UK - Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, first built in 1812 in the heart of London's West End, has recently completed a £4m restoration. A key component to restoring the historic venue's Grand Saloon Bar to its original regency-style décor was keeping the look and feel of the space as theatrical as possible.

Architect Norman Bragg and Theatre Royal's Steve McAndrew, the team responsible for illuminating the space, wanted to install efficient LED lighting to showcase the restored architectural elements, but it was imperative that the modern-day fixtures didn't distract from the 19

UK - Students at Wakefield's Backstage Academy have gained hands-on experience with a variety of today's lighting technology thanks to the growing support from lighting professionals, manufacturers and rental companies.

There are 52 students currently studying the training academy's16-month Foundation Degree in Live Events Production, which was independently written in collaboration with industry practitioners, (validated by The University of Bolton) and places emphasis on practical experience.

The month-long Lighting Module teaches students about the theory and art of lighting, bas

UK - Birmingham-based sound and lighting production company DMX Productions supplied their new Robe Pointe moving lights for a high-profile one off concert by popular Nepalese Himalayan folk/rock band Nepathya, at London's Wembley Arena.

SJ Grevett of DMX Productions managed the show's production and the lighting/video design was overseen by Tom Grant, working on behalf of rental company Siyan Ltd. Siyan provided the rest of the lighting and rigging equipment, including Robe LEDWash 600s and MMX Spot fixtures.

Formed by three students studying in Kathmandu, Nepal in the early 1990s,

USA - Following the success of their 2012 World Tour, the multi-award winning rock band Train once again hit the road in 2013 with Mermaids of Alcatraz. As their largest tour to date, the three-piece band wanted to have a completely new look. To complete this task, they once again entrusted lighting designer Brock Hogan to create a design that would push the boundaries of creativity and Hogan turned to long-time tour provider LMG Touring who supplied him with 16 Philips Vari-Lite VL3015LT Spot luminaires and 15 Showline SL BAR 640 LED luminaires.

"This tour is completely d

Germany - Respected Berlin-based lighting designer Martin Kuhn has harnessed the punch and power of Clay Paky's bright, pure beam Sharpys, intense sparkling Alpha Spot QWO 800 STs, and Alpha Beam 700s for Berlin's Summer Rave 2013.

This is the fourth successful annual A&P Summer Rave, hosted by A&P Kaiser's Tengelmann and featuring some of Germany's biggest techno stars, including Westbam, AKA AKA Feat. Thalstroem, and Vitalic. Not only that it attracted 20,000 people who danced the night away until sunrise.

For the past three years the design of the event has been Kuhn's baby. 2013

USA - Bandit Lites wrapped another successful festival with The Forecastle Festival, a three-day event that began on 12 July and continued through 14 July.

Founded in 2002 by Louisville native JK McKnight and named for the superstructure at the bow of the ship where the crew is housed, the Forecastle Festival draws tens of thousands of fans to relax and unwind. Artists at this year's event included The Black Keys, The String Cheese Incident, Ole Crow Medicine Show, Big Boi, The Flaming Lips, Alabama Shakes, The Avett Brothers, Robert Plant and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals.

Bandit L

Germany - Robe's LEDWash series continues to break new ground and set more records as a best-selling product. The German market - consistently one of the strongest in Europe for Robe - sees German distributor LMP announcing orders for over 1500 units of Robe's LEDWash 800.

Three of the largest dry-hire companies in Germany - Motion Light from Fürth, Conrad Licht & Rigging Support from Bergkirchen in the Hafenstrasse and Dortmund based NicLen - have all placed their orders with LMP for LEDWash 800s.

Together they will take over 1500 units, which will be readily available for designe

UK - Once again this summer, entertainment lighting specialist White Light has returned to Minack Theatre on Cornwall's coast with the Shattered Windscreen Theatre Company production of Wild Oats. The show marks another successful production for the theatre company, whose members have been appearing on the Minack outdoor stage for more than a decade.

White Light has supplied lighting equipment and support for this and many other productions with Shattered Windscreen, often working with lighting designer Ken Allford to strike the balance between increasing creative demands and t

USA - Bandit Lites Inc. has invested in a substantial number of Robe's newest moving lights as specified by creative director and production designer Seth Jackson and lighting designer Nathan W Scheuer for the current Selena Gomez Stars Danceworld tour, which kicked off this week in Canada.

The sale involves 16 x Pointes, 18 x LEDWash 600s, 12 x LEDWash 1200s and 36 x LEDBeam 100s - all from Robe's Robin range of 'smaller-lighter-brighter' luminaires. These were delivered to Bandit by Robe Lighting Inc., coordinated by Eastern region business development manager, Kevin Loretto.

USA - The city that never sleeps put on a Fourth of July show that extended well beyond the 37th Annual Macy's Fireworks Spectacular to the Empire State Building (ESB) where a grandMA2 full-size and an MA VPU plus (Video Processing Unit) controlled a dazzling pixel-mapped lighting display on the landmark.

The ESB and Macy's partnered on the 37th annual fireworks show. As part of the celebration the ESB tower light show was created by world-famous lighting design artist Marc Brickman and choreographed to music curated by Usher for the finale of the fireworks. Last year the ESB unveiled

USA - The Verizon Philadelphia University Evening of Innovation is a great platform for advancing the importance of higher education and innovation and the impact they have on the global economy. The event paid tribute to students, faculty, alumni and friends who contribute their talent, creativity and determination to meeting current and emerging social needs through innovation.

The celebration included the Annual Fashion Show at the Academy of Music, followed by the Spirit of Innovation Gala and Awards Ceremony in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt at The Bellevue Hotel.

Lighting Des

UK - Robe lighting is showcasing nine exciting and innovative new products on stand L80 in Hall 5 at the PLASA exhibition at ExCeL London, 6-9 October 2013.

Robe is looking forward to the show in its new location at ExCeL London, and will celebrate this with a brand new and enlarged stand design.

Products will include all those launched at Prolight+Sound, Frankfurt which include some brand new concepts - all of which embrace Robe's smaller-lighter-brighter and more eco-friendly philosophies . . .

Robe is again a platinum sponsor of PLASA, which brings additional benefits to guests

UK - Lighting and visuals rental company HSL has been supplying a substantial 'specials' lighting rig - comprising over 160 fixtures - for Chase & Status's 2013 summer festival tour, which drew to a blistering close at the 2013 Reading and Leeds Festivals. This continues an excellent working relationship with the band and lighting designer Neil Carson.

Chase & Status live shows are renowned for their relentless high energy content and innovative use of visuals and lighting and the basis for Carson's design was to ensure that the rig could be wheeled onstage, rigged and wired in 30 min

USA - Hillsong United, the chart-topping worship band that rose out of the youth ministry of Sydney, Australia's Hillsong Church, recently wrapped up a US summer arena tour in support of its 12th and latest full-length album, Zion. The outing, known as Welcomezion, picks back up with a second three-week leg of North American dates in November and will continue to be supported by Greenfield, Indiana-based Mid-America Sound, which has been supplying an L-Acoustics K1 system for the tour.

The group's summer jaunt, which stopped at a dozen cities in June, sold out shows in P

USA - The 2013 MTV Video Music Awards was another spectacular event held at the year-old Barclays Centre in Brooklyn. Looking to deliver world-class lighting in the state-of-the-art venue, Tom Kenny was contracted to design an equally impressive light show to entertain thousands in attendance and millions watching at home. Martin lighting fixtures, supplied by VER, lined the stage and house, providing a multi-function professional lighting rig.

Kenny, whose illuminating résumé includes lighting design for David Bowie, Eric Clapton and The Who, among others, has been work

Australia - New start-up company, Entertainment Technology Australia (ETA) provided a spectacular launch for the new-look SGM brand in its local territory at this year's ENTECH 2013 trade show in Sydney.

The reaction was positive, with ETA reporting a flood of enquiries about products such as the LB-100 and LT-100/ 200 - coupled with a continual stream of positive comments, many from Australia's lighting industry leaders. One renowned LD, Rohan Thornton of Firelight, stated: "Seeing the new SGM range was refreshing. In a time when we are seeing more of the same, there were a numb

Germany - This year is Astera LED-Technology's year of market expansion and they have marked this with the release of new products, increased software developments, opening an office in the USA, and now with a new, visually attractive and knowledge-filled company website (www.astera-led.com).

Designed by Muze Studio of Israel, the website splits into two business divisions, just like the company itself; wireless event lighting and architectural lighting. The site features Astera's new corporate colours and new logo, and has generally de-cluttered the information on display from its pr

UK - Liverpool based Adlib was supplied complete visual & sound design and equipment packages to four high profile arenas at Creamfields 2013. Adlib again worked closely with creative and technical production specialists LarMac LIVE on the event, staged at Daresbury Estate over the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

Adlib's Chris Neary evolved and interpreted the initial visual briefs for the massive Cream Arena, the hyperactive Skream & Benga Arena, emerging talent in the Annie Mac Presents Arena and the Hospitality area.

There is a strong local and regional affinity between Adlib and Cr

Denmark - Providing an output of more than 2.5m lumen in the beautiful atmosphere of scenic forest surroundings, SGM's P-5 RGBW wash light made the green landscape even greener at Smukfest 2013. This summer festival is characterised by its location - in a forest by the lake - and thus justifies the description as being 'the most beautiful music festival in Denmark'.

As a part of sustainability initiatives, the 100 P-5s were chosen to replace conventional lighting fixtures in the illumination of the tree crowns around the stages and the audience sites. This replacement enabled the numb

New Zealand - The owners of the luxury yacht Genevieve approached Entertainment Lighting Solutions of Auckland to inspect and provide solutions on how to "warm up" their interior lighting and re-programme the current control system on the yacht as they were unhappy with the button choices.

Initially, 90 Halogen MR16 fittings had been installed throughout the yacht and these had been replaced a couple of years ago by a Spanish boat refurbishment company. They installed a specialist marine lighting control system designed around low voltage lamps and load circuits (12-24V). Un

New Zealand - The Hawke's Bay Opera House situated in Hastings, New Zealand is one of the Southern Hemisphere's most impressive examples of Spanish Mission architecture. The Theatre, with its extravagant Art Nouveau interior decorations, is the keystone of the complex. Originally known as The Hastings Municipal Theatre, Hawke's Bay Opera House was built in 1915 for £12,000 - a considerable sum for the day, reflecting the community's support for performing arts.

Under recent new management, the theatre has been undertaking a refurbishment plan that included the replacement of the

UK - In 2009, with its lighting rigs growing increasingly complex and more diverse, London's National Theatre decided to use several just-launched ETC Eos desks for its three stages. The staff quickly became dedicated to the Eos family of controls, adding Gio and Ion over the years. So when ETC debuted the Eos Titanium (Ti) desk - with even more powerful hardware and software than its predecessor - there was no question that the National would upgrade.

Eos Ti provides the bold features and increased control capacity that the iconic venue requires. "The demands of the National The

South Africa - Lighting designer Declan Randall wove Robe moving lights into his intricate lighting design for the epic roller-skating Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight Express staged in The Mandela venue at the Joburg Theatre complex in downtown Johannesburg.

Randall was part of a Johannesburg Theatre production team including director Janice Honeyman, producer Bernard Jay, designer James MacNamara, choreographer Karen Bruce and musical director Clinton Zerf, who were given creative licence to produce a new and exhilarating version of this classic hi-energy piece.

It was

UK - PLASA London 2013, which takes place at ExCeL London from 6-9 October 2013, is proud to reveal the first audio sessions in its hotly anticipated Professional Development Programme. The packed programme offers four days of free sessions that give visitors a glimpse of the technology behind the world's most spectacular live shows and most talked about events and venues.

All sessions in the audio streams are presented by leading experts in audio technology, with separate programmes on Live Sound and Installed Sound in the new AudioLab Theatre, and a pro audio laboratory - AudioLab I

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