Serbia - Croatian megastar Gibonni recently played a special concert in the Kombank Arena, Belgrade, Serbia in front of 20,000 fans who all went crazy for the occasion! The lighting utilized 22 x Robe Robin Pointes and 36 LEDBeam 100s which were specified by lighting designer Sven Ku?ini?.

Ku?ini?, based in Zagreb, Croatia started working with the popular singer, musician and composer this year. Ku?ini? is a well-known LD in Croatia and was offered the gig following his high profile work with Croatian rockers Prljavo Kazaliste plus a plethora of musicals, concerts and events.

Gibonn

USA - The new office for Christie Lites New York is officially open for business. The warehouse is in a newly renovated 30,000sq.ft space at 13B Division Street in Fairview, NJ. This 14th location further strengthens Christie Lites' multi-office network supplying full service stage lighting equipment rentals across North America.

Said Christie Lites VP Rentals Ken Alexander, "We are proud of this new expansion which allows us to directly service our already loyal Northeast client base like never before and also provides the perfect avenue to reach new clients in the months and ye

Latvia - The Embassy of Latgale GORS is a place with a soul, where the cultural traditions of the region of Latgale combine with modern opportunities and give life to the fascinating stories of eras, people, music and art. In this place, the local dialect mixes with the sound of symphonies, and historical heritage combines with contemporary creative works. New meets old, guests encounter locals, songs hybridize with dance and art merges with cinema.

The GORS cultural centre has two concert halls, a cinema, an art school, an exhibition space, a restaurant where you can enjoy the pleasu

Austria - La Bohème, composed by Giacomo Puccini, was performed for the first time in 1896 at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. It was an immediate success and is still successful today. This was confirmed by its recent staging during the St. Margarethen Opera Festival in the Römersteinbruch (a Roman quarry). The quarry has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 2001 and is the largest natural stage in Europe. For this reason, it makes an impressive setting for operatic performances.

Lighting designer and programmer Michael Grundner, event designer Ernst Hainisch and product

UK - For many years the O2 Guildhall Southampton has been a popular venue on the South Coast, hosting a wide variety of concerts and events from rock to classical, comedy and sporting, student and private parties, exhibitions, fashion shows and conferences.

Recently, Live Nation (Music) UK Limited decided that the foyer lighting needed updating as part of the venues O2 rebranding. Whilst researching potentially suitable fixtures, Simon Williams, the venue's head technician, approached local lighting experts GLS Lighting Ltd for advice. Ian Turner from GLS suggested the MilTec Batten2

Sri Lanka - When the recent Commonwealth Peoples Forum was held for the first time in Sri Lanka, Live Productions Pvt. Ltd was contracted by another local company, Dynamic AV Technologies Pvt Ltd to provide the lighting in front of 500 invited guests at the historic Galle Fort.

This comprised entirely of PR Lighting moving discharge and LED heads from their large inventory of the Chinese manufacturer's fixtures.

The lighting had to be purpose designed by the organising committee to meet the requirements of both the live audience - comprising the Secretary General Commonwealth of the

USA - Released in April this year, the instant success of Ayrton's MagicPanel 602 has been acknowledged at the LDI show in Las Vegas where it received the 2013 LDI Award for Best Debuting Product of the Year in the Projection category.

Ayrton MagicPanel 602 is a moving head LED beam projector equipped with thirty-six 15W Osram RGBW emitters in a 6 x 6 array. Each emitter projects a tight, powerful 7.5° beam and can be controlled individually or used collectively to produce a coherent 12,000 lumen shaft of light. Under individual control, the emitters can be pixel mapped or driven

USA - Lighting designer, Liam Griffiths, recently selected GLP's impression LED spots for use on tour with New Zealand alternative rock band, The Naked and Famous.

Having provided lighting dynamics for the band since 2011 the LD - who runs West Midlands-based Stage Techniques - sourced 18 X4 spots from PRG in Los Angeles, and integrated his touring floor package, consisting of six legs of curved truss, with the house rig at San Diego's House Of Blues where the world tour kicked off.

The set-up has provided the LD with an economical touring package capable of delivering a big show fr

Belgium - Robe was once again prominent on the lighting spec lists for I Love Techno - one of the best known and most popular annual events in Belgium's action packed EDM calendar, staged at the Flanders Expo in Ghent.

Up to 35,000 techno enthusiasts enjoyed great vibes and an international DJ and artist line up in five main rooms, plus a Chill Zone and two special arenas sponsored by Red Bull and Coca Cola respectively ... all highlighting different genres and sub-divisions of techno.

Event production lighting designer Thomas Boets once again chose Robe as one of the main moving li

Up and Coming - Fifteen rising music artists have been named on the longlist for the BBC Sound of 2014, which showcases some of the brightest new acts for the year ahead. The list was compiled using tips from 170 'tastemakers', who each named their favourite three emerging artists. Californian trio Haim came out on top last year, with Adele, Ellie Goulding and Jessie J also among past winners. This year's crop includes singers Sam Smith and Ella Eyre, who have both already featured on number one singles.

Junior Eurovision - Malta has won this year's Junior Eurovision Song conte

Belgium - ETC's northern region is set to hold its second Masters training session for dealers and distributors in Belgium in the new year, concentrating on entertainment control systems.

ETC Masters is a series of training sessions developed for all distributors and dealers which gets together three times a year to share their experiences and learn from ETC staff. ETC's regional manager for northern Europe Tim Stokholm explains, "We work hard to ensure our customers get the best possible support from ETC. The most effective way of doing that is with an effective and knowledgeabl

China - Shanghai Mook Club, one of the most popular nightlife hotspots in the financial capital of China, recently installed a full Martin lighting system, creating an exciting experience for Shanghai's partying public. The club's vibrant and urban-style interior design is complete with a vast number of Martin lighting fixtures.

Mook combines local music with international flavours for a premium clubbing experience, hosting world-renowned DJ's and bands on a monthly basis. Therefore, it needed a lighting system as versatile as Martin to accommodate its broad music selection.

To brin

USA - Elation Professional reports that industry professional John Dunn has joined the company as rental and production market manager for the US market.

Dunn brings to Elation a wealth of knowledge and broad industry experience, says the company. His roots in the industry stretch back 12 years, beginning at a small production house in Irvine, California, before moving to the manufacturer side eight years ago where he has amassed an abundance of key relationships.

Eric Loader, director of sales at Elation Professional, commented on the hiring. "Elation products have been increa

UK - The streets of Derry Londonderry were thronged with visitors on the final night of Lumiere Derry Londonderry as around 45,000 people flooded into the UK City of Culture to see the light festival, which is sponsored by Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE).

Festival organisers Artichoke are delighted with the spectacular success of the festival, which has transformed the UK City of Culture 2013 into a giant outdoor art gallery.

An estimated 179,000 visitors have attended the festival over the four nights. Queues on Saturday night stretched all the way down past Queens Quay and Airv

UK - Herts-based light, sound and video experts, Technical Arts, have long been the preferred installation partner for Luminar Leisure venues and have partnered lately with Chauvet Europe to complete the supply of a recent spate of lighting upgrades across Luminar's portfolio.

Venues benefitting from the inclusion of Chauvet DJ bright and powerful LED ranges include Cambridge Ballare, Cambridge Kuda, Bristol Pryzm, Preston Evoque, Ashford Liquid, Leicester Liquid and Lava and Ignite in Oxford.

The lighting system in Cambridge's Ballare gained a full overhaul comprised of six Chauvet

New Zealand - LDR has appointed Theatrelight NZ as exclusive distributor for New Zealand. The joint decision was made after meetings at the PLASA London 2013 between Lisa Papi, of LDR and Rex Gilfillan and Tony Bullock of Theatrelight.

Both manufacturers have an excellent reputation as professional, reliable and flexible companies and their shared interests in this market have immediately materialised in a distribution agreement with a significant initial purchase order from Theatrelight.

"Theatrelight, founded in 1972, supplies a flourishing export market in many countries wor

USA - At the recent LDI show, Dennis Varian of ETC presented a cheque for nearly $26,000 to Behind the Scenes, which reflected ongoing proceeds from sales of ETC's iRFR and aRFR (Radio Focus Remote) application for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android. The donation brings ETC's total Behind the Scenes contributions to date to just under $150,000.

"This app was developed by ETC software engineer, Chris Mizerak as a cool tool that ETC thought some might find interesting," says ETC. "When another employee in ETC's London office (Luke Delwiche) suggested that we give the profits

Brazil - Singing brothers Diego & Diogo have recently filmed their debut DVD at the Nestle Auditorium in São José do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, using nearly 150 different Robe fixtures - including the brand new Pointe - with lighting services provided by São Paulo-based Showdesign.

Lighting designer Leonardo Oliveira and director of photography Rogério Fernandez, both of Showdesign, were in charge of creating and supervising lighting to achieve great results for both live audience and the cameras that registered on all 17 songs for the soon-to-be-released DVD.

In total,

South Africa - Gearhouse Group, South Africa's largest rental staging company, has increased their audio visual projection stockholding with the recent purchase of sixteen 20K projectors - eight Christie Roadster HD20K-J 3-chip DLP and eight Panasonic PT-DZ21K 3-chip DLP units.

The Group services a very wide range of event types from a 50 pax conference in a hotel boardroom to a globally-broadcast closing ceremony in a stadium and the Group stocks an equally diverse range of brands to meet client preferences and service the various applications using the most suitable product.

Altho

UK - The ArtLED is a new spotlight range especially developed for display and task lighting applications in the museum and art markets. Manufactured by Light Projects, it uses the latest Xicato XSM 1,300lm Artist series LED and combines a highly crafted and designed lighting fitting with high CRI (Ra ? 95) and colour consistency.

Recently shortlisted as Interior Luminaire of the year at the Lighting Design Awards, one of the many benefits is its Wall Wash Reflector which allows the ArtLED to be used for a multitude of different lighting tasks and applications. It is manufactured from

South Africa - The much loved rock sounds of Prime Circle played at PM Ideas Marketing Awards, held on 1 November at Theatre on the Track, Kyalami. Showgroup supplied the full event from technical to decor.

"There was no specific brief for the event," said Andries Liebenberg, lighting manager at Show Group. Inspired by a Kings of Leon Concert, Liebenberg used square shapes to create striking effects.

Liebenberg had a total of 66 Longman LED Bars and Parcans which were positioned on stage steps and ladder structures to create a clean and striking look. The show also used pu

Latvia - Challenged with lighting a huge concert featuring 20,000 performers celebrating Latvian culture in an open air space, lighting designer Normunds Blasãns felt he could only achieve his vision by specifying Philips Vari-Lite's high-output VL3015LT Spots, VL3500 and VL3000 Washes.

Local rental house and production company NA Stage & Light supplied 20 VL3015LT Spot luminaires, 16 VL3000 Washes, and 24 VL3500 Wash fixtures for the massive 25th Latvian Song and Dance Festival, which drew an audience of more than 40,000. The event celebrates Latvian music, dance, art, and cul

Russia - Elkruff , the Novosibirsk-based lighting rentals company and one of the biggest in the Urals region, has chosen to invest in 24 of Clay Paky's Sharpy Wash 330s and 12 Alpha Spot QWO 800 STs.

The Russian production company's key market is to develop and deliver integrated creative and technical solutions for events of all sizes. For Elkruff this meant it was looking for robust, fast, compact feature rich fixtures that would offer its diverse client base the most value for its investment.

"Elkruff chose to buy Clay Paky equipment because the company's mission is to stock

USA - Ten Robe Pointes have been delivered to Christ Fellowship Worship Centre in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA, specified by lighting designer Aaron Leahy who is responsible for all lighting designs and systems at the 1,747 capacity purpose-built venue.

Christ Fellowship Worship Centre was established in 1984 and stages around four regular weekend services plus additional events.

Leahy first saw Robe's new Pointes at PLASA Focus in Orlando, shortly after the product - Robe's fastest selling to date - was launched at Prolight+Sound 2013 in Frankfurt. He knew immediately that it w

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