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14 March 2016

Dave Byars - who has been in charge of lighting Blur since the band first formed - had quite a challenge on his hands. Maintaining his high design values, while coping with the varying set ups of festivals, and arenas around the world is no mean feat. This is especially true in Byars' case as he is not touring his own rig but rather using festival house rigs or hiring locally at each venue. This means he often ends up with very different set ups or equipment types for each show.

"Being able to programme and design on the fly is essential for a tour like this one," stresses Byars. "I've been an Avolites console user for

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14 March 2016

The band began their spring tour in Miami and will finish in San Antonio, TX to generate buzz for their latest studio album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, their first since 2009.

Main Light provided 14 Sharpy Wash 330 units to lighting designer and director Marty Postma. "They're part of the floor package for effects," says Randy Mullican at Main Light. "We compared the Sharpy Wash to 1000-watt units and found the Sharpy's intensity, size and feature set to be better. They're a beautiful light in the right size package. This was the first rental the Sharpy Washes went out on for us, and A.C.T has been fabulous; their service and support has been s

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14 March 2016

Tait supplied six custom Periaktos, which are positioned on the mainstage and manually rotated throughout the performance. Each of the three-sided Periaktos contained a multi-faceted mirror face, a 12mm CT Flyer video screen and a grill-plated surface backlit with LED PAR fixtures.

Tait's automated helical trussing provides one of the main, artistic focal points of the set design. Powered by Tait's Nav Hoist system and hung from 10 half-ton chain hoists, the elements featu

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14 March 2016

Opening in Melbourne this month, King Kong has been over five years in the making. Stage Technologies, automation specialists contracted by Production Resource Group (PRG), have been working closely with animatronic experts at Global Creature Technology to breathe life into the six metre tall silverback for the production.

Sonny Tilders, creative director at Global Creature Technology commented, "King Kong reflects a real maturing for 'Global Creature Technology'. With Walking with Dinosaurs we learnt how to walk, with How to Train Your Dragon we discovered how to fly and now we have combined them both in this very sophisticated puppet. Kong represents the culmination of a raft of technologies and techniq

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14 March 2016

"It was a difficult decision, we love exhibiting at ABTT" explains Philip Sparkes, MD of Maltbury Staging Ltd, "However after a successful year with our work for LOCOG and the development of our new seating and staging systems, we were enticed to ShowTech for the European launch of our new range to the international market."

ShowTech is taking place at the Messe Berlin in Germany on 18-20 June 2013.

In 2012 Maltbury worked on half of the Olympic sports with standard and bespoke products, most notably the weightlifting stage and unique weightlifting back wall. Maltbury has also worked on bespoke products for Tilted Productions (an internationally touring

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14 March 2016

For the tour, which opened in Belfast and finished in London, White Light worked closely with production manager Rob Kern and lighting designer Kevin 'Deuce' Christopher, supplying a full production service including lighting fixtures, cabling, rigging, and power distribution.

The nine-venue tour in the UK is a continuation of Journey's worldwide tour with previous stops in North America, New Zealand, Japan, and Singapore earlier this year. Christopher, who has been the touring LD for Journey since 2004, worked with Lester Cobrin, head of concert touring at White Light, to accommodate the addition of double h

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14 March 2016

It's the first time that Gray - well known for his work in the fashion world and as LD for rockers Kasabian - has designed lighting for the 'surrealist' funny-man, a task on which he collaborated closely with Izzard's artistic director, Sarah Townsend.

The stylistic theme for the tour included flourishes of classic 1960s Avengers and Austin Powers, and another important aesthetic starting point was the large portrait format LED screen onstage.

This all needed careful and thoughtful lighting.

Gray wanted to introduce depth and architecture into the performance space and also make large arena spaces with one person onstage look and feel inter

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14 March 2016

Adlib's George Puttock designed the audio system, which was specified by Joe Harling and tour manager Peter Abbott. Puttock and Adlib's Sam Proctor rigged and oversaw all the equipment on the road, with Adlib's Simon Lawson as PA tech ensuring that Del Rey's FOH and monitor engineers Joe Harling and Matt Kanaris could achieve the best possible sonic results in a wide variety of venues.

The main PA hangs in their largest configuration were 12 x L-Acoustics K1 per side with three Kara downs, together with side-hangs of three L-Acoustics SB18s with 12 Kara underneath.

These were supported by 16 x SB28s subs on the floor - six left, six right and four in the centre - cleverly

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14 March 2016

With a growing interest in the provision of spaces suitable for dance - for professional performance and rehearsal, private dance schools and throughout the education sector - there is increasing focus towards specifying dance floors that meet both performance aspirations as well as conforming to health and safety requirements. As world leaders in advanced technology flooring for dance and the performing arts, the release of the Specifying dance floors, a guide for architects by Harlequin Floors aims to aid architects in selecting floors that meet both of these criteria.

As no standards currently exist which

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14 March 2016

With the Awards' jury judging throughout the day and final deliberations taking place late in the afternoon, winners were presented with their individually engraved hook-clamp trophies at London's Truman Brewery, in front of exhibitors, guests and ABTT members.

The winners are as follows:

ABTT 2013 Lighting Product of the Yea : PRG V276 manufactured by PRG

The judges felt this product offered a way to get high-end and high-definition results from a media server & control desk at a more budget conscious price. The PRG V276 takes the stadium style operational features of the larger PRG desks and allows users

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14 March 2016

Packing the skis for travel has always been a challenge explains Jez, and it was time to move permanently on from bubble-wrap, soft bags and keeping fingers crossed that they arrived in one piece ... to something more serious!

Water skis are constructed from hollow fiberglass resin materials which are brittle on the outside and a fall onto concrete, even from a short distance, can damage a ski beyond repair, so protection during transport is imperative.

UK based Jeremy was recommended to 5 Star, where he met Keith Sykes and the design team, who listened to his requirements and set to work to

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14 March 2016

DTS2 manufactures and installs a complete range of winch, hoist and control technology. In an announcement made at this year's ABTT show in London, the two companies have joined forces to provide permanent installations in new build and refurbished theatrical, event and exhibition venues.

Speaking about the collaboration at the show Mark Priestley, capital projects manager for Unusual, said, "This development is an extremely exciting step for Unusual, as it allows us to broaden our range of services in the installation and capital projects sector to enhance our stage engineering offer. None of our installations are off-the-shelf: rather, using DTS2's outstanding control technology, we will add the Unusual 'm

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14 March 2016

Each short video runs about 4-6 mins and the set provides a fast-track training course for the versatile PC/Mac software used to program and control the powerful TiMax SoundHub audio matrix, playback server and showcontrol unit.

Titles include The Mixer basics, through Files and Cues, Triggers and Events, Cues and The Timeline up to a final System and Utilities roundup.

Following detailed briefs from Out Board, the videos have been compiled and narrated by Canadian sound designer and post-production engineer Alan Hardiman as he demonstrates the software's comprehensive feature set.

Rendered in full HD, the videos look like the real thing when watched full-screen, and ProTools was used to help edit and balance sound effects demonstrations and also for mastering the narra

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14 March 2016

Lighting director Eric Blosse says, "We all agreed that we needed to restart from the beginning, rather than seek to replicate the actual flash itself: we were left with a blank white space focused on the body in a trance."

The style of dance, Butoh, is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, which is well suited to trance-like movements and subtle colour shifts.

Says Blosse, "The

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14 March 2016

The initiative of saving the small early 19th century Breda Castle, situated close to the eastern border of Hungary, by developing it into a new tourist attraction is the result of a collaboration between owners, the Megyeri family, and the initiator, Informax Ltd. Working with Bordos.ArtWorks and Invited Artists (run by Budapest-based 3D artist László Zsolt Bordos) and András Schmid (of Christie technical partner DNN|360) they have mapped the façade in a series of animated tableaux.

From 15 June onwards, an artistic video mapping show will be projected every day (and every hour) after dark, using the 3kW xenon light engine of a Christie Roadster HD18K (18000 ANSI lumens) projector, equipped with 1.8-2.6:1 HD zoom lens. And it is

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14 March 2016

When deciding upon a suitable audio solution for the venue, Steve Sidd (general manager) wanted great sound but was under the impression that a JBL/Crown/BSS solution may have not been within his budget. Fortunately Con Constantinou, managing director of Constant Technology Pty Ltd, recommended a quality JBL audio solution which the client was delighted to learn was affordable.

"Steve's perception of the JBL brand was that it would be too expensive," explained Constantinou. "Once we presented the quote to the client he was really surprised how much of a cost effective solution it was."

The main challenge was that the client didn't want the speakers to be visible and so Constantinou h

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14 March 2016

Budget Cuts<