USA - Ayrton MagicDot-R made its US debut with Bruno Mars at Rock In Rio Las Vegas in May. Lighting designer Cory FitzGerald of Seven Design Works used a configuration of 184 of the new fixtures on the singer's closing performance at this year's festival which was hosted for the first time in the US. FitzGerald's design also featured an array of 128 Ayrton IntelliPix-R panels deployed as fascias fronting the stage-wide risers that backed Mars and his band.

FitzGerald has used Ayrton fixtures on several shows for Mars, including New Year shows at The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas and NBC's Saturday Night Live. FitzGerald's lighting for Mars' one-off Rock in Rio set, however, was an evolution of his designs for the singer's previous shows. "I wanted to create a similar visual

USA - Chroma-Q Color Force 12 multi-purpose LED fixtures were recently specified by lighting sales and production company, E2i Design for an ambitious show at Michigan's Brighton High School.

The school's musical theatre troupe was the first in the state to perform the spectacular Tony Award-winning new musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It.

E2i Design's Josh Holowicki passionately supports the school's theatre in a number of ways - as vice chairman of the board of directors, as volunteer technical director and scenic designer, and as producer. As the technical director, he's responsible for all audio, video and lighting.

"We recently redesigned the entire lighting system in the theatre, investing in 36 Color Force 12 units for the house rig," says Josh. "We use them for cyc lighting as well as general stage washes, and without a doubt they are a spectac

Sweden - For the 2015 Sweden Rock Festival, production manager Pelle Aberg selected a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system for the main stage to support headliners such as Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Slash, and Toto. The system provided the crew with excellent coverage control, while eliminating the need for delay towers.

"I talked to many sound engineers that I trust about our options, and I decided to go all the way on our biggest stage with Leo," says Aberg. "We have very strict limits on sound outside the festival grounds, with fines for any breaches, so we needed a system that could effectively cover large areas at high levels, but with precise control. The LEO system achieved this goal - I could hear clear, powerful music all the way to the back of the huge crowd."

Main hangs for the Festival Stage were 15 Leo-M

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Case Study: Hans Zimmer Live

When award winning film composer Hans Zimmer brought his smash-hit tour Hans Zimmer Live to North America fall 2024, the show's audio team sought out to bring infrafrequency bass to the show to add new depth to the show's audio experience. The team chose Danley Sound Labs.

UK - The Animation degrees at Staffordshire University are regarded as some of the most prestigious courses in the UK - in fact it is the only UK university to offer a degree in Stop Motion Animation & Puppet Making.

With facilities that are second to none and with close industry ties including the famous puppet makers Mackinnon & Saunders and Aardman Animation, the Stop Motion Animation degree course is extremely popular with students wishing to pursue a career in stop motion animation.

But while the department boasts first class facilities and equipment which enable students to get real hands on experience, Manoubi Ben Lamri, the university's specialist technical instructor for animation, had one issue he wanted to solve - how to de-clutter the small studio spaces and enable the students to move more freely around their sets.

Following a chance meeting with Doughty Enginee

Romania - Showline SL NITRO 510C strobes have made their debut on the third edition of Electric Castle, Romania's biggest music festival, becoming the first LED strobes to be used on the event in its short history.

The award-winning dance festival takes place in Banffy Castle, a 14th century monument in the Romanian village of Bontida. Twenty-two of the powerful Showline strobes, supplied by ASC Systems, were an integral part of the main stage rig, where such big name acts as The Prodigy, Rudimental and Fat Boy Slim performed.

"We've been suppliers to the festival since its first year," says ASC Systems' Raluca Dumitru. "This year several of the lighting designers asked for LED strobes in their brief and so we chose to invest in the SL NITRO 510C. We were confident in our decision on account of Philips' fantastic reputation for high quality entertainment lightin

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, conducted by John Rigby.

The low power approach was augmented by generator provider Midas who ran Biodeies

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

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BikeFest Spain 2025 - Join the ride!

BikeFest Spain is set to return for its fourth consecutive year, inviting cyclists from across the industry to join the 360km ride towards ISE in Barcelona. From 31 January to 2 February 2025, riders will again rally in Valencia, cycling along the Mediterranean coast in support of industry causes.
For more information and to sign up, visit: www.joinbikefest.com

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

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

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

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