remaining, exhibitors need to act now to secure a presence at the fifth annual PLASA Focus: Leeds 2013, taking place at the Royal Armouries, on Tuesday 30 April and Wednesday 1 May 2013.

Following record attendance in 2012, the premier entertainment technology trade show in the North has attracted even more companies that are keen to access the 50% of visitors who do not attend any other trade show during the year.

Mark Priestley, project manager at Unusual Rigging explains the rationale behind their decision to book for the first time: "Although a co

Canada - CAST Group of Toronto, Canada reports that this week begins the BETA version release of its industry-standard lighting design and previsualisation suite, wysiwyg R30 for testing by the carefully selected Beta Test Team.

CAST's Beta testing programme aims to uphold the highest level of dependability and robustness for which wysiwyg is renown by enlisting typical Members to test drive it in the field under real conditions. CAST carefully monitors the Testers and ensures a reasonable cross-section of uses in order to optimize the usefulness of the feedback. While Testers have co

Australia - Landmark Australian live music and performance venue The GH Hotel in St Kilda, Melbourne has recently taken delivery of 12 Robe DLX Spot moving lights - which have been added to the lighting rig in the main room.

These were specified by technical manager Jason Rooney and join 16 existing Robe ColorSpot 250E AT moving lights, which were added to the rig in an upgrade of the whole lighting system earlier in the year.

The idea is that the GH Hotel can offer the best quality technology and production values for all its shows, and averts the need for any visiting artists and

Australia - Healesville's newly refurbished Memorial Hall is now known as 'The 'Memo', a new cultural focus for the Healesville and Yarra Valley region. It has a contemporary art space, a 300 seat performing arts facility and 3D digital cinema. The programme includes professional touring theatre, live music performances and art house cinema.

Significant upgrades have been made to the stage and backstage facilities whilst the foyer and auditorium have been upgraded to improve the public experience, all under the watchful eye of theatre consultants Marshall Day Entertech.

Jands worked

USA - New U.S. production company ECTO Productions, based in Chicago, has recently made its first lighting purchase of exclusively Martin fixtures and is supplying Martin Professional's MAC Viper Profile for the Umphrey's McGee tour with lighting design by Jefferson Waful.

"All of ECTO's gear is brand new and working great and we couldn't be happier with them," says Jefferson, who also handles lighting direction on the tour. "The Viper was the obvious choice," he says of his decision to use the 1000 W profile. "I find the sharp focus of the aerial gobos to be

Norway - Comprising three spaces of up to 1,500 seats each, the new Stavanger Konserthus (Concert Hall) in Norway was always going to be an ambitious project - especially given the current economic climate. But thanks to a careful reading of the consultant's spec by Bico's project manager S°ren Jørgensen, and with lighting and power control from ETC, the project was delivered on time and on budget.

The project started at the end of 2009 - installation work began only this year 2012 - and was, says Jørgensen, a long process with many special items included in the spec

UK - Members of the musical performance phenomenon Blue Man Group are putting a lightweight screen, digiTHIN, to ground-breaking use when they appear to materialise from a video projection in their latest production. The screens, developed by international video specialist displayLED under its digiLED brand, are worn by the artists who perform rigorous routines animated by breathtaking visual effects.

The group attracts 47,000 people per week to shows in New York, Boston, Chicago and Orlando, with a new Las Vegas production now open at Monte Carlo Resort and Casino.

According to BMG

UK - Marl International reports the completion of a £100,000 project to install feature LED lighting at The Alnwick Garden, one of the UK's top visitor attractions adjoining Alnwick Castle, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.

The Alnwick Garden is a public attraction founded by the Duchess of Northumberland and the new LED lighting is the first phase of Sparkle, a new permanent lighting installation conceived by the Duchess herself. The £100,000 project completed by Marl is specifically designed to focus on the central area of the garden, the Hornbeam Arbou

Off Stage - Stevie Wonder has pulled out of a concert raising money for the Friends of the Israel Defence Forces. The singer had been scheduled to perform at the Los Angeles event on 6 December. In a statement, Wonder said: "I am and have always been against war, any war, anywhere."

A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is currently in place, after a week of violence in Gaza last month. But tensions still run high. This week's gala concert supports an organisation which raises money for Israeli soldiers and their families. Wonder said the United Nations had recommended c

Latest Issue. . .