UK - Now in its 37th year, the Heritage Events Leeds Castle Concerts are considered the premier event of their kind in the Kent Summer calendar and this year's show proved no exception with over 12,000 visitors taking to the lawns of the castle.

Working with lighting designer Theo Cox, Aurora supplied lighting, rigging and crew to the production to create an on stage lighting spectacular to complement the existing installation at the beautiful medieval venue.

Keeping the power requirement low and the green credentials high, a variety of LED products were deployed including Martin MAC Aura and MAC Quantum Wash to add colour and movement to performances by The Definitive Rat Pack, who kicked off the show with a touch of Vegas, followed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducte

USA - Every year since its founding in 2006, Life in Color, the world's largest paint party, can be counted on for three things: drawing huge crowds (last year over 600,000 turned out around the world for the paint-drenching fun), featuring EDM's biggest names like Calvin Harris and Steve Aoki, and coming up with some of the most wildly creative show themes on the festival circuit. The 2015 Life in Color Big Bang World Tour is no exception. The crowds have been thick, the artists like Dillon Francis and Bingo Players have been big, and the highly original theme breaks the mould into a million colourful pieces.

The tour's "Big Bang" name says it all. So does its tag line The Creation of Color. Asking the big question, "How did colour come to be?" the tour is built around a story line of the world's colour being imperilled only to be rescue

UK - Following a successful event at last year's festival, XL Video, working with technical producer, Nick Diacre, has once again produced a significant achievement in 180? live mapping for Shangri-La's Heaven Stage at the Glastonbury festival 2015.

The Heaven structure was built organically by Andrew Cross and his team, onsite at the festival, only a few days before the event, and the construction is different every year.

The wide, wooden structure consists of 419 tessellated triangles, which were mapped using photogrammetry and stitched into two composites - one a 2D map and a second 3D model.

XL's technical team, led by Christian Dickens, collaborated closely with Nick Diacre, and together they selected XL Video's Avolites Ai media servers for the project. Their plan was to explore Ai's abilities and to test its live mapping skills on an organic structure. In addition, th

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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

UK - The current Take That Live 2015 tour, promoting the band's seventh studio album, III, is the sixth major tour for which Brilliant Stages has constructed bespoke staging for the eternal boy band since the company first built a stage set for the band in 1994.

The main elements of Brilliant Stages' construction comprise a main stage with apron and artistic performer staircases, a multi-level band stage backed by a series of nine box lifts, an upper stage with an integral service lift, and a forestage with piano lift, all of which connect to a runway which loops out into the arena to a B-stage.

As usual, Take That are delivering a full-on production, this time with a high degree of theatricality and a large number of performers in support of the main artists. The consequence is a set which demands as much activity below stage as on-stage - a major feature which Brillia

Time Flies - Live Aid was staged 30 years ago yesterday. On 13 July 1985, 75 different acts performed live for about 170,000 people in London and Philadelphia. An estimated 1.5 billion people in 110 countries watched it via a live television stream from 13 satellites. More than 40 nations also held telethons for African famine relief during the broadcast.

In our current digital age, these numbers may seem quaint, but in 1985, there was no World Wide Web, no email, no live blogging and no Twitter. Most people still listened to music by listening to the radio or playing vinyl records and cassette tapes; compact discs only became widely available this same year.

The event was a spectacular success, though not without its problems. Satellite links between London and Philadelphia failed several times. But in an ultimate triumph of technology and good will, the event raised more tha

India - Barco hosted its entertainment & corporate partner event in India on 25 and 26 June. Over 70 business partners gathered in Goa to get an overviews of the latest developments in entertainment and corporate visualization.

The Radisson Blu Resort Goa Cavelossim Beach traded its holiday atmosphere for one of hi-tech visualization and industry-leading projection. Throughout an action-packed two-day event, Barco offered its local business partners a series of workshops and hands-on product demos. "Staying abreast in a fast-evolving industry is not always easy," says Mandar Gupte, Barco E&C sales director. "Hence we took this opportunity to give our business partners a comprehensive overview of recent trends and new product launches."

Barco along with High End Systems turned the venue into a blank canvas onto which several of its newest solutions could shi

UK - Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting - including over 300 moving lights - to the four principal stages at new UK festival Wild Life, together with their new high definition proprietary 7 mm LED screen for one stage. The weekend line-up was presented by two of the country's leading electronic artists - Disclosure and Rudimental - both also main stage headliners.

The event was staged over two days at Shoreham Airport in Sussex near Brighton, and enjoyed - together with excellent weather - by capacity crowds of 35,000 music fans each day.

Colour Sound won a competitive quote to supply the four main stages of the event which was organised and promoted by SJM. Haydn 'H' Cruickshank comments, "It's always really exciting to be involved in something fresh, new and different and we were delighted to be working on this one. It was a great chance to put the new screen thr

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Strictly FX Highlights

Strictly FX was founded in 1996 by industry veterans Mark Grega and Ted Maccabee. Our expertise and knowledge of the world’s leading pyrotechnic, laser, and flame manufacturers allows us to curate astonishing live events. With over 500+ shows performed a year, there’s good chance you’ve seen some of our work!

UK - The Theatres Trust, the National Advisory Public Body for Theatres has announced the appointment of Claire Appleby as the Trust's new architecture adviser to provide expert advice on the architecture, design and heritage conservation of theatre buildings.

Claire will deliver high quality theatre building architecture, design and heritage conservation advice to theatre owners, operators and developers, members of the public, and local authorities. Her role involves advising on theatre-related capital redevelopments, refurbishments, restoration and rebuilding projects, providing one-to-one advice, and delivery of the Trust's Advisory Review with the advisory team.

As architecture adviser, Claire will also have a lead role in co-ordinating and advising on work to secure theatres at risk, in association with our Theatres Adviser.

Director Mhora Samuel, said, "I am deli

UK - Star Events continues its campaign to make stage construction safer with the introduction of a tool-free handrail for the downstage edge of festival/event performance platforms.

Developed with an industry specialist and trialled during 2014, Star Events' handrail has had an immediate impact at sites this summer, clipping in and out of adapted sockets on performance stages, simply and quickly.

Rookie Manning, Health & Safety advisor to SJM Concerts at Summer in the City, Manchester, comments, "Star Events' system provides an excellent solution during build and strike phases of a production and I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't be used at all future events.

"The handrail can be erected or removed by two crew in a matter of minutes and having seen a number of people fall from stages over the last 16 years, I will have no hesitation in recommending it to cl

Germany - Some 90,000 people descended on Rock am Ring in Mendig in western Germany last month for the festival's 30th anniversary in a new location. Attendances hit record levels to see headline acts Slipknot, Foo Fighters, Motorhead and In Flames amongst others. With over 150 bands playing over three days, festival-goers were spoilt for choice.

Southside, which took place in Tuttlingen in southern Germany, featured over 100 bands but with a distinctly more "alternative pop/rock" flavour. This time, around 60,000 fans turned out over three days to enjoy the music and a mix of sunshine and rain. DirectOut was on hand for the duration of both festivals to ensure seamless audio transmission from the stage to OB van for regional public broadcaster SWR.

DirectOut product manager Christian Müller was on site to assist SWR engineer Björn Lautenschlager throughout the two

Australia - Vivid Sydney is the largest festival of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere and this year, Pyrmont's harbourside has been transformed into a buzzing multi-sensory, engaging zone where you control the entertainment.

The precinct features a number of interactive installations including Mission Control which gives the public the opportunity to create their own two-minute light show. Once you've selected your music track, you then get to play with forty-four Clay Paky Sharpys and ten Mythos fixtures positioned on The Star building and Sky Terrace.

Control, housed in a glass booth located in the park opposite The Star, consists of a large 60 inch touch screen controller with selectable colour, movement and effects.

"There's also a Leap Motion Controller, which is an infra-red detector that allows you to control the intensity of the lights by

UK - Blackpool Council has announced the appointment of WarPro as specialist contractors for the town's new Illuminations project.

As announced in January, the resort's world famous illuminations display will this year be enhanced this year following a £2m cash boost from the Coastal Communities Fund.

With a further £420,000 being contributed by Blackpool Council contributing and public arts body LeftCoast, the £2.42m 'LightPool' project will give a new lease of life to the flagship attraction by enhancing the display and creating new exciting new light shows, events and features across the town centre.

New state-of-the-art signage will be included at key sites, guiding people around town and leading them to the different installations and new Illuminations 'ambassadors' will also be employed, supplemented by additional volunteers, to improve the visitors'

North America - UK instrumentation specialist Mantracourt Electronics has announced the appointment of Paradigm Rigging as technical partner for the supply of its BroadWeigh wireless load monitoring equipment to the Canadian and United States entertainment sector.

The BroadWeigh portable wireless system offers real-time, simple, effective and accurate load monitoring for rigging professionals, safety officials and site managers, enabling them to monitor and log the precise loads on any given rigging point.

Central to the design of the BroadWeigh system are wireless shackles equipped with a high accuracy load pin that reports data remotely to a computer or a handheld display. The system is able to monitor multiple load cells and can trigger an alarm should a load exceed a pre-set parameter.

"We are very pleased to be appointed as a distributor for the BroadWeigh equipmen

Czech Republic - Backstage Academy's BA Visual Production students have triumphed on production for The Society of British Theatre Designers' Make/Believe showcase at the Prague Quadrennial, where they created an immersive environmental projection mapping of a room in the Clam-Gallasuv Palác and won the Special PQ Jury Award.

"This has been a great collaborative process with creative and technical dialogue between professional designers, students and projection mapping experts. We are seeing the work in a completely new way," remarked Make/Believe curator Kate Burnett.

The Special PQ Jury Award, judged by a team of top international directors and designers, recognises "the richness and diversity of an exhibition that shows high quality work from across the spectrum of contemporary performance design - in a variety of venues, and embracing space, light, media an

India - Just before the PALM expo in Mumbai, Laserworld welcomed a new member to the company group: Laserworld India was founded as a Laserworld company in New Delhi. Managing director of Laserworld India, Arun Kalra, comments, "I've been working in the entertainment technology industry for many years and have a huge business network all over India. With the huge product portfolio and the different product levels of Laserworld I'm very confident that we can meet the large demand that is in our market here."

Laserworld India will mainly act as sales hub, but will also maintain a service department for show laser service and repairs for India and surrounding countries. All brands that are manufactured or distributed through the Laserworld Group will be available through Laserworld India for the Indian market.

The new website for Laserworld India will provide further in

USA - The Behind the Scenes Happy Hour, hosted by PLASA will go on sale to the public on 15 July, 2015. The biggest pre-LDI party of the year will take place on Thursday, 22 October, from 6pm-8pm at the Westgate Las Vegas. Tickets are $60 each and includes an open bar, hors d'oeuvres and music and all proceeds go to benefit the Behind the Scenes charity, the only industry charity that provides grants to ill or injured entertainment technician professionals. Following the success of the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour last year, tickets are expected to sell quickly.

Starting 15 July, tickets can be purchased online: http://behindthescenescharity.org/btshh. They can also be ordered through your LDI registration once available.

Current sponsors for the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour include: Altman Lighting (Executive), Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. (Platinum), Ultratec (Platinum), Hea

USA - Lighting designer Preston Hoffman created a dynamic and flexible production lighting design for the 2015 Summer Camp Festival staged at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. His stage, the Moonshine Stage, was based primarily around 16 x Robe BMFL Spots and 10 x Robe Pointe moving lights.

It was the second time that Boston-based Preston, also LD for headlining jam band moe. had worked at the four day event. The lighting equipment was supplied by Chicago-based Performance Lighting, a recent investor in BMFLs and Pointes.

A major challenge for the Moonshine Stage lighting design was that any equipment - trussing, set, lighting, etc. - had to be rigged off two roof beams with limited weight loading that were part of the semi-permanent stage's structure. Similar to the concept of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, this encapsulates the spirit of the Festival, and has b

USA - Hundreds of Elation lighting fixtures were used again this year on Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, North America's largest dance music festival, with the latest incarnation of the electronic rave taking place 19-21 June at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Lighting supply companies Visions Lighting, AG Production Services, Felix Lighting and Pro Systems all supplied Elation gear to the Vegas version of EDC with many of this year's awe-inspiring lighting and stage looks again by SJ Lighting.

With over 400,000 attendees for the three-day event, producers Insomniac brought in some of the world's biggest EDM artists and production talent to supply the heart-thumping atmosphere. Elation products wowed massive crowds on Stage 7 (Pro Systems), Bass Pod (Visions Lighting), Circuit Grounds (AG Lighting) and Cosmic Meadow (Felix Lighting) stages with several of Elation's newest lum

UK - Allen & Heath's modular iLive digital mixing system was employed to manage FOH for the recent production of Pete Townshend's Classic Quadrophenia, taking place at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

A classical reworking of The Who's 1970s album, Townshend's production featured the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Oriana Choir, and guest singers Billy Idol, Phil Daniels and Alfie Boe.

"The brief was to emulate the Quadrophenia studio album, and provide clean, open sound, so I knew I had to choose iLive because it fits the bill exactly - it has a very open, clean sound, great audio processing, is super flexible, networkable, and is customisable so I can make it work for me, rather than the other way round. With an 80-strong orchestra, 90-strong choir and various guest celebrity singers, there was a lot going on, so iLive is just what I needed,"

Sweden - Melodifestivalen is Sweden's national contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest, where their winner candidate is found. For the stage setup, lighting designer, Fredrik Jönsson implemented both X-5 strobes and P-5 wash lights. Jönsson here explains the effects he wished to achieve using these two specific types of LED fixtures from SGM:

"The X-5s were scattered around the lighting rig downstage to add glitter and bursts that would penetrate the air through the set and give more energy in the camera shots. We mainly used the segment feature with fast randomly chases to add that extra razzmatazz during choruses and such.

"The P-5s were brought in for a specific act to be used as a strong colour signature and as uplight through a glass floor for a custom made transparent podium. They were purely used in a strong and vibrant red that became a very strong sign

UK - American rapper Kanye West's headline gig at this year's Glastonbury Festival has gone viral due to the incredible 792-strong PAR can rig controlled by 16 Avolites ART2000 48 way 16A dimmers and 2 Avolites Power Cubes.

Lighting experts, Elstree Light & Power (ELP) supplied the rig and the dimmers for the huge rectangular array of PAR cans, which moved up and down during West's set as 135,000 revellers watched in awe at the Pyramid Stage.

ELP's Chris Rand oversaw the delivery of the kit, reporting directly to Kanye West's 'people'.

"Avolites is the preferred dimmer supplier for ELP, and we've been a long time fan of Avolites kit with a large stock of Avolites ART2000 dimmers and Power Cubes," says Chris Rand. "We came in rather late on this project and immediately turned to in-house Avolites dimmers - we regard them as the industry standard for robust, rel

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