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Lighting

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UK - A stunning field of fibre optic lights will pop up at two Birmingham city centre sites in the approach to Christmas. Residents, city-centre workers, Christmas shoppers and visitors to the city will be able to view and control a unique and interactive art installation.

Commissioned and presented by Birmingham Hippodrome Creative, British-Chinese artist Aowen Jin's new outdoor artwork Midlight invites people to create their own light displays. Through cutting-edge digital technology and social media interaction, the colours can be changed both with sound (music, singing, clapping etc) and via Twitter.

Midlight features thousands of LED lights with 90,000 colour variations which adjust so that no two experiences with the artwork are ever the same. The project is the first of its kind to include the participation of Birmingham's local Chinese community who liv

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USA - It was a happy marriage made in metallic heaven, when We Came As Romans and All That Remains locked up for their full throttle Hard Drive Live Fallout Tour. Both bands hold each other in high esteem, telling the press that they were "ecstatic" to be playing together. Both also shared a mutual admiration for the eye-searing lighting design that LD Peter Therrien created using a collection of Nexus Aw 7x7 warm white LED panels and Legend moving heads from Chauvet Professional.

"You always like to get good feedback when you design," said Therrien of JDI Productions. "So all of us involved in this show were thrilled when the bands went out of their way to compliment us. Aaron Patrick for ATR and Bryan Campbell for WCAR both commented how happy they were with the package and how the lighting had added an impressive visual impact to their perform

Nexo - Main Banner - June 2024

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Eagles Return - US rock band Eagles of Death Metal appeared on stage in Paris, less than a month after deadly attacks during their performance in the French capital. The band took to the stage to perform at the end of a U2 concert at the AccorHotels Arena. "They were robbed of their stage three weeks ago and we would like to offer them ours tonight," said singer Bono. Ninety of the 130 people who died in the 13 November attacks were killed at the concert at the Bataclan venue. Bono embraced Eagles of Death Metal singer Jesse Hughes ahead of an emotional joint rendition of Patti Smith's People Have The Power.

School of Rock - Broadway musical School of Rock, written by Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, has opened to mixed reviews. The show, which was a hit 2003 film starring Jack Black, is about a wannabe rock star

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USA - Grammy-award winning musician, music producer and DJ Zedd (Anton Zaslavski) is playing out the later stages of his True Colors world tour, part of the campaign to promote his second studio album of the same name.

Lighting designer Stevie Hernandez examined how 64 Robe Pointes are integral to the design.

Zedd's much talked-about live show visuals are a collaboration between himself, Stevie as production designer, VJ Gabe Damast and tour manager Ken Floyd who also runs lasers and SFX for the performance. They have all worked with Zedd for three years and are his first production team.

The team enjoys a coherent and fluid visual chemistry and Zedd considers them his 'visual musicians', all bringing their own specific imaginative disciplines into the show.

While Zedd knows exactly the visual vibe he wants for each song, he encourages everyone's input. Different ideas

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UK - Popular indie rockers The Vaccines are on the road again continuing their English Graffiti album campaign, with lighting designed by Dan Williams and supplied by west London based Colour Sound Experiment.

The band toured earlier in the year, visiting some of the more off beat venues in the circuit, followed by some gigs over the summer and now this tour, which also plays a couple of arenas and for which Dan created a completely new design.

The new album is a departure from the punky, rocky attitude of the first two, moving into some darker and moodier territories and they wanted the musical evolution and depth of the new material to be reflected in the lighting and visuals.

In response, Dan has gone for multiple options for producing a wide array of strong moody looks with lots of variety and low side lighting that introduces intimacy and the idea of proximity

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USA - Chauvet has appointed Jaime Friedstadt as Director of Business Development & Marketing for Hispanic Markets for the company's Chauvet Professional and Iluminarc divisions. Prior to joining Chauvet, Friedstadt was International Sales Manager of Philips Entertainment. Having been with that company since 2001, he managed Latin American sales of all Philips Entertainment brands, including Vari-Lite, Strand Lighting, Selecon and Showline. Earlier in his career, he was Latin American Sales Manager of Hubbell Lighting.

"The experience Jaime brings to this position dovetails very nicely with our vision of Chauvet's future in the Latin American market," said Albert Chauvet, President and CEO of Chauvet. "Jaime has a keen understanding of the lighting industry and of Latin American business culture. His experience in sales, marketing and business development will he

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UK - The main hub of the BBC's 2015 Children in Need telethon was again Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, where the marathon seven-hour live broadcast on BBC One united a glittering array of stars and a myriad of special collaborations all of which - along with thousands of activities taking place nationwide - helped raise £37m for the fundraising campaign.

Drapes, softs and special effects company S+H Technical supplied 350sq.m of its animation cloth and 50sq.m of its RGB Starcloth product to the event, which were an essential element of the spectacular production design created by Alex Craig.

Alex's studio set evoked fantasy images of both high-tech and retro fairground attractions and was based around multiple LED screens, surfaces and scenic decoration, with an impressive five-layered pros arch and many dramatic curves. It provided dynamic backdrops to the all acti

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South Africa - Within 48 hours tickets for An Evening with Ed Kowalczyk - Throwing Copper Unplugged 20th Anniversary were sold out at Johannesburg's Carnival City and the Grand Arena at Grand West, Cape Town. AMP Events and Polo Jeans Co presented the four shows, two in each city.

"The aim was to make this production more personal and special for the fans," said lighting designer Sean Caie who is also head of lighting at the Grand Arena. He programmed on a grandMA2 Light.

There was no specification for the lighting design and Sean made use of the in-house gear in each venue which largely consisted of a Robe lighting rig, to create a warm look on stage.

"No additional gear was needed for the shows as there was great equipment in both venues," he said. "With tight deadlines and turn arounds, I had to programme a large portion of the show off-line. A

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UK - SGM's low profile P-5 and P-2 IP65-rated wash lights have passed one of their biggest challenges ever - illuminating a synchronised 'crane dance' in front of 10,000 people on Bristol's harbourside.

Laura Kriefman, one of this year's Wired magazine Creative Fellows and a resident at the Pervasive Media Studio, approached Howard Eaton and Emma Chapman of Studio Three Sixty to design the lighting for her inaugural Crane Dance Bristol. With set designer Lucy Osborne the third member of the Studio Three Sixty team, this was their first project and it was an unqualified success.

Faced with sourcing equipment best fit for purpose on a limited budget, theatre lighting specialist Howard Eaton knew from previous experience that a combination of the ultra-energy efficient P-5 and P-2 heads would be the perfect complement to the 1km of LED ropelight that would be used to outline th

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South Africa - MJ Event Gear used 12 of their Robe BMFLs at the MultiChoice Super Stars Year End event hosted at the Mosaïek church in Fairlands, Johannesburg. MJ have not looked back since purchasing the BMFLs and the fixtures have been booked out by other rental companies for various events around South Africa.

MJ worked with their client Edith Venter, and the lighting designer for the event was Gary Sam, a freelancer who programmed on a grandMA 2 Light.

"The evening consisted of two parts, a show and an after party," commented MJ's Theo Rood, project manager. "Prior to the show, staff from the MultiChoice Call Centre participated in auditions and a knock out system, something similar to an Idol's type competition. The top eight singers performed at the grand finale, hosted at the Teatro auditorium at the Mosaïek."

Gary Sam needed something that wo

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USA - Elation Professional has announced the addition of lighting industry veteran Gary Fallon to the Elation team. Fallon assumes the role of regional sales manager for Elation's Eastern US region and is based out of the company's South Florida office and warehouse facility.

Fallon is a familiar face to many in the industry, having worked in product and sales management at Martin Professional for 12 years before leaving to establish his own business. "Gary comes to us with vast industry knowledge and experience and knows the value of hard work, discipline and supporting customers above and beyond," stated Elation sales director Eric Loader. "Gary will work to support and continue our growth plans on the East Coast, managing our sales reps and supporting our dealers in the region. I am confident he will fit well into our company culture and growth plans."

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USA - As an international superstar, Kaskade's gift to connect with his audience goes beyond pounding synths and tight reverbs. Kevin Mignone, owner of KM Productions, called on a collection of fixtures from Chauvet Professional to support this artist-audience bond during the dance maven's sold out Automatic Tour concert during the annual Pier of Fear on Manhattan's West Side.

Mignone positioned 24 Legend 330SR Spot moving fixtures over the audience section of the 135,000 square foot converted ocean liner terminal (officially called Pier 94) for the Kaskade show, which was produced by RPM Presents. All of the fixtures were directed at the crowd of 10,000 fans.

"Audience lighting is critical at any EDM concert because fans want to be engaged with the artist," said Mignone. "However, this is especially true with an artist like Kaskade because of the way h

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Europe - A Jands Vista S3 console and two Jands D1 Playback Processors have been used by designer, Robb Jibson of So Midwest, Inc. to provide lighting and media control for American rockers, Fall Out Boy's recent 2015 international tour.

The high-profile US rock band have been touring in support of their 2015 album American Beauty / American Psycho, and undertook UK and European Arena shows throughout October, following a series of US dates over the Summer.

A long-time Jands Vista user, Robb took the S3 and D1 combination on the entire tour. The custom setup consisted of the S3 control surface, which was connected to an Apple i7 Mac Mini running the award-winning Vista v2 software, and a Wacom Cintiq Multi Touch pen tablet surface built into a custom case. The system ran with an identical back up and two Vista D1 Playback Processors, which were rack-mounted in a road-

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Australia - Seating a respectable 967 people in Lyric mode, Townville's hardworking Civic Theatre has been catering to touring companies and local groups since 1978. At the end of 2015, senior lighting technician Nate Leslie is busy with a full schedule of dance recitals, end-of-year presentations and Christmas concerts. Always a busy time of year, 2015 has been made a little easier by his lighting rigs recent expansion to include eight units of High End System's SolaSpot Pro CMY.

"What prompted me to look at the SolaSpot PRO CMY was how brilliant they are for theatre," Nate explained. "So many other fixtures in the same range don't offer nice variable colour correction and don't have a quality frost. The Pro CMYs are stunning in their intensity. They can match to a conventional halogen rig and give us that quality we need in theatre lighting, even with an LED en

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South Africa - Design company Formative was contracted by multi-award winning recording artist and record producer Cassper Nyovest to provide full creative direction, production & content design, show and technical production for his #fillupthedome show at the Ticketpro Dome, Johannesburg.

The production design was based around his dynamic music and the creation of special 'moments', a process that built throughout the show, revealing different elements as the music called for them. For lighting and video control, Formative relied on grandMA2.

Formative ran two media servers and two grandMA2 full-size consoles, with an additional grandMA2 full-size at 'dimmer beach' as well as four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit). "We ran Art-Net from the media servers into grandMA2 for pixel mapping and split timecode between all the systems for full redundancy", Peters explained

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UK - Faithless hit on the road again in 2015 after a four year break, taking their infectious dance rhythms to an eager public celebrating 20 years since the formation of the band in the heady 1990s, when rave culture became a defining musical genre of the late 20th century. Faithless have left their stamp on the scene with rousing electro anthems like God is A DJ and Insomnia.

Andy Hurst was asked to create a visual concept and Blackburn rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment which included an investment in 300 Martin VDO Sceptron 10 LED battens, which were rigged on custom structures to form a giant '88' digital clock face.

The large digital figures were an idea that Andy and Sister Bliss from the band had thought about in the quest to have something different from conventional video with large screens and content onstage. When the dialogue with Andy

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UK - Following recent purchases by industry-recognised rental companies, the versatility and usability of CORE Lighting's products means that they are now being utilised more than ever before. As CORE's exclusive European supplier, White Light is able to offer their full range of wireless battery products to production companies and rental partners as well as conference centres and venues.

WL stocks a full range of high-quality CORE products, all of which are available for purchase. Amongst these is the ColourPoint, of which more than 5,000 units have now been shipped worldwide. The ColourPoint is a lightweight, lithium battery-powered LED event uplight which uses the latest Wireless DMX Control.

Phil Ion, founder of CORE, comments, "What's great about the ColourPoint is its versatility. It is ideal for outdoor use and can be used for lighting up trees, three storey bui

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USA - While the Grateful Dead celebrated their 50th anniversary last summer with five Fare Thee Well stadium shows, true Deadheads knew that in real life The Music never Stops.

This has been demonstrated loudly and clearly by the sold-out shows being put on throughout the fall and holiday season by Dead & Company, featuring original band members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann. Playing to sold-out audiences, the 10-stop coast-to-coast tour is serving up some tasty new arrangements of classic Dead songs with renowned rock guitarist John Mayer filling the role of the departed Jerry Garcia on the guitar and vocals.

Contributing to the immersive experience is a beautiful lightshow anchored around a collection of Nexus 4x1 linear fixtures from Chauvet Professional provided by Upstaging.

Jon Pollak designed the lighting rig, but all the looks were fabri

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Spain - Matadero de Madrid welcomed the first Spanish masterclass with lighting designers Al Gurdon and Peter Canning, who have illuminated shows like Eurovision, the halftime of Superbowl or the opening and closing of the Sochi Olympic Games. The event was organized by Clay Paky and its Spanish distributor Stonex.

Javier Latorre, Stonex CEO, opened the conference commemorating the 35th Anniversary of Stonex. "We are happy to share with all of you this seminar. Al Gurdon and Peter Canning's Masterclass is the best scenario for sharing knowledge and experience in the lighting field."

Francesco Romagnoli, area manager for Clay Paky, presented their latest products including Scenius, Spheriscan and Mythos, among others.

Al Gurdon opened his speech by highlighting the importance of a good light. The tours of Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Beyonce were some of the shows

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USA - Elation Professional is a new sponsor of the AV Alliance (avalliance.com), a network of the world's leading event technology rental specialists.

Active in 47 countries on six continents, the AV Alliance acts as a quality seal with AV Alliance members involved in over 100,000 projects a year. The AV Alliance is committed to professional service at the highest quality and is devoted to creating synergies among members to further professionalize the industry. Of the many sponsor benefits is the opportunity to network with AV Alliance member companies, which includes AV rental companies from all over the world.

"We are pleased to have Elation Professional on board as a sponsor of the AV Alliance," stated Nico Ubenauf, member of the AV Alliance Board of Directors and CEO of German production company satis&fy. "Elation continues to become a more visible player

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Malaysia - Acoustic & Lighting System (A&L) successfully held an open-house event on 17 November 2015 to introduce Clay Paky's The Projectors series: the Scenius, Mythos, Supersharpy and Stormy. A&L held a similar show in Singapore earlier this year, and chose to repeat their success in Kuala Lumpur to welcome the Scenius, the latest member of the series. The open-house event was held in conjunction with Clay Paky at Bentley's Auditorium, located in the heart of Mutiara Damansara.

A&L put special effort into carefully selecting the venue. "It took us quite a while to find the right place. We had to consider some special factors when choosing the venue," explained Eric Loo, who was in charge of finding the site for this event. "We knew the capabilities of these lights. In order to show off their full potential, the height and length of the venue were crucial. Acce

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UK - In 2015, White Light reaffirmed its position as the leading lighting supplier to West End and UK touring theatre by working on a vast array of theatre productions. The complete production solution specialist is continuing to support shows throughout the festive season by providing the lighting equipment on more than 40 pantomimes all across the UK.

Since its formation 44 years ago, WL has built a strong reputation of supporting pantomimes, with this year being no exception. One of the most popular Christmas shows is the classic story of Snow White, which is currently playing at the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre. Nev Milsom is the lighting designer on the production. He comments, "Snow White is such a lively, busy show so it was important that the lighting rig not only worked with the cast and scenery but also produced vivid colour and texture throughout. Pantomi

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USA - Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma has chosen an ArKaos PRO Stadium Server running ArKaos MediaMaster 4.0 software to handle the environmental projection mapping at their church. Lighting director, Tim Ottley, uses it to present some stunning visual backdrops across their 300ft wide/30-60ft tall walls to enhance both modern and traditional services.

This Christmas season sees the interior of the church awash with imagery, produced by Jason Yang of Invisible Element, based on the Christmas story and depicted in colourful visuals reminiscent of stained glass. Advent is a season of anticipation and Ottley's theme is to present a beautiful and welcoming environment as the congregation enters each week in the build-up to Christmas.

"Our aim was to create a short video clip as an opening sequence to the services over the five week period of Advent,"

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Romania - Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the American Broadway musical West Side Story has been successful ever since its production start in the 50s.

In Romania, West Side Story has been adapted by choreographer and show director Razvan Mazilu to be presented at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS) for the organisation Uniter - Theatre Union of Romania.

SGM's Romanian partner FIVE'S International supplied a SGM package consisting of 12 x SixPack blinders, four P-5 wash lights and two G-Spot moving heads. For the outer theatre building, the IP65-rated Q-7 RGBW flood lights were deployed for architectural illumination.

Lighting designer Alin Popa reports, "We needed the clean colours of the P-5, the fine dimming of the SixPack, the power of the G-Spot and its large pallet of colour temperature control settings. The SG

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