USA - 48 of Robe's LEDWash 1200s are in action on the current Garth Brooks US tour, specified by the country megastar's longstanding LD Dave Butzler, and purchased specially by leading rental house Bandit Lites. Brooks - whose staggering popularity continues to pack out arenas - has released his first studio album in 13 years Man Against Machine to coincide with the tour.

Butzler explained that Brooks was fully involved in creating the stage design, and while he wanted to wow the crowds for this one, he wanted to keep the music - rather than the production - centre stage. To sa

Italy - The show Illusion, with several Salamanders from Le Maitre entertained visitors at the Rainbow MagicLand in Valmontone close to Rome throughout the summer 2014.

The attraction combines music, fantasy and projection. With hundreds of lights installed on the fountains and special effects enhancing the show, Illusion had nine dancers interacting with the fountains and the projections.

One of the world's leading companies for aquatic shows and an internationally renowned video designer participated in the realisation of this show.

Mr. Bonsanti, technical representative at Magi

Czech Republic - Robe welcomed 13 students and two lecturers - Phil Hughes and Clive Davies - from the University of South Wales, Glamorgan, to its HQ and factory in Valasské Mezirici, Czech Republic, all from the BSc Honours Lighting Design & Technology and Live Event Technology courses.

The trip was co-ordinated by Robe UK's sales director Ian W Brown with USW course leader Stuart Green, and it has become an annual date on the calendar. As usual, it was also completely over-subscribed, so the number of applicants had to be whittled down to those who would be likely to benefit

UK - Another year has flown by, and it's time to start nominations for the Technical Theatre Awards 2015.

The nomination period is now open on the new website - head to www.technicaltheatreawards.com now to put your colleagues forward.

Says the organisation, "We have a great year planned ahead, including streamlining the voting process and bringing together a committee of industry leaders to finalise our shortlists.

"We are also heading to Europe for Stage|Set|Scenery, as well as our annual visits to PLASA Focus and the ABTT Trade Show.

"Our awards ceremony will b

Sweden - The opening of AF's new office building in Gothenburg was marked by a spectacular light show, putting the 66m high building on the map. For one evening the façades of AF's new domicile were staged with a combination of colours, graphical patterns and images expressing AF's values in a festive manner.

Being Skanska's third most eco-friendly building in the Gothenburg region, and having received Platinum environmental certification by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), it was important to AF Lighting to further communicate and demonstrate its green values. S

Finland - Kullervo, Op. 7, is a suite of symphonic movements by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Although often referred to as a "choral symphony", the work avoids traditional symphonic structure, and its five movements constitute a set of related but independent tone poems.

Based on the character of Kullervo in the epic poem Kalevala and using texts from that poem, the work premiered to critical acclaim on 28 April 1892. Now lighting, screen and set designer Miki Kunttu has given the work, currently being performed at the Finnish National Opera, Helsinki, a com

The Netherlands - Visual Productions is technology partner of the 2014 Amsterdam Light Festival. For the third year in a row the Visual Productions' Solid State lighting controllers helped visualise the lighting designs of worldwide artists during this 10 week-long festival. The CueCore, IoCore and DIN Rail DMX Splitter were used to control the lighting for 12 exhibits of the festival. Light-works in both the Water Colors route and the Illuminade utilised the Visual Productions control solutions. These consisted of exhibits from around the world including, 'Water Fun' from New Zealand d

UK - London based events production company PR Live ensured the Warner Music 2015 Brits After-party really rocked for 1,100 guests at the Freemason's Hall in Covent Garden, supplying all elements of the design and technical production - sound, lighting, video, rigging, set and staging, assorted custom built props - complete with lighting and sound design and bespoke video content.

The project - managed for PR Live by Justin Hammond - included spectacular large format projections onto the exterior of the building to welcome the guests, and pixel mapping a wall of LED battens in the mai

Denmark - Martin Professional has announced the availability of the Rush Gobo Projector 1. The new member of the install-oriented Rush family is now shipping.

The Rush Gobo Projector 1 is suitable for permanent installation in club, bar, restaurant and shopping mall applications. Gobos can be changed quickly easy adjustment of focus, speed and direction make running the static fixture smooth and intuitive. It's also non-intrusive thanks to its silent operation and compact size, measuring 215 x 135 x 152 mm and weighing only 11 lbs. (2 kg).

"We designed the RUSH Gobo Projector 1

USA - Industry leaders from around the world descended into Nashville 21 February for the 26th Annual Pollstar Awards, where Bandit Lites received its 22nd Lighting Company of the Year Award.

Hosted by comedian Ralphie May, the Pollstar Awards occur during Pollstar Live and celebrates the music industry's movers and shakers. This year's event took place at the historic Ryman Auditorium, which was also awarded Theatre of the Year.

Bandit chair and founder, Michael T. Strickland accepted the award, crediting Bandit's wildly successful year to both its employees and clients, and dedica

UK - Events production supplier White Light has announced the appointment of Alicia Earls as business development manager for events. Alicia joins White Light after more than seven years as communications manager for the Science Museum Group, where she helped develop the successful #StrictlySW7 event showcase involving the Science Museum and neighbouring venues the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert museum.

Alicia joins the White Light Events team from April 2015. In her new role, she will focus on expanding the company's relationships with corporate clients and streng

China - PR Lighting has made an addition to its expanding XRLED series, with the announcement of the XRLED 700 Spot. This is due for shipment this month.

The fixture boasts a number of attributes, embracing all the features you would expect from a moving head spot but with a particularly impressive white light.

It has also been engineered to produce an even beam spread - and also a powerful one, as the output generated from the 320W white LED module equates to more than 700W from a conventional discharge lamp.

Other design criteria that the XRLED 700 Spot meets include light weigh

UK - Lighting designer Louis Oliver of Okulus has used an array of Showline SL NITRO 510C fixtures as part of his colour-rich and punchy lighting design for You Me At Six's UK arena tour.

Specifying 29 of the powerful LED units from Zig Zag Lighting, Oliver rigged 18 on spines of truss in the air. Eleven of the strobes also made up his floor package upstage, where they lined the bottom of the vast video screen.

"I really like the SL NITRO 510C, it's my LED strobe of choice," says Oliver. "My design for this show was very video-heavy, however the units held their own a

South Africa - Within just six hours of ticket sales opening, the Pretoria leg of the show Afrikaans is Groot was sold out. The Cape Town leg followed suite with its three performances selling out by the end of that day. With artists like Juanita Du Plessis, Theuns Jordaan, Steve Hofmeyr, Bobby van Jaarsveld, Bok van Blerk, Robbie Wessels, Lianie May, Karlien van Jaarsveld, Jay, Riana Nel, Jannie Moolman, Arno Jordaan, Jak de Priester, Corlea Botha, EDEN, Dewald Wasserfall and more, the show promised to be a hit.

Featuring this amount of talent meant that the set and production

USA - Vail Beaver Creek in Colorado recently hosted this year's FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2015, with athletes representing 68 nations participating in this grand event, which was viewed by an estimated television audience of 1 billion. This is the third time the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado has welcomed the Championships, which are spread over 13 days and two weekends of events and races.

A full programme of events was preceded by a magnificent opening ceremony. Theatrical Media Services Inc. (TMS) provided a full service package consisting of lighting, truss structures,

USA - Scottsdale is some 260 miles from Las Vegas, but for four nights in early February, visitors to this Phoenix suburb could have thought they were on the Vegas Strip; at least if they were among the 8,000 fans who turned out for The Coors Light Birds Nest.

A four day festival held in conjunction with the Waste Management Open, Birds Nest is one of the most eagerly anticipated 19th hole events on the PGA tour. This year's edition didn't disappoint, bringing in acts like Kid Rock, Capital Cities, Darius Rucker and Afrojack who performed in a 50,000sq.ft tent shipped in from Germany

Israel - You would expect an impressive and memorable show to accompany the launch of the newest and largest expo hall in the Middle East ... and that was exactly the brief received by lighting designer Eran Klein of Tel Aviv based creative design practice Cochavi & Klein from show producers The Gallery.

Eran rose to the occasion, adding a generous helping of his visual magic to the occasion assisted by around 160 Robe moving lights - including 28 x BMFL Spots, 36 x MMX Spots, 24 x LEDWash 1200s, 54 x Pointes, 16 x MMX WashBeams and 16 x LEDBeam100s.

The gala opening show, directed

The Netherlands - As a way to better serve the Dutch market, ETC is changing their sales structure in the Netherlands from a distributor based model to a dealer based model. That means that beginning on 1 March 2014, a sales structure will be set up where ETC will handle promotions and sell through a dealer network.

Lightco Nederland B.V. has been ETC's distributor for many years and has done great work promoting ETC. However, ETC's continued growth and product family expansions make it a challenge for distributors to promote the complete ETC product portfolio. "It's a very big j

World Music - De La Soul will be the headline act at this year's Womad, the festival's organisers have announced. Other highlights at the world music festival will include Tinariwen and folk music band Bellowhead. Festival director, Chris Smith said: "I'm really excited about De La Soul, hip hop is a big thing for Womad." Last year the event sold out for the first time since it relocated from Reading in 2007 to Charlton Park near Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

Hearing Health - People should listen to music for no more than one hour a day to protect their hearing, the World He

The Netherlands - The Theater de Flint, in Amersfoort is a renowned performing arts theatre, hosting a variety of musicals, dance, cabaret and classical ensembles throughout the year. As a venue with more than sufficient space to host conferences, exhibitions, trade shows and other public events, the theatre recently shut its doors for a complete overhaul of the foyers, restaurants and other public areas in order to bring more flexibility to the space.

As a result of the renovation which also included an upgrading of new intelligent light armatures, the theatre's technicians, Flint Sj

UK - Technical production rental specialist Entec provided sound and lighting equipment and crew for the recent UK tour by singer songwriter John Grant featuring a collaboration with the Royal Northern Sinfonia - orchestrated by Fiona Brice - and delivering material from his two albums, 2013's Pale Green Ghosts and 2010's Queen of Denmark.

Entec's system engineer James 'Kedge' Kerridge worked alongside John Grant's own engineers Gabriel Nicotra (FOH) and Matt Pengelly (Monitors) and Matt Grounds who mixed the 29 piece orchestra. Also onstage was a regular electronic band

UK - PLASA's Technical Resources Office would like to remind LSiOnline readers that the European RDM and sACN Developers Conference and Plugfest for 2015 will take place from 22-24 April, in the UK, at Gatwick Manor, London Road at Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport.

The Developers Conference provides a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and aims to ensure that the adoption of these new standards achieves desired levels of interoperability and reliability.

Conference sessions will cover the understanding, implementation and use

USA - Upstaging Inc has announced the introduction of the new Saber LED series. The Saber is a 10mm, double-row, IP65-rated Video LED strip, designed for creative effects in any indoor or outdoor environment. The Saber is built by About Show.

Made with aluminium alloy and advanced LED technology, the versatile nature of the Saber allows it to fit into any design. The Saber is made with a 10.4mm video strip with two rows of SMD 3in1 LEDs attached. It is available in three sizes, 1000mm, 500mm and 250mm in length. The total fixture is lightweight and less than 1" (2.5cm) wide with

Italy - Piccolo Teatro in Milan was Italy's first permanent theatre and was declared a theatre of major European importance by Ministerial Decree in 1991. It was founded in the immediate post-war period by Paolo Grassi, Giorgio Strehler, Mario Apollonio, Virgilio Tosi and Nina Vinchi.

The Piccolo consists of three venues: the Sala Grassi, the 19th-century Teatro Fossati, which reopened in 1986 under the name Teatro Studio Melato, and the Teatro Strehler.

The Teatro Studio Melato started life as an experimental theatre, a training ground for the young students from the Piccolo Theatr

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