Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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South Africa - Celebrating the best South African companies, their products and services as well as the people behind them, the South African Premier Business Awards was hosted in The Pavilion venue at the Sandton Convention Centre in March this year.

Keystone Productions were asked by their client Outlaw, to design the set and provide the technical for this lavish black-tie affair. MGG Productions assisted with the supply of lighting gear, while the set was constructed by Stage Works. Mark West was the Choreographer and Cap Events the creative director.

With a distinct African flavour, the awards embraced performances by the 26 piece Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Zahara, The Three Afro Tenors and three sets by the theatre production, Africa Umoja.

The set had a clean a

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France - In late 2012, Michel Sardou began a four-month Les Grands Moments tour across France, revisiting his biggest hits in a truly energetic show. Lighting designer Jacques Rouveyrollis used just one type of spotlight on stage throughout the tour - the MAC Viper Profile.

A total of 93 MAC Viper Profiles, supplied by the Dushow Group (who currently have 160 in total), were installed, 56 equally spaced over three gantries and 37 on the floor spread across four levels.

No traditional spotlights were used - a rare occurrence for such a show. The simple lighting plan acted as the sole stage design element and provided the performance area with structure by offering a wide variety of effects. At front of house, six MAC III Performances were installed behind the control desk for extra punch.

The MAC Vipers enabled Jacques Rouveyrollis to design several different lighting

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UAE - Celebrating 25 years in the Middle East, Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises has recently established a new free zone entity under the title NMK Middle East FZCO. The mission of the new entity is to "continue the success of the professional audio, video and communications distributor across the Middle East and surrounding region". NMK Middle East FZCO will continue to maintain and build relationships with system integrators, rental companies, broadcast integrators and broadcasters for a wide range of manufacturers.

The free zone entity will facilitate the new distribution arrangements that NMK have obtained in the past few months which include representation of Neutrik across the GCC (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman) as well as Iraq and Iran. In addition, there will be other new distribution arrangements annou

Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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Grand Opera - Russia's Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg has opened a new ballet and opera house with a gala ceremony attended by 2,000 guests. The new building sits beside the historic 19th-Century Mariinsky Theatre, the birthplace of ballets such as Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.

At $700m (£450.5m), it has divided opinion, with some criticising the modernist architecture and cost. President Vladimir Putin said it had "everything you need for a theatre". Addressing guests, Mr Putin paid tribute to the "boundless energy" of the theatre's ambitious director Valery Gergiev, whose 60th birthday coincided with the opening night.

Hop Farm Cancelled - The Hop Farm music festival has announced the cancellation of this year's event because of poor ticket sales. The festival had been due to take place in Kent on 5-6 July. It was due to be hea

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UK - Building on an unparalleled figure of pre-registrations, PLASA Events welcomed a record number of visitors at the Royal Armouries last week as PLASA Focus: Leeds 2013 opened its doors for two days of unique access to the newest and most innovative products on the market.

As the sun came out in Leeds, visitor numbers broke all previous records, hitting a total of 2376 over the two days - an increase of nearly 12% on 2012 - demonstrating once again the size, strength and enthusiasm of the entertainment technology community in the north of England.

Amongst the many companies unveiling new products to the UK were Martin Professional, showing the first luminaire from RUSH, their new effects lighting product range, and White Light presented the latest CORE Lighting ColourPoint LED uplighter, whilst Artistic Licence premiered their new range of smart modular dimmers, sunDial alo

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

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UK - PLASA returns to 195 Piccadilly - the iconic home of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) - on Thursday 30 May for its 2013 European AGM. Over 200 members and guests are anticipated at the event, which will include a review of the achievements of the last 12 months and an outline of PLASA's aims for future development.

The AGM is of great significance to the Association and the ideal occasion for every member to ensure that his or her voice is heard. It is this feedback that enables PLASA to react positively to the changes and challenges that members face in order to act effectively on their behalf.

Important decisions were made through 2012 to support and safeguard PLASA's future including moving the PLASA Show to Excel London, investing in new software which will provide members with new self-service features and enable much easier participation in As

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UK - PLASA Focus: Leeds saw the first UK outing of ArrayCalc V7 from d&b audiotechnik, arguably the most useful addition to audio mapping yet. Enabling the acoustic simulation of d&b line arrays with point source loudspeakers and an export function to the d&b R1 Remote control software; ArrayCalc V7 now simplifies the process for those planning sound system design, creating remote control workspaces and configuring d&b amplifiers.

Meanwhile full houses in the Bury Theatre saw lively sessions from Oran Burns and Steve Jones as they addressed the thought processes that lie behind the choice of loudspeaker for a given task. Oran's Demystifying Audio Techniques allowed the attendees to gain a better understanding of what constitutes a well behaved loudspeaker and how it affects what the listener hears, whilst Steve continued the theme by exploring further the relationship bet

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

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South Africa - The South African State Theatre in Pretoria has added more Robe LED fixtures to its lighting inventory ... specified by Head of Lighting Simon King.

The latest purchase includes 12 x MMX Spots, four DLX Spots and four Robin 300 LEDWashes and follows quickly on the heels of 40 x Robe LEDForce 18 PARs and eight new ColorSpot 250E ATs.

The Theatre also now has a total of 36 x LEDWash 600s, the first batch of which were purchased in 2011 from Robe's SA distributor DWR, after being specified by King who was keen to embrace the many advantages of LED stage lighting.

The State Theatre - housed in its distinctive and imposing building in the heart of the city - has five main performance spaces, the largest two being the 1300 capacity Opera Stage and the 650 capacity Drama Stage - and a fantastic reputation for excellence in multiple genres. It also likes to keep movin

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Germany - After last year's highly successful shows in Germany, Canadian rock quartet, Billy Talent, returned to play another two sold out indoor concerts in late April, to warm up for the summer festivals that will come up soon.

For these gigs the conventional strobes that were originally specified were replaced by 12 of SGM's X-5 LED strobes - the first time lighting designer Dara Guiney had worked with them.

"Bernd [Wittenberg] from Go Audio Rental asked me if I would be willing to try them out and I loved them right away. Since most of my strobe effects are blinding effects, I was concerned if they would deliver the same impact - and they were perfect! They are really responsive - the white is amazing and not blueish at all. I am dying to try them in 7-channel mode next time, and use all the pixel effects."

Go Audio will be rigging almost all major festivals in

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UK - UK - Peter Barnes has designed a fresh and diverse pure-beam show for the current X Factor Live tour, using 54 powerful Clay Paky Sharpys.

Barnes - who has designed lighting for some of the world's biggest artists and events including the Spice Girls' Spiceworld international tour and the Live 8 benefit concerts - specified the Sharpys, supplied by HSL, to cut through the brightness of the staging and create dynamic scenes.

"The Sharpys' thin powerful beams cut through against the LED screens without the need for too much smoke," says Barnes. "Everyone loves the Sharpy for the bright beams that help create a dynamic show, especially with the extensive use of video in most pop shows these days. The brightness of the beams can easily be seen against the brightness of the LED screens."

With seven different acts from the X Factor 2012 performing

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UK - When the BBC wanted to celebrate the completion of its ambitious Your Paintings project - an online catalogue of 212,000 oil paintings in public ownership - Mark Rackstraw, assistant producer of BBC Learning (under whose department it fell), had the idea of simultaneously projecting some of the artworks onto 30 landmark buildings and heritage sites around the UK on the day of the celebration.

The remarkable feat of carrying out this projection - at 5pm on 8 February - was undertaken by Keyteq; and at every site they deployed Christie LX1500's, outputting 15,000 ANSI lumens brightness from an advanced 4-lamp, 3LCD optical engine. The exception was at Norwich Castle where they used two stacked Christie Roadster S+20K (20,000 ANSI lumens) three chip DLP projectors to deliver a 25m image onto the castle walls over a 70m throw distance.

The other venues ranged from Clif

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UK - Opened with a glittering black-tie reception on Thursday 2 May 2013, the new extension to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) showcases a range of the services that Northern Light supplies to venues across the UK.

The opening event featured an impressive entertainment line-up, including top impressionist Jon Culshaw and singer Laura Mvula, both of whom utilised technical equipment provided by Northern Light.

The Northern Light team have been on-site at the venue since July 2012, providing the specialist electrical installation of technical systems for the £80m Lennox Suite project. Northern Light was responsible for designing a building-wide, integrated lighting control system, in addition to the installation of cabling infrastructure and stage lighting, sound and communications systems for the new 2,000sq.m of additional conference and event space.

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UK - Capital Sound has been working with operatic pop group Il Divo for 10 years, but for their new Front of House engineer, Davide Lombardi, getting to know the audio rental company on the current Il Divo and Katherine Jenkins tour has been somewhat of a revalation.

Italian-born Lombardi secured the position on Capital's recommendation, after they had experienced his mixing expertise with Will Young during the summer of 2012. They also knew he had classical experience working with Andrea Bocelli, and were certain he would be a good option for Il Divo.

"The guys from Capital came and listened, mentioned my name and I was lucky enough to be chosen," says LOmbardi. "The very first show was BBC Proms in the Park with a live BBC orchestra, which was good experience for me as it was in front of thousands of people."

This was swiftly followed by a three week st

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UK - When Chris Lessani and partner Gary MacCulloch took over the former Boho Club in Glasgow's city centre at the end of last year they wasted no time in renaming it The Sanctuary.

In order to stamp a new identity on the popular location, they travelled extensively looking for lighting ideas that would dazzle the dancefloor, and set it apart from other venues in the area. This would form the centrepiece of a significant interior upgrade this spring.

Having seen a particular domed LED lighting effect while in London, they brought in long-standing Aberdeen based installers, Blinding Light, as a specialist contractor to work alongside the general fit-out team.

They were in turn introduced to SGM UK's Ian Kirby and as a result specified no fewer than 730 LD-5 (LED Domes) for use on the club ceiling. Measuring just 80mm in outer diameter, up to 35 domes can be run in a single ch

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UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises has recently announced its second series of certified courses to be held during the months of May and June in Dubai. The yearly education series will now go under the new title Academy 2.0 and will be hosted at the new NMK Middle East FZCO office located in Dubai Silicon Oasis. The seminars include brands from Rational Acoustics, Shure/DIS, ClearCom and Midas.

The Rational Acoustics seminar conducted between 4 and 5 June will cover the SMAART software, which is used for sound system measurement, optimization and control. The Shure/DIS seminar conducted between 9 and 10 June will focus on the new wireless products, applications and advanced conference electronics.

Between 23 and 24 June the ClearCom seminar will highlight the wired and wireless communication products. And finally between 25 and 26 May the Midas seminar wil

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Sweden - Scandinavia's leading contemporary circus company Cirkus Cirkör from Stockholm have purchased Robe MMX Spots and LEDWash moving lights for their current touring schedule, which presents their latest work, Knitting Peace.

Under the artistic direction of Tilde Björfors, Cirkus Cirkör mixes elements from street theatre, rock videos, theatre, dance and film into its shows. The company tours extensively worldwide and is based in Alby, south of Stockholm.

Lighting is an integral element of Cirkus Cirkör's work. It's used to emphasise the drama, the seat-edge acrobatics and sheer physical power, emotion and aesthetics of the performance.

Lighting for Knitting Peace is designed by Ulf Englund, and the new Robes - five MMX Spots and 16 LEDWash 600s - were specified for this show by him and Cirkus Cirkör's technical producer, Stefan Karlstr&

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UK - When acid jazz group, The Brand New Heavies, joined forces with Ruby Turner to bring the curtain down on this year's Gateshead International Jazz Festival at the Sage Gateshead, local service company Nitelites were brought in to fill the 1640-capacity main auditorium with a premier RCF TT+ line array PA system.

Having worked with the venue many times previously Nitelites know how to maximise system coherency in an unusually high building with several tiers, and the active TTL33-A - set in two hangs of 11 elements - provided even coverage for the stalls and both balcony areas, up to a level of 14m.

In addition, Nitelites ground-stacked a further three TTL33-A 's left and right of the stage, to draw the image back down to the nearfield stalls area. But probably the biggest breakthrough was their deployment of a pair each of the new-generation TT1-A and TT2-A , the former wa

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UK - Cambridge University's ADC Theatre recently sought a versatile solution for cyc lighting as part of the CUADC's production of Elton John and Tim Rice's musical, Aida. The theatre, the oldest University playhouse in the country, turned to entertainment lighting specialist White Light for advice. White Light's Jonathan Haynes worked with lighting designer Mitchell Clarke to decide on the right solution: the Spectra Cyc 100 - a 100 watt LED cyc fixture from American manufacturer, Altman Lighting.

For the ambitious production, flexibility was key. Clarke needed a fixture that could achieve many different looks on the curved cyclorama, which encapsulated the abstract set. The Spectra Cyc delivered with a complete range of vibrant, smoothly blended colours, thanks to Altman's patented LED lens. Clarke explained, "I couldn't get the variety of colours needed from our e

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UK / USA ETC has introduced the Selador Desire D40XTI luminaire. It has the same colour mixing system that Selador luminaires are known for. Using the x7 Color System - which combines up to seven LED colours in one unit - the D40XTI has the most flexible colour rendering possible, says the company.

The D40XTI features the Selador family's professional-quality dimming capabilities. The D40XTI can fade to black smoothly, without the telltale steps demonstrated by other LEDs.

"The D40XTI was designed with the installer in mind," explains Jim Uphoff, ETC fixtures product manager. "It can be set up in minutes with a few simple connections. It has just two cables: one for power and one for both data in and thru. The DMX/RDM cable simply plugs into an included data board, and the power cord can be permanently wired to a junction box."

A tough, rugged luminaire,

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UK / EMEA - Martin Professional has announced that industry professional Matt Hallard has joined the Martin EMEA sales organisation as Business Area Manager, Rental. Hallard brings with him a wealth of industry experience having worked as production manager for P&O Cruises Worldwide, as regional sales manager at PRG Distribution and most recently for Philips Vari-Lite as European sales manager.

Hallard's primary duties in the Martin EMEA organisation will focus on developing Martin's Global Alliance Program, as well as handling a number of key accounts. Furthermore, Martin plans to utilize Hallard's deep roots in the industry to strengthen as well as develop new relationships with LDs and important customers Europe-wide.

"Matt is just the kind of industry pro that can support our continued growth within the touring, TV and event segments by using his extensive industry kn

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Germany - The Rotmain Centre in Bayreuth is the commercial centre of the city in Franconia famous for its annual Wagner festival: around 80 businesses, shops and cafes make up the sprawling modern shopping mall. In addition to being a great place to shop, the Rotmain Centre is also used for a variety of other events, including concerts, fashion shows and performances of all kinds.

Since recent events had demonstrated that the existing sound reinforcement system was no longer adequate to the increasing demands being placed on it, those responsible decided to invest in a new audio system. For the design, planning and implementation of the new system, they brought in the Bayreuth firm of Schwankl Sound & Service.

In view of the diversity of uses to which it would be put, it was clear from the start that what was needed was a flexible sound reinforcement system: a system capable n

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Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
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