USA - The Los Angeles Theatre on Broadway and Sixth Street in downtown Los Angeles is especially hot, sweaty and crowded. Today this sumptuous art deco palace built by Charlie Chaplin in 1931 is the location for an episode of TV show Scandal and rehearsals for the camp musical Carrie - The Killer Musical Experience. Chaplin, whose photograph with Albert Einstein adorns the gilded lobby, would be proud that, despite the lack of air conditioning and the crumbling plaster walls, his dream is still alive.

A week before opening night, lighting designer Brian Gale is on stage setting trim heights and focusing lights. He works with the confidence and calm that comes with a CV that would leave anyone slack-jawed. While officially 'retired' after 24 years as a fulltime designer with the Walt Disney Company, he is currently engaged as a consultant on six Disney projects, in

South Africa - Three further African countries have embraced the popular singing competition The Voice - South Africa, Angola & Nigeria - with all three series recorded at and broadcast from Stage One, Sasani Studios, Johannesburg - and all featuring over 100 Robe moving lights prominently on their respective lighting rigs.

Johannesburg based production company Multi-Media is co-ordinating and supplying all technical elements - including lighting, sound, video, rigging and staging - for broadcaster AMPN (African Media & Productions Network) TV over an 11-month period which ends in July 2016.

Multi-Media's technical project manager, Chris de Lancey put together the team who are making it rock which includes lighting designer Joshua Cutts, asked on-board for his experience and flair in lighting live music TV shows as well as his reputation for innovation. Dewet Meyer wo

Ireland - Dublin's 398ft high Monument of Light Spire was transformed into a giant 'Lightsaber' in December to celebrate the premiere of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, using powerful fixtures controlled by Avolites' Titan One DMX USB Dongle.

Commissioned by Disney, Tom Rohan of event production house Eventco conceptualised the installation alongside lighting designers Mick Murray and Matthew Cregan. The team used 16 of Clay Paky's intensely bright SuperSharpys to beam colours up the Spire to create the Lightsaber effect.

The event lasted for three weeks, with the team checking and controlling the lighting via CCTV, connected to the internet, which sent live images back. They then accessed the laptop within the Spire using the TeamViewer app.

"We did initial focusing on an Avolites Tiger Touch II and then transferred the show to a Mac laptop with th

USA - Metalcore band Atreyu have a knack for painting pictures with their music. Philadelphia-based LD Lenny Sasso did justice to the group's imagination in his lightshow on their recent tour by drawing on the zone control and pixel mapping features of Chauvet Professional Rogue and Nexus fixtures provided by Squeek Lights.

After working on Atreyu's tour for their sixth and latest studio album Long Live, Sasso described how he went beyond illuminating the stage to reflect the varying moods of the music. "The music of Atreyu can get pretty intense and it evokes powerful images," he said. "I wanted the lighting to keep up, to reflect this and contribute to taking the audience on a journey. So, for example, when there were sections of songs that were slow and dramatic, instead of doing a random slow dimmer fade between the lights as I normally do, I opted to

USA - Behind the scenes at the Emmy-nominated Jimmy Kimmel Live, lighting designer Christian Hibbard is busy bringing the shows musical performances to life. With two outdoor stages that host the hottest musical acts from around the world, Hibbard is asked to create the ideal lighting environment that best personifies the varying musicality of each artist. Understanding these challenges, Hibbard needs lighting instruments with a number of quality capabilities, which he has found in the VL4000 BeamWash luminaire from Philips Vari-Lite.

"I've been at Jimmy Kimmel Live since the beginning and we've been doing the outdoor concert series since the inaugural episode where we featured Coldplay," began Hibbard. "The lighting rig is different every time depending upon the band performing as each artist will have a look that's appropriate for their style of m

The Netherlands - Elation Professional will be showing the latest in its line of versatile, energy-efficient LED and Platinum Series lighting solutions at the ISE show in Amsterdam.

A number of cutting-edge products will be prersented at stand 11-F45, including the powerful and multi award-winning Platinum FLX hybrid moving head while seeing its European debut will be the Platinum HFX, a new mid-sized addition to Elation's hybrid family of beam, spot and wash luminaires. The ACL 360i, a new single beam moving effect luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of high-output narrow-beam LED effect lights, will also feature as will the ACL Bar, a full color batten useful as a pixel bar or wash luminaire.

Visitors will also be able to see Elation's much-talked-about Emotion moving head digital light with its next generation digital lighting technology. Other products in Elation's leading

UK - Blinding Light, the corporate and event lighting specialists, continues to expand with the arrival of account director Loz Wilcox, further strengthening the provision of account and project management support to their customers.

Loz joins Blinding Light from PRG, where he served as head of the UK corporate Eevents and exhibition market. With over twenty years' involvement in the lighting industry, Loz brings a wealth of experience to the Blinding Light team.

"I am really looking forward to working with the team at Blinding Light," comments Loz. "We share a common goal, total commitment to excellence, and it's something I see throughout the company, from senior management right through to the guys on the prep benches. It's that culture of meticulous attention to detail, which gives them the enviable reputation for the highest standards that they deserve.&q

UK - On 21 January 2016, as it welcomed members of the industry to its Embassy Theatre for the annual Association of Lighting Designer's (ALD) New Technology Showcase, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was delighted to announce the establishment of the Richard Pilbrow Scholarship.

With special thanks to alumnus and renowned lighting designer Richard Pilbrow for his generosity, the Richard Pilbrow Scholarship will support a young lighting designer at the School as they undertake the training necessary to embark upon their professional career.

Richard Pilbrow is both a graduate and an Honorary Fellow of Central, as well as an internationally renowned stage lighting designer, author, theatre design consultant and theatre, film and television producer. He is a pioneer of modern stage lighting in Britain, and his work has been seen in London, New York, Paris, Berlin, V

UK - The Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) 2016 has launched and submissions are already coming in for its Television and Concert Touring and Events categories.

This year marks the 9th KOI Awards, which celebrates the creative talents of international lighting and digital content designers working in the UK in the sectors of TV, Theatre and Concert Touring and Events.

The 2016 edition will see the event moved from its usual date in early October to the 18th September to coincide with the PLASA London 2016 exhibition. The venue for the sparkling awards ceremony and dinner has also moved to join the PLASA show at its new location of Kensington Olympia.

Submissions are open for the Television and Concert Touring and Events categories and shows performed or broadcast between 1st August 2015 and 31st July 2016 in the UK are eligible. As with previous years the Theatre sectio

Independents' Days - This week, the UK music industry celebrates the third Independent Venue Week (IVW) with a week-long series of gigs all across the country. Led by London-based agency I Like The Sound of That, the seven-day long campaign is supported by the Arts Council through its Grants for the Arts funding programme. Its reach is expanding with 120 venues now taking part, from Aberdeen to Exeter and Belfast to Norwich. Among venues joining this year are Quay Arts (Isle of Wight), The Soundhouse (Leicester) and Nambucca (north London).

Helen Sprott, director of music at Arts Council England, says, "Arts Council England is pleased to be supporting I Like The Sound of That and their brilliant Independent Venue Week project for the second year running. It is vital that independent venues are recognised for the value they bring both to their local communities and the nati

USA - Bandit Lites has made a sizeable purchase of Ayrton's newest fixtures, including Ayrton CosmoPix-R, IntelliPix-R, MagicBlade-R, MagicDot-R and MagicRing-R9.

"I'm very excited that we have added a large variety of Ayrton products to our inventory," said Jake Tickle, Bandit's director of technical services. "Ayrton has taken a refreshing approach to their fixture design, adding innovation and consistency to their entire product line. From a service and maintainability stand point we couldn't be happier."

These products will all be seen on upcoming 2016 tours, including Dave Butzler's lighting design for Garth Brooks, Mike Swinford's lighting design for Jason Aldean's We Were Here Tour, Nick Whitehouse's lighting design for Thomas Rhett and Little Big Town's 2016 tour.

Las Vegas-based Morpheus Lights, the exclusive US distributor for Ayrton, was ple

Germany - In Berlin the New Year is traditionally greeted at the Brandenburg Gate. To welcome in 2016, TLT Event AG was once again in charge of production and technical implementation of the popular event. The turn of the year was also the go-ahead for TLT to invest in a RockLink system, which came into operation for the first time on NYE to provide a redundant fiberoptic network for the MA-Net between FOH and Dimmercity.

"As we are placing great value on reliability for our productions, we have been working with Rock Solid Technologies' RockSwitch Mk2 for some time. Moreover, there was an increasing internal necessity to invest in a redundant fiberoptic network", stated Helge Rabethge, technical director Light and Rigging.

"For the buying decision, it was important to us to invest in a reliable system that consists of as few individual components as possible

South Africa - Rental and production specialist Sound Stylists opened their Durban branch in 2010 to service the growing events, music and entertainment markets in the busy, buzzing cosmopolitan KwaZulu Natal port city, and it's expanded from a satellite operation for the Johannesburg HQ with two staff to a major branch with 11 full time employees, working across all industry sectors.

MD Kevin Glover's intention has been to proactively grow the company's work portfolio on all fronts, providing innovative and imaginative audio, lighting, and staging and AV solutions.

A steady investment in Robe moving lights has featured in the success of the Durban facility as the lighting division has increased its capacity and pushed the proverbial envelope of excellence.

Initially, Durban started with 24 of Robe's classic workhorse 575 E AT ColorSpot and ColorWash series products, but

USA - Elation Professional has announced the launch of the new ACL 360i, a powerful single-beam moving effect luminaire with the intensity of a tight ACL beam that is designed for quick-moving beam looks, pinspotting, or stunning large motion effects when used in larger configurations. It is the latest and the smallest high-output luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of narrow-beam LED effect lights.

A single 60W RGBW LED combines with an advanced collimator optic lens to produce a dense and uniform 4° colour-changing beam. Frost lens options of 10 and 45 degrees (included) can be employed to soften and spread the beam for colour washing applications.

The ACL 360i is controllable via 3 DMX modes (16/18/20 channels) and the unit is also RDM (Remote Device Management), KlingNet or Art-Net controllable. It comes with a host of standard features like 5-pin DMX In/Out connection

Czech Republic - Robe officially launches its newest and brightest BMFL series luminaire to date - the BMFL WashBeam - today, Wednesday 27 January.

An online launch platform was chosen to reach a global audience of busy industry professionals - empowering them to participate in the experience and excitement via computers and smart-devices wherever they are and whatever they are doing.

Robe's worldwide distribution network can be contacted to arrange full physical demonstrations of the BMFL WashBeam, and the fixture will be showcased at the upcoming Prolight+Sound expo in Frankfurt in April and future trade shows and exhibitions.

Delivering 300,000 Lux at 5m - BMFL WashBeam is the brightest BMFL range fixture to date.

The BMFL WashBeam joins the BMFL Spot and BMFL Blade and BMFL Wash, ensuring that Robe offers the most comprehensive range of high powered, fully optimise

Poland - Nearly 150 Philips Vari-Lite professional luminaires, including one of the latest additions to the product line the VL4000 Spot, have been installed into Torun's brand new multi-functional hub the Jordanki Culture and Congress Centre (or CKK Jordanki).

The 22,000-m2 building, designed by world-renowned Spanish architect Fernando Menis, is the culmination of an intense two-year building project that completed in December 2015. The venue is located in the city's Old Town and boasts a unique aesthetic with cutting-edge technical features.

Hired by Wroclaw-based construction company Intersystem, Philips Entertainment distributor for Poland PS TTeatr supplied and installed 144 Philips Vari-Lite moving heads into the venue's 880-seat concert hall and 300-seat chamber hall. Further Philips Entertainment lighting brands were also installed by PS Teatr, including 32 Philips

UK - With an increase of 26% of floorspace, the second edition of PLASA Focus Glasgow has been hailed a success with 50% more brands showcasing the latest in live entertainment technology and attendees increased by 32% since the inaugural show in 2014.

Cementing itself as the industry's essential meeting place for the region, the show - which opened its doors at the SECC from 20-21 January - offered live product demonstrations, two days of high quality seminar sessions and over 75 brands in an environment ideal for networking and generating business face-to-face. Attracting visitors with a combined spending power of £130m, the development of the show reflects the continued expansion of the industry in the region.

David Steedsy Stevenson from Ward Steedsy Audio, distributor of Funktion-One in Scotland comments: "It's the first time we've had a trade stand at a PLAS

UK - CPL provided lighting and video equipment for the TEDxBristol event, UK, one of the ongoing series of locally organised TEDx (Technology, Entertainment Design) global conferences underpinned by the not-for-profit Sapling Foundation. The "ideas worth spreading" programme has an emphasis on technology, design and various other scientific, cultural and academic topics, and is designed to inspire and encourage action and initiative.

TEDxBristol's thought-provoking and fun-filled day of action, motivational speeches and presentations was themed Great Expectations and staged in Colston Hall, pulling a completely sold-out live audience of 1,800 and reaching an impressive estimated 2.7m following online on the day. One of the objectives was to highlight the optimism, energy and can-do approach that are native to the vibrant city of Bristol.

Production manager N

UK - Behind the Scenes UK Golf Day will take place on 13 April at The Drift Golf Course in West Horsley, Surrey. This extremely popular event to raise funds for the charity is almost sold out so register your team now and don't miss out. Teams already signed up include Autograph, Crewsaders, Creative Technology, Delta Sound, Media Lease, Meyer Sound, Shure, Stage Technologies/Tait, White Light, and Wonder Works.

"We have a fantastic day planned based around a very competitive 18-hole team game. Bring your best shots for a day of fun, food, networking, competition and fund raising for the industry's charity. Once the golf is done, we roll into evening with a BBQ, raffles, prizes and the chance to catch up with friends and colleagues. Set in the beautiful surroundings of The Drift Golf Club, this is the only BTS golf day for 2016 so make sure you are registered with your tea

Denmark - Combining impressive image quality with easy installation and very attractive economics, the new 100" dnp LaserPanel has made its world debut at the Indoor Soccer Centre (ISCG) in Groningen, in the North of Holland.

The Centre wanted to display live events in its sports café, with the aim of enriching the customer experience and extending the dwell time for visitors. The project's challenges included constant bright artificial lighting, long periods of operation every day and, not least, the need to contribute to a profitable business model.

Consultant John Goedegebuure from JG Enterprises was brought in, and the result was a very productive link-up between ISCG, dnp Partner xScreen Interactive and digital advertising company, CS Digital Media. This led to the world's first dnp LaserPanel solution being installed in a public venue.

Initially, four 50

UK - In November, The Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden staged Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening), a new commission from Georg Friedrich Haas. Lighting director Giuseppe Di Iorio wanted a large, high output Fresnel fixture to represent the Sun, so he turned to Stage Electrics for help.

Based on a novel by Jon Fosse, the opera tells the story of Johannes, a fisherman who finds himself in conversation with long-dead loved ones, eventually understanding that he is also dead. Co-produced with Deutsche Oper Berlin, the show's design replicated the almost dreamlike images in Johannes' mind. So bringing the harshness of bright sunlight to the opera's monochrome set was key to Giuseppe's lighting design.

As the fixture was representing the sun, it would also have to move over and across the stage during the production. This required the building of a large track

USA - When instrumental band STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9) began its US fall tour lighting designer Saxton Waller decided to add Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20s to the B-EYE K10 rig he deployed for the band's 2014 tour and sold-out concerts at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

STS9, which plays self-described post-rock dance music, are one of the nation's top-grossing tour acts with a heavy presence on the festival circuit. Waller obtained the Clay Paky B-EYES from Brown Note Productions, Inc., in Thornton, Colorado, which has been working with STS9 for the last 10 years.

"This was our first tour with the K20s," says Waller. "I was already using a different downstage wash light, so I figured if I replaced them with K20s I'd get two lights in one. I use six of them on downstage truss primarily as wash fixtures on the band then engage their pixel mode during jams to a

UK - Taking place in the tunnels beneath London's Waterloo Station, the annual VAULT Festival opened yesterday and will run for the next six weeks. Renowned for showcasing emerging talent across all art forms, the festival features theatre, dance, cabaret, live art, installations, puppetry and much more. White Light is once again providing the lighting equipment, along with the power, rigging and even the support of its apprentices.

VAULT Festival is now in its fourth year and with more than 200 shows in 2016, it is expected that up to 40,000 people will be in attendance. Andy George, festival director and production manager for VAULT Festival, comments, "VAULT was founded by myself, Tim Wilson and Mat Burt with one purpose: to provide a fair and equal platform for emerging artists to showcase interesting and risky work. A lot of what we programme would not normally be sta

Qatar - The annual Qatar Marine Festival in Doha is built around the history of Qatar, which has grown at an extraordinary rate since the discovery of the country's oil and natural gas.

The Emirate devotes these resources to its economic development, the promotion of its marine resources, the cultural identity of the country, and the education of the new generations, thanks to the organizational efforts of the Qatar Marine Festival Organizing Committee (QMFOC).

Visitors to the festival take part in a series of attractions, which the organizing committee works to transform into educational activities concerning five different focus areas: training, culture, the environment, sports and entertainment.

Lighting designer Massimo Tomasino spoke to us about the most engaging moment of the Festival for him, the Clay Paky lights and the local and international audience: The Sec

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