UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. has announced their appointment as the exclusive UK & Ireland distributor for the GLP range of award-winning LED lighting solutions. The company has also confirmed its appointment as exclusive UK & Ireland distributor for the Dynamic Audio Device (D.A.D.) range of audio solutions.

The GLP agreement follows AC-ET's success supplying the innovative impression LED moving heads line-up and other GLP products to various entertainment sectors, and helping to strengthen the brand in the UK market.

GLP president, Mark Ravenhill, commented, &

Germany - Astera LED Technology GmbH has announced that after many years residing in Rüdesheim an der Nahe, it will now advance to the wealthiest city in Germany; Munich. Being one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany, Munich provides Astera with a greater ability to serve its German customers. Transport and infrastructure are much improved, impacting on logistics, product demonstrations and brand awareness.

The sales office will now be twinned with a technical office for immediate customer support, and overseen by Simon Canins, the R&D director at Astera.

B

USA - In the city that gave us Times Square, New Year's Eve is just too big to be confined to one night. That is why RPM Presents created Big Week NYC, a week-long, heart-pounding EDM celebration, to ring in the New Year with sick beats by superstars like Martin Garrix and Kaskade and a scintillating lightshow created by Kevin Mignone and Mike Gionfriddo of KM Productions using a collection of fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

Held in Manhattan starting 27 December and going on through the wee hours of 1 January 1, the event drew visitors from around the world. Most of the performan

USA - The GrooveBoston dance phenomenon made a recent high-impact appearance at the College Park Centre at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA). The spectacular lighting and production design was created by Nathan Almeida of East Coast Lighting & Production Services (ELCPS) and GrooveBoston production director Ed Slapik.

Almeida has been involved with lighting the legendary college-oriented EDM experience - renowned for high production values, awesome visual environments and some of the best dance sounds on the planet - for the past 10 years, and for this year's show, he once again

USA - The words "costume exhibition" don't promise a lot of drama. Perhaps we have seen too many costumes imprisoned in glass cabinets under bland eco-friendly display lighting. Perhaps we got bored reading the vital statistics of each item of clothing as we strolled through hushed museum halls.

But a visit to the recently opened Hollywood Costume exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), lit with ETC Source Four Mini fixtures and powered by ThruPower power control, will make you forget all you ever knew about museum visits - and may change forever the way

UK - Colour Sound Experiment ended a very busy 2014 supplying lighting and LED screens for several music tours including for ultimate UK synthpop aficionados, The Human League. The west London based rental company worked closely with lighting designer Rob Sinclair and the band's manager, Simon Watson, both of whom were involved in creating the eye-catching set and look for the stage.

The band tour the UK and Europe every two years in the lead up to Christmas to the delight of their enthusiastic and loyal fanbase. Each tour presents a different stylish look for the stage and Rob, who h

UK - Entec Sound & Light helped the smiles flow by supplying full production - lighting, sound and video - to the high profile Roar With Laughter event staged by ZSL (the Zoological Society of London) at the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo.

It's the third year in a row that Entec has supplied equipment and crew to the fundraiser, which featured another impressive line-up of top comedy talent in Seann Walsh, David O'Doherty, Sean Lock, Ed Byrne, Stewart Lee, Lucy Porter, Phil Nichol and Greg Burns.

Entec's ability to supply all the technical elements from one source made co-ordinat

UK - Having won awards from Live Design, PLASA and Prolight & Sound for their products and innovation, Avolites could be forgiven for simply tweaking some minor features in their Ai software. Rather than rest on their laurels, though, they have introduced a host of new features and improvements for latest iteration, Version 8, which they're describing as "everything you always wanted" in a media server.

Building on their initial success, Avolites Ai V8 is the result of a feature rich development programme lead by intensive user feedback.

Dave Green, lead developer for Ai e

South Africa - Lighting designer Willie Bothma once again lit the Kings of Chaos on their latest tour to Sun City and at GrandWest's Grand Arena in Cape Town with a grandMA2. The full technical was supplied by Gearhouse Group's Cape Town branch and supported by Gavin Taylor, Sean Caie and the team at the Grand Arena.

Kings of Chaos featured special guest Steven Tyler alongside Billy Gibbons, Matt Sorum, Gilby Clarke, Duff McKagan, Robin Zander and Nuno Bettencourt and was brought to South Africa by Andrew Mac of AMP Events.

"It was a great show to do," said Bothma from Gea

UK - Elation Professional EU has announced that Damon Crisp is the company's new sales representative for the south of England, which includes London and surrounding counties.

Damon, who operates DAC Pro-Media LTD, a distribution company for entertainment technology, has a wealth of experience in the industry having operated as sales director for Lamba PLC, managing director for Numark Alesis Europe and managing director for Monacor International GmbH at their UK operation.

Tasked with growing Elation's presence in the rental, theatre, and stage segments in southern England, Damon's

UK - Panto is one of the most fun and also one of the most demanding genres of performance to light, requiring busy cueing, lots of bold and fast moving multiple scene and location changes and several touches of visual magic to help the action flow, all with simultaneous split-second timing - a challenge that lighting designer Andy Webb fully embraced for the Qdos production of Dick Whittington at the Swan Theatre in High Wycombe, where he chose Robe for all the moving and LED elements of his design.

Actor, comedian and singer Shane Richie - best known for his role as Alfie Moo

UK - The city of Bristol marked the start of its year as European Green Capital, by lighting up the 150 year old Clifton Suspension Bridge green on New Year's Eve 2014 into New Year's Day 2015

The innovative architectural lighting system was creatively designed by Utopium's MD Colin Bodenham, who also masterminded the complex logistics for the installation in just one day, by 12 local based technicians. The bridge lit up the city's skyline, going through a series of colour changes culminating in it being green at midnight. The image promoted the city's Green capital status and the bri

UK - 2014 has been a full-tilt year for UK rock band Kasabian with a massive homecoming gig in Victoria Park, Leicester in the summer followed by their acclaimed Sunday night headliner slot at Glasto. The year ended with equal style and gusto with a sold out European and UK arena tour, complete with a daring and ambitious show design by Nick Gray from Renegade whose creative magic ensured something radical.

Kasabian's reputation for spectacular live performance continued with this maelstrom of shows, storming their way thought a set action-packed with energy, hits and material from th

USA - Calling the Pebble Beach Auctions an "automobile auction" is akin to describing a Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider as a mere "sports car". The annual event, which has been part of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance since 1990, is to the luxury auto world what the Cannes Film Festival is to the movie industry. Featuring some of the more valuable automobiles in the world - a 1961 edition of the aforementioned Ferrari fetched over $15m at this year's auction - the five-day event draws celebrities like Jay Leno and A-List collectors from around the world.

A

Mexico - SGM has appointed one of Spain's most prominent lighting designers as its new representative in South America.

Ben Diaz takes up the position of area sales manager with immediate effect, in a role that also includes product training on the Continent.

Since 2000, Diaz has been involved in many creative roles within the entertainment industry, including lighting / production design and operation, video programming for media servers, cinematography and technical education.

He has worked in 16 countries as a crew member, including Europe and America, and has a deep and compre

France - ELC Lighting's Buddy has been making waves in Paris, turning one of the world's most famous skylines orange as it helped mobile phone giant Orange celebrate its 20th anniversary. With over 1,800 guests gathered for a reception at a venue a short distance from Orange's building on Parc Des Exposition Porte de Versailles, the event's organisers wanted to illuminate their office tower with the figure 20, visible for all to see in the night sky.

Thierry Bernin, project manager at Impact Evenement, which conducted the event, was brought on board to devise a solution for lighting t

Egypt - Hi-Lights Egypt are using more than 800 fixtures from the PR Lighting catalogue to build the atmosphere on one of the country's most popular TV cookery programmes, The Taste Egypt.

The largest rental company in Egypt, Hi-Lights became involved from the outset, working closely with both SYNC-MEDIA, the production company, and lighting designer Fouad Haddad of Hand Made Image (HMI).

The programme is a worldwide franchise and although the production format had been pre-arranged, according to Hi-Lights Egypt's Hamad Arafa his company had no problem in convincing the LD th

USA - The educational seminar programme of PLASA Focus: Orlando will kick off on Tuesday, 17 February at 9am with Light and Theatre - 50 Years of Change. Presented by ElektraLite, speaker Richard Pilbrow will describe and discuss 50 years of revolutionary change that has occurred in stage lighting, theatre technology and theatre architecture, and explore the rich possibilities that lie around the corner.

Immediately following the seminar, Richard Pilbrow will be signing books on the show floor at the Group One booth #408. "High-calibre education is critical to the process

UAE - Al Rashid Events - headed by Taleb Rashid Al Zaabi - is based in Sharjah in the UAE and is a busy and dynamic technical solutions provider throughout the region.

The company supplies lighting, audio, video, staging, draping, etc., to a wide range of clients and projects, and attribute their continuing success at least in part due to investments in premium brand equipment, which saw an early decision to adopt Robe and create an all-Robe lighting rental house.

Taleb has known Elie Battah - general manager of Robe Middle East for many years - in fact before Elie was even involved

USA - ETC is gearing up for its biennial CUE professional development conference, which will be held in Wisconsin, USA, from 26-28 June 2015. Registration for the conference will open on Monday 19 January, with a special early bird discount offered until Saturday 28 February. ETC will also offer several sponsorships to help offset the cost of the conference, transportation and/or lodging. Sponsorship applications will become available on Monday 19 January.

The CUE conference is a great way for lighting professionals of all skill levels to gain knowledge that can be used in their caree

Germany - Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin) has built a light installation at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin together with noted Japanese artist and photographer Yuichiro Tamura. Tamura's Long Exposure of the Lonely Explorer has been integrated into David Chipperfield's installation artwork Sticks and Stones, currently on display at the gallery.

To build the installation, the lighting designer and operator Björn Hermann fitted a Clay Paky Supersharpy to a supporting structure three metres above the ground. With the help of an eps Club C

UK - Richard Martin Lighting (RML) regularly supports local community charities and events.

The Questors Theatre is a community theatre in Ealing that has a main auditorium and studio space which is used for staging drama, panto and skills classes.

Last November it was host to Harker Productions version of Club Vertigo. A spectacular dance show with a romantic story, great songs and comedy - it has the style of a West End musical at half the price.

Starring former Strictly Come Dancing's Hanna Haara and other award-winning dancers, street performers and singers, C

UK - The Entertainment Industry has seen many improvements in safety practices in recent years as 'health and safety culture' becomes common place in all aspects of day to day business.

One of the latest areas of focus is the design and management of temporary electrical systems in not only the TV and Radio world, but also in films, at events, in theatres and other similar workplaces.

Whilst the current IET Wiring Regulations BS7671 (17th Edition) qualification exists for fixed electrical systems, there has not been an agreed industry qualification for BS7909 - the Code of Practice

Germany - When Gunther Hecker's name is on the design credits for a show, you know it's going to be visually interesting, idiosyncratic and a bit 'out-of-the-box' with a few flourishes of the unexpected ... and so Gunther has created another epic stage, set, lighting and video design for maverick German hip-hop band Die Fantastischen Vier's latest - and current - Record tour.

Prominent on the lighting rig are 50 Robe BMFL Spots - the brand's new multi-functional signature fixture - which are supported by another 180 Robe moving lights - 40 Robin Pointes, 60 Robin LEDWash 800s,

Latest Issue. . .