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14 March 2016

Working with lighting designer Baz Halpin and lighting director Hunter Frith, PRG's Yvonne Donnelly Smith helped deliver an innovative show for the nine week tour.

Halpin's design successfully incorporates a diverse array of lighting tools to create a clean minimalistic show where retro meets modern. His choice of fixtures helped to cut through, as there was no smoke used in the show, the design was simple but effective and didn't need any bells or whistles.

Your eye is immediately drawn to the distinctive Skypans, seven hanging on the mid truss on moving pantographs with mirrored reflectors and a single 80 W bulb. 10 more, floor moun

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14 March 2016

T in the Park director Geoff Ellis told BBC Scotland the event had gone from 17,000 people a day in its first year to a capacity of 85,000. He said the move to Balado had opened up the festival to the whole of Scotland and beyond. "We do attract a lot of people from outside of Scotland. "About 20% of our crowd comes from outside Scotland and about 2% from outside the UK but the real passionate element is the Scott

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14 March 2016

Robe UK's own Ian W Brown took his tent, clothes-pegs and wellies and got into the festival spirit, where a very iffy start weather-wise came good . . . with sunshine, soaring temperatures and sizzling expectations.

Ian spent time hanging out at some of the coolest Glasto spaces including The Park with its abundance of open air stages, late night bars, lounges and cafés, tee pee villages, art installations and 17 metre high illuminated Ribbon Tower that overlooks the entire festival site.

Supplying lighting to the main stage at

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14 March 2016

This will complete a 'tour' of open days around the country this fortnight - the first taking place at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon on Tuesday 9 July, followed by a trip to the South-West and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School on Thursday 11 July.

The open day in London will allow customers to view the expanded facilities at Ambersphere Solutions, and meet the Ambersphere team behind the sales, service, support and training for Clay Paky, MA Lighting and Robert Juliat in the UK.

"As well as catching up with our team and taking a look around the programming and training facilities we have here in London, our showroom will be full of the latest kit from our exclusive brands. It will be an excellent chance for

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14 March 2016

"The CMT Music Awards is a huge event on the music calendar and gets bigger and bigger every year. It outshines every other awards show," says Kenny.

Kenny partnered with production designer Ann Brahic, who marked her fifth year with the show. "She designed a set that was a very modern scape. It went along with the theme of the show: a cross-cultural look at country music," he explains. "People loved it. Ann really understands lighting, and we have a great relationship."

Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky area manager for North and Latin America, add

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14 March 2016

French rental company Melpomen has provided the audio kit for Hellfest since its inception in 2006, and, as Melpo has been a big Nexo user for nearly 20 years, the festival has always been Nexo-centric. With STM onboard this year, that meant more headroom and more control than ever before, according to Thierry Tranchant, Melpo's president.

"We have a very good relationship with the festival organisers, so when we explained that we needed STM because it is such a fantastic, powerful system, and it's so easy to rig, they just took our word fo

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14 March 2016

Director of dance, Brigitte Lefèvre was joined by principal dancers, Dorothée Gilbert and Jérémie Bélingard for the interview which is featured on the Harlequin YouTube channel.

Brigitte Lefèvre explained that although a well-established and respected traditional dance company "everything is always evolving, a living tradition and at the same time we are a reflection of an age, of the times." She continued, "You realise that the dancers are all becoming more and more attentive to everything that accompanies them and they are perfectly right. In a reference to dancers' health and well-being she said, "you can speak of att

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14 March 2016

A thousand guests, including South African government and business leaders, were invited to the black-tie occasion.

With the client only confirming the technical four days prior to show day, the greatest challenge was to build the set. Project manager and head of crew, Zeeks Sebatjane of MJ Event Gear, and lighting designer, Johnny Scholtz, had already come up with the design. The team at Driftwood, under the guidance of Jaco Meyer, put the set together in record time. The stage incorporated white flats and two big screens.

"The client was impressed," said Zeeks Sebatjane. "They said our work was very tidy... and that was during set up. The crew was super and everyone was willing to help. "Thank y

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14 March 2016

Promoted by Akira Kidoguchi and Masachika Fukui for A-life Entertainment Co. Ltd., rental company Comestock again equipped the three stages with RCF TT+ Touring & Theatre systems to satisfy an audience totalling around 25,000 people.

In addition to the usual armoury of high-powered TT+ line arrays there was a surprise for anyone visiting the party tent known as the 'Disco Balloon'. Six of the new TTP5-A enclosures (three per side) were making their Japanese debut in the Balloon - supplied (as with all the RCF equipment) by the Italian manufacturer's territorial distributors, Ballad Co. Ltd.

Dominated by its newly

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14 March 2016

Zakes Bantwini returned to his home province for the Upfront with Zakes Bantwini live concert. The show was brought to fans by the Ethekwini Municipality and Mayonie Productions. Black Coffee was commissioned to provide the full technical for the event.

"The only challenge was getting in on that morning - actually at midnight - to set up and be ready for the rehearsals at 2pm," commented Llewellyn Pieters from Black Coffee. "But we planned crew shifts and it all worked out. The gear worked very well and everything was pre-addressed at the workshop and labelled for rig

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14 March 2016

The German companies Tonart from Kürten, Bild und Tonstudio - Medien & Veranstaltungstechnik from Sigmaringen, DM Elektronik Veranstaltungstechnik from Wolfsburg, JAM-SOUND Veranstaltungstechnik from Lützen and Beschallungsteam Marticke from Schönborn from now on belong to the the system.

In Europe Vest Lydservice from Stord /Norwegen, Veranstaltungstechnik Mayrhofer from St. Georgen im Attergau / Austria, Crealine Audiosystems from Wetzikon and Musicelectronic Jaccoud from Givisiez / both Switzerland and Musicalbox from Verona / Italy invested in Hybrid components.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

"With the acquisition of Informationsteknik, Shure has reinforced our position in the installed sound market. Together, Shure and DIS have a history of innovation, quality and customer commitment, and with our strong and dedicated network of distributors, we will deliver state-of-the-art conferencing solutions to an expanded customer base," said William Chan, managing director of Shure Asia Limited.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Respected lighting designer, Anders Busch, specified a host of Sharpys for the closing show of the international TV show phenomenon.

"The concept for the Norwegian Idol finale 2013 was that it should not look like every other TV talent show," explains Petter Nilssen from lighting equipment supplier, Elektrik Solutions AS. "The production designers didn't want the ubiquitous supersized LED or projector screens, they wanted something different. In addition the producers wanted to have as many people in the audience as possible. In order to do this they needed a 360 degree stage."

This presented a considerable challenge - how to create enoug

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14 March 2016

James Varah, sales director, at the Brewery comments, "We are thrilled to be welcoming Blitz to become part of The Brewery family at a key point in our history. Our business has grown significantly in the last eighteen months, and we are now hosting more events than ever before. The breadth of Blitz offering was instrumental in our decision, and we feel will enhance our already comprehensive event service."

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

"In order to bring these 700-year-old Mystery Plays to life, I knew I had to deliver some spectacular effects," said lighting designer Chris Ellis. " I also knew we needed a large lighting rig to do justice to the large setting in the Nave of Chester's medieval cathedral. With only modest power supplies available, it was an ideal opportunity to try out a large LED rig to help keep the power consumption down. Chauvet lighting kindly obliged with a selection of some 10

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14 March 2016

Friday 28 June saw the unveiling of three large dance studios, costume and shoe storage room, an aerial performance room and two singing rehearsal rooms, all in a converted warehouse. The Academy is one of the largest dance studios in the UK and will house rehearsals for thousands of dancers and performers rehearsing for appearances on Carnival Cruises.

Each of the three dance studios were fully equipped with Harlequin Activity Sprung Floor topped with Harlequin Standfast Surface and were built to replicate a ship in a bid to help perform

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14 March 2016

LDR's Fabiano Besio says, "Ballantyne-Strong proved to be a professional and dedicated partner for LDR during our many years of collaboration and we wish them all the best for the future.

"The change has been necessary to answer the growing demand on LDR products in the USA and particularly on the Canto followspots and The Xpress 21 color color Scroller . Our customer base is very demanding and expects from our distributor the same high level of quality and service that are representative of our products.

Beginning 1 August, 2013, the Canto followspot range and related LDR products will be exclusively distributed and serviced by CantoUSA.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

The Pointes, supplied by satis&fy AG, were part of the specification provided for his headline slot enjoyed by 17,000 fans who packed the venue.

Guetta's lighting designer is Leggy (Jonathan Armstrong), and lighting is looked after on the road by lighting director Junior (Alex Cerio) from Smash Productions.

Armstrong is a big Robe fan and has used various Robe products in his work for some time. He was delighted to get the chance to run 20 x Robin Pointes - making their worldwide concert debut - in Hannover.

These were supplied, together with the rest of the lighting rig, including another 74 Robe fixtures by the leading German lighting rental house which has over 800 Robe units in its hire s

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14 March 2016

The contest was an ideal opportunity to showcase the use of grandMA 3D as a free pre-programming and design tool. It also showed that in combination with the free grandMA2 onPC software, users could access a real life design studio.

The jury comprising Alarico Sanchez, director of Novolite, Daniel Ridano and Paulo Lebrao from MA Lighting Latin America, Francesco Romagnoli from Clay Paky and lighting designer Mario Ráez assigned the awards to: first, Alex Tacora from Peru winning an MA onPC command wing; second, Jose Luiz Fagundes from Brazil winning an MA 2Port Node

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14 March 2016

In addition to supplying variable acoustics, Constellation also helps lend a sense of small-room intimacy to the teaching segments of senior pastor Gene Appel and others. "The main benefit of Constellation is that we can finesse it. We are not locked into a permanent acoustical decision as we would have been with a fixed acoustical ceiling," says Chris Gille, Eastside's CTO and chief systems engineer.

Gille says Constellation's effect on the room is strikingly apparent at all times. "Just talkin

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14 March 2016

DPA Soundco has already been working with Coda for several years and bought the Airline LA12 system because they saw huge potential in Coda's technology, as well as the size, weight, rigging and handling of the system.

"We have been working with it a great deal and we've found out how to make the most of its power and versatility in a large variety of applications," says Ulrik Rasmussen, DPA Soundco project manager and system designer for the Elton John concert. "We're now really confident that it has plenty of potential to compete with the top brand

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14 March 2016

Actus Industries is headed by Andy Martin, and its senior management team includes some of the most experienced and respected practitioners in the production, show and event industry.

The business has three separate divisions; equipment hire, selected sales and project management.

Actus general manager Adam Beaumont explained that they always intended to go into automation and the choice of brand was made because, "Kinesys is easily the best option'.

They recently won the contract to supply the full rigging package to Robbie Williams' Take The Crown tour, and at this point decided to expand their Kinesys elements.

The new Kinesys kit - including Liftket motors, El

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14 March 2016

This multi-purpose space can simulate studio conditions especially useful for lighting demonstrations, effects and design. The RML team of proficient lighting and industry experts and technicians can be on hand to clarify features, performance and technical characteristics. Alternatively the space can be hired for many other purposes including small productions, rehearsal space, pop promos, music videos, photo shoots and training to name a few.

Lighting designer Ed Warren, who is busy working with a number of artists including Mumford & Sons said that it was "a fantastic space" and wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

"LED is the way forward," says Calder Sibbald, Black Light's head of hires. "We are committed to providing our customers with the best possible choice and the latest technology and we think that ETC's range offers an unbeatable combination of features."

The new additions to Black Light's stock include Source Four LED Lustr+ and Studio HD Profiles, Vivid Desire D60's Vivid, Lustr+ Desire D60 Lustr+'s and Vivid Desire D4060 Vivid luminaries.

"We bought some Lustr+e Profiles last year and they have been out on hire almost constantly ever since," says Sibbald. "We know that this range is perfect for our broad customer base which includes Lighting Designers, Ven