UK - Lighting and show designer Will Potts is utilising the versatility and internal speed of Philips VL3000 Spot luminaires to execute his energetic lighting design for electronic music duo Disclosure.

Potts specified the VL3000s, which were provided by leading supplier PRG, to skillfully bring to life the band's signature icon, the instantly recognisable line drawing of a face, as part of his design. For the preliminary stages of the project, Potts employed the VL3000's powerful beam to project custom artwork through a series of gauze screens, transporting 2D images into a 3D space.

"VL3000s were always my first choice for this show," says Potts. "The clarity of image projection combined with good brightness, wide zoom capabilities and its global availability made it a no brainer to use. I also really enjoy being able to use three rotating gobo wheels loaded w

South Africa - In the charming town of Prince Albert, The Showroom, a new theatre, opened her doors on the 22 November 2013. The 150-seater incorporates Philips Selecon Profiles and Fresnels, Philips Strand 200 Plus control and dimmers, Le Maitre Hazers and Longman F1 LED PARcans.

The project was the initiative of resident filmmaker, Johnny Breedt and his business partner, Charon Landman. Significantly, Breedt had worked on the movie adaption Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, and of course the movie's release, the death of South Africa's beloved Nelson Mandela and the opening of The Showroom, all coincided within days of each other.

It's not every day someone decides to establish a new theatre, and as far as locations are concerned, there could not be one more breathtaking or remote.

Johnny Breedt describes the series of events that led him to finally own his own the

Australia - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the Broadway musical that was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, is wowing audiences throughout Australia and garnering rave reviews wherever it plays.

The lighting design is by Nicholas Rayment with Kyle Bockmann programming his lighting with a brand new Eos Titanium, ETC's flagship lighting control console.

Ti features large-format, articulating multi-touch displays with substantial programming surface. It also offers a dedicated multi-touch encoder display, 20 user-definable buttons, a backlit keyboard, motorized faders, multiple USB and video ports.

Kyle is no stranger to the ETC range of lighting consoles and he described stepping up to the Eos Ti as awesome.

"I really like the direct selects as you can now have 5 x 20, as opposed to 5 x 10, and just having that extra layer makes programming on the TI much more efficient,&qu

UK - London-based lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting and projection to the recent UK tour by US rockers A Day To Remember, with a lighting design created by Steve Stemac.

It was the first time that Stemac had worked with Colour Sound whose project manager Fletch comments, "We really enjoyed this tour. the design was refreshingly different and a lot of fun and Steve and his team were a joy to work with."

The tour included the presentation of the band's renowned 'House Party' show at London's Alexandra Palace.

The focus of attention is a large scenic house onstage - a concept originated by the band's lead singer Jeremy McKinnon and developed by him and Stemac in 2013. The show opens with a video intro onto a drape completely covering the stage, which is jettisoned by electric kabuki to reveal the house, the band and a hug

Czech Republic - The 2013 Sportovec Roku (Athlete of The Year) Awards were staged at the TOP Hotel in Prague, broadcast live on Czech national TV channel CT1 and enjoyed by an audience of 400 guests and VIPs who amassed to honour the very best of Czech athletes present, past and future.

Freelance lighting designer Pavel Jelinek - one of the country's top television LDs - was asked to light the show - for which he specified Robe moving lights, including 18 x Robin Pointes together with four Robin LEDWash 1200 and four Robin LEDWash 600s.

The stage was limited for space, and the time in which to get everything rigged, focused and ready was tight, so this defined some elements of the lighting design. Jelinek wanted high quality lightweight fixtures that were bright and above all fast and easy for the crew to rig.

In addition to the awards presentations, the show featured live p

Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden AB's award-winning W-DMX is celebrating a major milestone - 10 years on the market.

Wireless Solution Sweden was founded in 2003 and the first W-DMX product to market was debuted in March 2004 at the SIB Show in Rimini. Later that same year, Wireless Solution won the Innovation Award at PLASA. The success story continued at LDI in Las Vegas where Wireless Solution won the LDI Award as the first manufacturer to launch an IP65 Solution for Wireless DMX.

In 2005, W-DMX got Honourable Mention for the W-DMX Outdoor Solution at Lightfair in Las Vegas. In 2007, Wireless Solution was awarded a "Venture Cup" as most interesting company for venture capital, but as a part of the growing success story, the company continued on their own legs and chose not to bring in external money. In 2008, Wireless Solution was in a management buyout by its Co

Canada - CAST of Toronto has launched The CAST Forum at http://forum.cast-soft.com. The forum is open to everyone and aims to serve both CAST product users as well as the entire entertainment & event production community, it is not just about CAST products. Forum members can post projects, ask questions, get technical support from the Community or just browse to see what others are doing.

The Forum is meant to bring members together regarding everything from design and programming for lighting, multimedia, audio, to new technologies, to working in other countries, to sharing tricks of the trade, and leveraging each other's knowledge and experiences.

CAST president Gil Densham explains, "We want the forum to focus on the important issues; the collaboration of creativity + artistry + technology, from the design process to execution to wildly successful projects. This is not

USA - The Super Bowl Halftime Show always glitters, and Bruno Mars' and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance at Super Bowl XLVIII was no exception. This year a grandMA2 light took command of the media. Lighting designer Bob Barnhart opted to have "a more rock 'n roll vibe in the rig than the stylised, choreographed shows that we've seen in the past. Bruno wanted this to be more of a live rock show."

Barnhart was challenged to capture that rock 'n roll sensibility as well as prepare for winter weather conditions that might envelop the open-air MetLife stadium in New Jersey. "It was a question of what we could design that could survive severe weather," he says. "Another factor was the limitations of rigging positions in the building and how we could symmetrically lay out the rig. We had to cover as much of the full stadium with the stage pushed back agai

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will showcase a selection of the latest lighting, rigging and video solutions alongside their in-house Express custom cable, custom gel, & lamp services, and other popular consumables available for next day delivery - at BVE London 2014, Excel (hall/stand D20).

The stand will feature some of the many marques which AC-ET is the exclusive UK reseller for - including Chroma-Q, Mole-Richardson, Spotlight and James Thomas Engineering lighting solutions, Jands lighting and media control, Green Hippo media servers, LedGo LED video screens and floors, and Columbus McKinnon chain hoists. Other leading authorised brands showcased on the stand include Philips Selecon lighting, Manfrotto and Avenger stands and grip, Litec and Prolyte trussing, Petzl PPE equipment, and Crosby, Tractel and A.C. Rigging hardware accessories.

See in action new Chro

USA - Rising 14 stories above the Hudson, Manhattan's Canoe Studios offers some classic New York views. On Super Bowl Sunday, the famous video studio and event venue also hosted one of the city's top Super Bowl parties. Sponsored by Heineken, Esquire and All In magazine, the jam-packed event had the requisite large screen TVs showing football, but it also offered something you weren't likely to see at other Super Bowl gatherings: a spacious "game free" party area where the only videos running were those on some PVP S7 panels from Chauvet Professional.

"This was a non-football room sponsored by Heineken," said Jeffrey Kwan of Canal Sound and Light (New York), which did the lighting and audio for the event. "The other sponsors had other rooms in Canoe Studios where you could watch the game, but the Heineken room was party centre, where people came to dance

South Africa - As South Africa mourned the loss of former President Nelson Mandela, Event Hire supplied a ground support, screen, sound and lighting for some of the many memorial service broadcasts held across the country.

Event Hire Network set up three stations in Mthatha as well stations at the Lusikisiki College of Education, Matatiele and Port St Johns. Rain over large parts of the country made these points less populated than anticipated, but a seed has to die to create life, and one can only believe that the showers would promise renewal and growth.

Right through December, Event Hire Network never lost their drive, and their Avolites Tiger Touch and Robin 300 LEDWash and Robin 600LEDWash fixtures worked as hard as the rest of the team, under the helm of Victor Pienaar.

Event Hire Network supplied the technical for Jimmy Dludlu, an African Jazz and Fusion musician, who

Germany - ETC is getting ready for this year's ProLight+Sound trade show in Frankfurt.

Following the hugely successful launch of the Cobalt 20 desk at the PLASA trade show, ETC is expanding the range with the Cobalt 10 desk, which will be available for stand visitors to play with. The desk brings the power of Cobalt 20 to a compact, road-ready footprint, with ten motorised faders.

There is also an opportunity before the show to win a Cobalt Nomad dongle, which lets you experience Cobalt from your own PC. You can program your own show from a range of four different one-minute music tracks, and then have it reviewed by a panel of judges. Visit www.etcconnect.com/Prolight2014 for more information and to enter the contest. All entrants will receive free entry to ProLight+Sound.

ETC's stand will include a large cyclorama rigged with the Source Four LED CYC adapter, which can be a

Germany - Ayrton delights in the creation of products to broaden the lighting designers' palette of fixtures and expand the possibilities of Light in Action. In its continued dedication to the development of powerful and exciting new tools, Ayrton will be releasing three new products for ProLight+Sound.

The second of these products is WildBeam R which will be presented at the show on the Ayrton stand, Hall 9.0, Booth E70.

WildBeam R is a spectacular new addition to the Ayrton line. It couples seven individually controlled 15W RGBW LED emitters with brand new, 67mm collimators - a world-première combination - to create an astonishingly powerful, compact luminaire with a sharp 4.5° beam.

Using less than 130W, including pan and tilt motors, WildBeam's optical output produces a 2,500 lumen shaft of light and hits a record-breaking 90% efficiency.

WildBeam R's light engine

Germany - Exhibiting for the first time at ProLight+Sound, LightGeist brings fresh ideas to the show with the introduction of its own brand of cable-free, 'cloud lighting'. The company will present the Badger, the LightStick and the Splodger for the first time in mainland Europe.

LightGeist Badger, LightStick and Splodger are semi-flexible RGB LED products encapsulated into light sticks, worn as badges or housed in freestanding units. These can be deployed en masse to form a 'living' video wall to engage audiences in a totally immersive experience. Units can be programmed to create Mexican waves at sporting events, flash to the beat during music concerts, create brand visualisation and channel video content.

"Perhaps the most exciting and fastest developing technology is that of 'cloud lighting'," explains LightGeist CEO, Liza Sutherland. "Music and sporting eve

South Africa - Following the major investment in Philips Showline's high-output SL NITRO 510s by two of South Africa's most established rental houses, Gearhouse and MGG Productions, the super bright SL NITRO 510 strobes have proved a popular choice for some of the country's biggest events.

The punchy and dynamic SL NITRO 510s, which offer an output of 68,000 lumens and six programmable zones, facilitates a multitude of looks. Gearhouse recently invested in 140x SL NITRO 510 units and immediately supplied them to the Johannesburg International Motor Show where they were used to light Tata trucks and buses on the Tata commercial vehicles stand.

"The SL NITRO 510 is an innovative unit in that offers all the functionality of a strobe, but can also be used as a static white wash," says Gearhouse's lighting operations manager, Stuart Andrews. "It also has programming

Record Breakers - London's major commercial and subsidised theatres have reported their 10th consecutive year of record box office takings, with more people visiting theatre in the capital in 2013 than ever before. Figures published by the Society of London Theatre - whose membership includes the 52 principal commercial and not-for-profit theatres in central London - revealed that gross box office returns rose to more than £585m, up 11% on 2012; attendances also increased, by 4%, up to 14.6m

According to SOLT, the results were down to the popularity of the shows on offer, with theatres reporting an improved percentage of tickets sold across the year. Average theatre capacity achieved was 72.7% in 2013, up from 69.21%.

Closing Number - Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical, Stephen Ward, will close in the West End following a run of less than four months.

South Africa - Ultra Worldwide, the massive premier electronic music festival, hit Cape Town and Johannesburg on 14 and 15 February. While the main technical was supplied by Gearhouse, Travis Yeatman controlled certain elements of the pyrotechnics for this event using his Avolites Tiger Touch.

Fireworks for Africa were commissioned to incorporate awesome pyro effects to create the wow factor. They asked Yeatman to be part of their team for the performances held at the Ostrich Farm in Cape Town and at the Naserec Showgrounds in Johannesburg.

"On the Pyrotechnics side we ran the Avolites Tiger Touch for the control system," explained Yeatman. 12 Channel Red Back Dimmers were used for controllable hot power channels to trigger the CO2 jets and Stadium Shot streamer canons and the 6m flame units come with integrated DMX. "The Avolites allows for a variety of functio

UK / Czech Republic - Robe Lighting s.r.o., the Czech-based entertainment lighting manufacturer, has announced the acquisition of the complete range of LiteWare portable battery LED products from UK company Global Design Solutions (GDS).

With immediate effect, the sales, marketing, manufacture and support for this award-winning range will be transferred to Robe, and be available through both the company's subsidiary offices and extensive global distributor network.

Robe CEO Josef Valchar comments: "We had planned on entering the battery LED market for some time, so when the opportunity to acquire the market leading brand came along, the die was cast!"

"GDS has done a great job in establishing the product range and I know we can develop it further and add to the global sales through our network. It's also great to instigate this at a time that fits in with the

Brazil - Spectrun Design e Iluminação are the design masterminds behind the Brazilian TV show on Rede Globo named Clip Vem Aí. With the challenge of providing a cyclorama screen as a background, the design team previously spent many hours and multiple lighting units to obtain the right atmosphere, but by introducing the SGM P-5 LED wash light their troubles were solved.

Lighting designer from Spectrun Design e Iluminação, Marcos Olivio, quickly saw the creative potential of the P-5s, delivered by SGM's local distributor LBO, and realised this was the right fixture for the job. "We now have a lot of light - even without spots on the show. The P-5 creates perfect light uniformity around the white screen," he states.

Olivio explains that for TV recording the P-5 worked amazingly with the ARRI Alexa cameras, which displayed the colour nuances and intensity to

The Netherlands - The historic Pieterskerk building in the Dutch city of Leiden recently installed 70 of the new, multi-purpose Chroma-Q Inspire LED fixtures to provide energy efficient, flexible lighting for the former Church's huge nave.

The Pieterskerk is a landmark of Leiden and can be seen from afar. Construction on the venue, which is a basilica in the late Gothic style, began around 1390 and continued at various intervals until the 1560s.

The deconsecrated building now serves as a major venue for TV recordings, corporate events, concerts or education, and since 2001 has undergone major restoration to convert it into a technologically advanced space.

The venue's directors wanted to upgrade the building's lighting facilities, enabling them to create a multitude of atmospheres reflecting its varying usages. To achieve this, they approached Netherlands-based Harry de Kort

Israel - Lighting designer Ronen Najar is utilising the easy to control beam of Clay Paky's Sharpy Wash 330s to complement the huge video wall used on Israel's interactive singing contest Rising Star.

Contestants on the show - which is a ratings winner in Israel - perform to a blank 16 x 3.5m projection screen, which forms a barrier between them and the studio audience and judges. During their performing, the singers can see live images of the at-home audience, who vote on each performance, in real-time, via a smartphone app.

"Because of the interactive element we wanted to ensure that the audiences at home felt included in the program's live visibility though a variety of lighting effects, all of which were achieved with the extremely versatile Sharpy Wash 330s," explains Najar.

"The stage is only 24 x 14m and with LED fixtures there was risk of spill

Russia - Entertaining audiences worldwide, the global Nitro Circus Live tour stopped in Russia and had the hearts of extreme sports fans racing both in Moscow and in Saint Petersburg. The stars of Nitro Circus Live put on an inspiring show for the Russian spectators, with bright effects from Martin MAC III AirFX, provided by the rental company Euroshow, adding something extra for the spectacular performances full of power, energy and adrenaline.

Professional action sports athlete Travis Pastrana founded Nitro Circus in 2009 in an attempt to unite the most fearless extreme athletes in the world. The original Nitro Circus show consisted of a variety of tricks on motocross bikes, roller skates, scooters and other vehicles like cars for dolls, toy tricycles, boogie boards for surfing, tandem scooters and many more. Some of the tricks have already achieved world record status, includ

UK - Blackout created a bespoke fabric backdrop for Beyonce as she performed a glittering rendition of her latest single XO for the Brit Awards 2014 at London's O2.

The drapes and rigging specialists, led by project director Kevin Monks, collaborated with Brits TV and Beyonce's production team to install an 8m wide by 12m fine gauze high speed roller screen which became the centre piece of the star's simple yet glamorous performance.

In collaboration with set company, Steel Monkey, the team installed three steel boxes upstage of the screen, clad with multiple layers of white voile to create a series of projection surfaces for XL video to display creative content. At the opening of the performance, Beyonce stood between the fine gauze and a giant close up of her face was projected live onto the screen, appearing to the audience as if suspended in mid-air.

As the star b

UK - Chauvet Professional has announced it has become Corporate Supporter of the Theatres Trust. Chauvet Professional will also provide further support to the Trust as sponsor of the delegate lunch at this year's Theatre Trust Conference, scheduled for 28 April, at the City Varieties Music Hall in Leeds.

The Theatres Trust is the National Advisory Body for Theatres, protecting theatres for everyone. Operating nationally in England, Scotland and Wales, the Trust promotes the value of theatre buildings and champions their future.

General manager Michael Brooksbank commented, "As a manufacturer, we feel honoured to play a role. Theatre is the backbone of the entertainment technology industry and a natural symbiosis already exists. Having come to understand in greater detail and recognise the work of the Trust, allegiance and community support became a natural next step for C

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