Belgium - Lighting and Visuals Designer Peter Vervloesem has just joined Bass Events, one of the most proactive organisers of EDM events in Belgium, as their 'house' production designer. Peter has previously worked in the same capacity on several Bass Events' projects as a freelancer.

Bass Events believes in offering their audiences the very highest production values, hence their desire to have a production designer on-board to oversee continuity and focus just on this element of their live events. Peter is also a keen Robe advocate. In June, he specified a selection of Robe moving li

South Africa - About 18 months ago Gearhouse South Africa's Ofer Lapid and Tim Dunn accompanied Bruce Schwartz (Entertainment Lighting Manager, Electrosonic SA) on a trip to Aarhus, Denmark, home of Martin Professional. Their mission was to check out Martin's new range of automated fixtures: after eight years of faithful service, Gearhouse SA's Martin MAC 2000s were starting to take strain.

Peter Skytte and Peter Dahlin from Martin Professional treated Ofer, Tim and Bruce to a sneak preview of the Viper series. Back then there were only two early prototypes - and these units were stil

USA - Elation Professional has introduced the Protron LED Strobe, an ultra-powerful LED strobe that comes housed in a conventional par-style case. Utilising 576 pieces of white 6,500K LED diodes, this fixture produces an impressive 28,000 lumens of output - for unmatched punch and brightness in a strobing effect, says the company.

Adding to its powerful strobe light effect, the Protron LED Strobe's LEDs are also split into four 'pies' which can chase to create 'eye candy' effects. A rugged die-cast aluminium case allows the LEDs to run at full output as well as to be a floodlight/blin

UK - The 10th series of the X Factor has some noticeable changes. The biggest production surprise was that early auditions have moved away from theatre venues filled with thousands of fans and returned back to a hotel room setting - just how the early shows were originally set. Spectacular arena venues are still on the agenda this year, but further down the audition line and almost certainly at the 'boot camp' stage.

The return of Sharon Osbourne to the judging panel has been the big news in front of camera, but there have been some significant changes behind the scenes too, wi

South Africa - Forming part of the Samsung Galaxy S4 World Tour, the Galaxy S4 was launched to the South African market at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg recently and attended by some 2,000 guests.

The elaborate event, which Clay Paky Alpha Spots and Sharpys have helped to illuminate, consisted of two parts: a formal conference followed by a spectacular surprise party where the entertainment included everything from aerial acts to ballerinas in LED tutus and popular DJs. Lighting was breath-taking.

This was the largest event Victor Vermaak from AV Unlimited (AVU) had

UK - As one of the largest dance festivals in the world, the Global Gathering, in its 12th year, brought some of the world's most renowned DJs and live acts to numerous stages during one weekend of non-stop dance and electronic music in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK.

Electric Fly Productions was contracted to design and supply the lighting for all seven arenas involved in the 2013 festival and deployed a Martin M6 lighting console on the main stage for full control of the intense lighting, in addition to deploying a vast amount of Martin lighting fixtures.

Martin EC-20 video screens were

UK - Patrick Woodroffe reports that Adam Bassett is joining him as his partner in a new entity, Woodroffe Bassett Design in a move that will bring together Adam Bassett Design and Patrick Woodroffe Lighting Design.

The two have worked together since 1999 when Adam joined Patrick at the Millennium Dome shows in Greenwich and since then they have collaborated together and worked independently on all sorts of lighting projects around the world.

Working with associates, Miriam Evans and Terry Cook, Woodroffe Bassett will continue to design, direct and produce lighting projects in all fo

India - From September 2013 Laserworld has become the exclusive distributor of Pangolin Systems products in India. The agreement was made "emphasises the excellent cooperation and business partnership between the two companies".

"Pangolin is a great control solution for professional show laser light systems and it complements our products perfectly. The Laserworld brand has a strong awareness in India and this exclusive agreement for the Indian market will help us to establish our high quality laser show products to the market even more," says Laserworld sales & ma

Australia - Over 300 Anolis ArcDot LED pixels have been installed to light the façade of the landmark waterslide at Noble Park Aquatic Centre (NPAC) in Melbourne.

The new lighting scheme designed by Electrolight for Suters Architects transforms the 19.5m structure into a gleaming beacon of contemporary elegance that is clearly visible from the town centre. Dave Anderson led the design for Electrolight.

Suters' waterslide design is inspired by images of waterfalls and evokes the NPAC tagline 'Water for all'. The requirement was for a fluid visual lighting effect that could be vibran

UK - The organisers of PLASA London 2013, which takes place at ExCeL London from 6-9 October 2013, have revealed the first entertainment lighting and stage technology 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 these streams are presented by leading experts in entertainment technology, with two new theatres dealing exclusively in entertainment lighting and

USA - With less than a week until the doors open at PLASA Focus: Austin, taking place at the Palmer Events Center, on 10-11 September, 2013, exhibitors have been busy releasing details about the products they will have on display at their booths.

Martin Professional will have two new products on their booth; the MAC Viper Quadray and the Jem Ready 365 Hazer. The MAC Viper Quadray, the latest addition to the award-winning MAC Viper family of moving heads, allows for the projection of one, two, three or four individually-controllable rays of light. The Jem Ready 365 Hazer uses advanced

UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment continued its working relationship with Festival Republic by supplying production lighting designs and equipment to the Dance, Lock Up / Rock and BBC Introducing Stages at the 2013 Reading and Leeds Festivals.

Colour Sound also provided LED screen to the Dance stage and lighting for two silent discos and the Action Aid tent - and replicated all of this in Leeds. Additionally, two and half kilometres of Colour Sound's DMX controlled IMS LED Festoon was installed at Reading to enhance ambience and mood ac

The Netherlands - ADB will be showing a number of new and updated products at IBC 2013 in Amsterdam. The Freedom control desk is designed to handle in a compact format all forms of visual media - conventionals, moving lights and video media. It's compatible with shows recorded in ASCII, Isis, Safari and Congo formats.

Recent installations include the BBC new complex in Cardiff, Turkmenistan Media city, Kazakistan Media tower, and many more besides, making Freedom and its even more compact partner, Liberty, the most successful and best selling consoles in ADB's history.

Also on show

USA / Mexico - Chauvet, a leading global supplier of entertainment lighting and trussing, announces the opening of a full-service subsidiary in Mexico, Chauvet & Sons de Mexico, following the acquisition of the assets of long-time Chauvet distributor in Mexico, Novelties. Chauvet & Sons de Mexico is a full-service branch office and distribution center for the Chauvet Professional, Chauvet DJ, and Trusst brands.

"We are very excited and honoured to be able to directly serve our customers in a market where Chauvet's brands are already known and valued," CEO Albert Chauvet said

Australia - The iconic His Majesty's Theatre, or 'the Maj' as it is affectionately known, is the only remaining working Edwardian theatre in Australia, and home to WA Opera. This stunning example of Edwardian era architecture is one of WA's most-loved heritage icons.

However celebrating history and all things antique should not stretch to the lighting department who were struggling with their old consoles.

"We had a Strand 550 and a 520i console for years and they were really at the end of their use-by date," commented Matthew Nankivell, head of lighting at His Majesty's T

USA - PLASA has announced eight finalists in the sixth annual Rock Our World Awards, to be presented at the PLASA Cocktail & Awards Reception at LDI 2013. The Rock Our World Awards were created to honour ground-breaking achievement by PLASA members and to acknowledge the genius of both the creator of the technology and the designer or integrator who applies it in a real world environment.

The finalists for the sixth annual Rock Our World Awards are:

GBLOCK - Gallagher Staging and Productions, Inc.

GCT (Guy Cable Tensioner) - Tomcat USA.

Mbox Extreme Media Server as

USA - The bold stage and presentation aesthetics for 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York, took inspiration from the MTV Moon Man Award statue that received a special 30th anniversary makeover this year by New Jersey street-artist KAWS.

Lighting designer Tom Kenny worked the same style - blurring the lines between fine art and pop art - into multiple areas of the onstage lighting treatment, with 80 of Robe's new Pointe multi-purpose moving light fixtures, a vital element of his rig of over 1000 moving heads. These were supplied to the event a

Brazil - Lollapalooza's return to São Paulo, Brazil earlier this year was made all the more successful by Electralight, in partnership with LPL Lighting Productions, and their use of Lightconverse visualization software. By employing an onsite custom 3D visualization studio at the iconic Jockey Club horse track, located in the heart of the city, valuable design and programming time was saved for a host of designers and operators whose top-talent bands took the stages of the three-day event.

With all three main stages virtually replicated in Lightconverse software running on individua

UK - West London based lighting and visual rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) supplied lighting kit, two Kinesys automation systems and Vector control plus crew to the North and South open air stages at the 2013 Creamfields Festival, staged at Daresbury Estate Near Warrington over the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

Colour Sound's team led by crew chief Jon Rickets worked closely with creative and technical production specialists LarMac LIVE on the event, the UK's highest profile EDM festival. This year's line-up included open air stage headliners Avicii and The Prodigy (Sat

UK - Props people, lighting designers, and electricians will be interested to discover that RC4Wireless is now offering specially priced RC4Magic Wireless DMX and Dimming Starter Kits for a limited time. Every new kit comes with three secure digital IDs. Since every RC4Magic user has their own IDs, no RC4 user can ever interfere with another RC4 user's show.

RC4Wireless is also offering a low-cost Wireless LED Dimming Kit for Educators. This affordably-priced kit is ready to use right out of the box. It demonstrates smooth wireless dimming, and includes a bright red-green-blue LED, 6V

Sweden / Argentina - LumenRadio has announced a new partnership with TSD Group for distribution of the CRMX brand in Argentina. Run by Daniel Lema, the Buenos Aires based TSD Group has since 1994 been one of the leading suppliers for concert touring, theatres, permanent installations as well as television in Argentina. With an already impressive product portfolio including well-known brands such as Robe, SGM, Chamsys, Chromateq, the most important factor in TSD Group's choice for LumenRadio's CRMX wireless technology was the outstanding reliability. Another important factor was the poss

Brazil - Brazilian singer Luan Santana had his breakthrough in 2010 with a best-seller album, before continuing to climb the Billboard charts with his second album. Already known for presenting some of the most expansive concerts, there was little doubt that the recordings of his recent show for the Luan Santana DVD would be over the top.

Consequently, lighting designer, Marcos Olivio, was presented with one of the challenges of the year. With the intention of doing a live concert and subsequently an electronic Rave ballad with Santana's band for recording, Arena Maeda in São Paulo w

UK - Celebrated LD Vince Foster recently employed a battalion of Clay Paky fixtures to honour Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. Foster used the Clay Paky fixtures to deliver a striking, yet flexible lighting design for the Coronation Festival Gala.

Held in the Gardens of Buckingham Palace, the event took place over four days from 11-14 July and was the Palace's first commercial, ticketed public event. Technical production company Hawthorn provided the full production services supplying over 150 Clay Paky fixtures including: Alpha Wash 1200, Alpha Spot HPE 1200, Alpha Profi

India - The Guru Tegh Bahadur Memorial structure in New Delhi has been brought to life with a stunning light show - featuring fixtures from PR Lighting. The newly programmed show is the result of a design from the attraction's lighting director in conjunction with Modern Stage Service's Varinder Wadhwa.

This architectural marvel, situated on the main highway, gives an insight into the life and teachings of the ninth Guru of the Sikhs and the illumination has been described as "world class".

Modern Stage Service (MSS) - PR Lighting's Indian distributor - was brought in as a

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