Pharos - Leaderboard - Nov 2024
PRG - Nov 2024
HOF - Banner - Oct-Nov 2024
ISE - Banner - Oct 2024

General

Details
UK - Ron Bonner, who has worked for PLASA for over 17 years, has announced that he will be retiring at the end of February.
Bonner has been an integral part of PLASA’s technical standards and resources department since early 2001, and has made a huge contribution to standards writing for the entertainment industry, both in the UK and internationally.
Under Bonner’s leadership, PLASA has instigated a wide range of standards which have contributed hugely to the safety of the industry.
Notable projects include the development of the European voluntary agreement for stage engineering that will shortly be converted to the first ever European stage engineering standard. He also led the way in guiding PLASA members on administrative compliance requirements for newly introduced European environmental legislation.
Bonner was instrumental in the creation of the

Details
Poland - A new automatic rental platform for the video, audio, lighting and rigging sectors has just been launched.
This fully integrated system has just been established by ARAM, a member of PRG Alliance. Using the platform, companies who provide event production services can select the equipment they want to rent with a single click and send a request that will be automatically decoded by the A-RENTAL warehouse system. Then, after checking if the items are available and awarding the discount, the ARAM employee responsible for the rental process can quickly and easily send the relevant quote.
Apart from making the quoting process faster, this solution is designed to show the event industry the tremendous amount of equipment ARAM has at its disposal.
“Many of our customers are unaware of the number of items we have in stock, and they frequently happen to nee
HOF - Banner - Oct-Nov 2024
ISE - Banner - Oct 2024
PRG - Nov 2024

Details
Keeping Music Live - The music industry is hailing a major victory after ministers vowed to change planning rules in England to protect venues from complaints about noise. Stars including Sir Paul McCartney warned venues forced to pay for soundproofing neighbouring properties could be driven out of business.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said the rule, which applies to new housing schemes, was an "unfair burden". And he said the government would "right this wrong". Developers will now have to address noise issues if they opt to build homes near a long-established venue.
Industry bodies have said that under current laws, venues are facing "an avalanche of cases" in which residents of new developments were complaining about noise pollution after moving in. The Music Venue Trust said some venues, as well as other community and cultural organisations, were at risk of c

Details
Europe - Cross 3 is a new high-performance cable protection product launched by Penn Elcom. Described as tough, durable and fire-retardant, the product is suitable for festivals, concerts, shows, events or exhibitions.
Cross 3, the first product in this new series, was revealed to the public earlier this week at the CUE 2018 expo in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It’s a three channel ‘crossover’ product manufactured from Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU), chosen for its strength, high resistance to abrasion, flexibility and recyclability.
All elements of the Cross 3 product - top and base - are fire retardant and compliant to DIN EN 13501-1.
Penn Elcom has been developing Cross 3 over the last year based on extensive research and communication related to event industry demands for portable cable protection.
(Jim Evans)

Details
Actor-Musicianship - Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance is to launch a master’s in actor-musicianship. It will be rolled out in October this year and will add to the school’s existing BA (hons) in actor-musicianship. The drama school claims the course is the first of its kind in the world. It is being designed by Jeremy Harrison, author of the book Actor-Musicianship.
Following an initial year, the students will have the opportunity to progress to a master of fine arts qualification. This will be followed by an optional second year of study. “With actor-musicianship very much part of the established theatre scene, in the UK and America, it’s a natural step for professional theatre makers. They will see an intensive and in-depth exploration of how musical and acting processes can interrelate and feed each other,” Harrison said. Rose Bruford is ho

Details
Europe - In response to the news that the EU is once again contemplating banning the use of tungsten halogen light bulbs in entertainment lighting, the Association of Lighting Designers (ALD) is co-ordinating a high-speed effort to gather reasons as to why this ban should not move forward, particularly from those who would be materially affected by such a ban, in time to create a formal response before the end of the proposal’s consultation period on 26th January 2018.
“The ban is not strictly new,” notes acclaimed, award-winning lighting designer Michael Hulls, who is leading the effort as a continuation of his earlier ‘Save Tungsten’ campaign. “The EU has been moving towards banning the use of all tungsten light sources for some years. However, theatre lighting has, until now, had an exemption from this ban. This exemption is what the EU is now proposing to end

Details
South Africa - Staging and set company Dream Sets has purchased the Vectorworks 2018 design software from DWR Distribution.
Mauritz Jacobs, lighting designer at Dream Sets, reports: “As a lighting designer, I have been using Vectorworks since 2014. Vectorworks has all the needed built-in features that I need to create and manipulate plans from start to finish (set and technical wise).”
Jacobs continues: “As you know, our industry is very fast-paced and time is not always on our side. With the new Vectorworks 2018 they have really gone out of their way to make it as easy and quick as possible to get designs out in limited time. Once you know your way around it, it’s easy to do large designs in a limited time period. Also, the set side of the programme has many new features like the event design which speeds designing up on another level.”
(Jim Evans)

Details
USA - Dreamforce, Salesforce's tech conference that recently drew more than 170,000 people to San Francisco, took place on 6-9 November at the Moscone North, South and West.
The scope of the event – of which many parts were recorded, live-streamed, and broadcast – necessitated the use of a tremendous amount of wireless equipment including microphones, IEMs, IFBs, and wireless intercom.
The conference planners called on Orlando-based Professional Wireless Systems (PWS) to provide wireless frequency coordination for the multi-day event. This year there were six film crews covering the convention centre halls and other buildings in addition to all the wireless RF devices that were in use for each show segment in the Moscone Centre and hotels.
“We decided to coordinate the film crews first, since they would be roaming throughout every room and building, and t

Details
USA - Lighting designer Herrick Goldman, principal of HG Lighting Design, announced last summer that he would be donating a portion of his design fees throughout the year to Behind the Scenes and he recently presented his first cheque to the charity.
HG Lighting Design is the first firm to make an ongoing pledge of a portion of design fees to the charity and Behind the Scenes applauds Herrick for his leadership. HG Lighting Design provides lighting services for a wide variety of markets including theatre, dance, and corporate events, as well as for permanent installations and museums.
Herrick Goldman stated, “HG Lighting Design is thrilled to be a Behind the Scenes Pledge-a-Service Partner and we are proud to be the first design team to do so. We hope that many other designers will choose to join us in this worthy cause. As HGLD grows and adds team members and collab

Details
PLASA has announced changes to its elected board including the appointment of Adam Blaxill as the new chair.
Blaxill joined the PLASA Board as the Professional Services Representative in 2012 and was elected as vice-chair in 2014. He has been voted as the new chair of PLASA through a simple majority vote.
Blaxill takes over from Ed Pagett who has served as chair for an extended seven years. During this time Pagett oversaw the de-merger with ESTA with the support of an executive committee which included Blaxill as vice-chair and Martin Hawthorn as treasurer. This valuable work enabled the survival and growth of PLASA.
Pagett will continue to serve as a non-executive director, contributing his extensive knowledge and expertise to advise and support the association as it continues its work in the industry.
As a director of Stage Electrics - one of the UK’s leading

Details
UK - Lesley Harmer, a well-known face in the world of entertainment technology PR, has taken a step back from the industry to embrace retirement this year. The move sees the business change to the new name of Sprand Communications, under the management of Lesley’s colleague Sarah Thomas, and the closure of Harmer PR, the business which Lesley started almost 40 years ago.
Sarah says: “Harmer PR gave me my first job in the industry in 2002, where I stayed for three years, leaving to gain experience in the world of consumer PR. Lesley and I got back together in early 2012, when she closed the London office and I began to work for her again, this time on a freelance basis.”
Lesley comments: “Over the past six years, Sarah and I have known the end goal was my retirement. When I moved to the country a few years back, we began a gradual handover, so there has been no

Details
China - Legally Blonde - The Musical opened in December to glowing reviews in Shanghai’s Culture Square Theatre at the start of its China National tour. From China it will move to Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Grand Theatre in May, before returning to the USA in October 2018. Produced by Big League and directed by Jeff Moss, with choreography by Grinch veteran, Bob Richard, Legally Blonde the Musical is a celebration of pop culture.
Responsible for the smooth running of the technology on tour is the team from Intelligent Lighting Services (ILS), led by lighting engineer and company founder, Paul Gould. As part of the tour’s lighting inventory Gould’s team supplied two MDG ATMe haze generators to provide the haze with which to show off Kirk Bookman’s fun and vibrant lighting design.
The two ATMe units were purchased specifically for the tour, but

Details
UK - The Association of Lighting Designers (ALD) announced the winners of its Michael Northen Award at the Annual Lighting Lunch on 18 December 2017 in London.
The Michael Northen Award is supported by a further two awards: the Francis Reid Award and the ETC Lighting Award; and is awarded annually to students studying in the UK, who have demonstrated strong, imaginative and creative lighting design.
Underlining its commitment to the nurturing of new talent in lighting design, the ALD placed the organisation and management of this year’s award into the hands of those closest to its effect; the ALD Student Committee. Head of the committee, Rory Beaton explains, “We have taken some time this year to implement improvements to the structure and processes of the award. As an example, to ensure greater consistency in the marking of the award we created more judges this y

Details
UK - Current RMS representatives are looking to meet new faces and catch up with existing customers at PLASA Focus Glasgow on 17-18 January at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC). The company will be sharing its latest feature releases for its rental management system and provide more information on the upcoming ones.
Current added over 14 updates to its cloud rental management system, including the well-received Serialised Containers feature that allows users to create permanent kits of serialised assets sent out together, and add them to a job with one scan.
In September, the company also launched Global Check-in, giving users the ability to scan in various assets across multiple jobs from one screen.
Current RMS already has a number of additional features in the development pipeline for 2018. With users of the system invited to submit and vote for their favourite

Details

The Netherlands - RMG Networks will launch its content management system (CMS) Korbyt at ISE 2018.
The platform enables organisations to communicate to multiple users on different formats from a single platform, whether via AV LED displays, regular screens, desktop computers or mobile devices.
Supported by the most popular web technologies and able to run on any JavaScript-based technology, Korbyt can be integrated into any IT infrastructure, with a mobile application available on iOS and Android.
The platform is flexible enough though to be tailored to individual users, making it ideal for delivering personal messages, whether that’s a bolt-on promotion to a retail customer for a recent purchase, a tailored message about performance to an employee, or news about what is available to a hotel visitor.
The scalability and flexibility of Korbyt means

Details
Film on Hold - A controversial French film about the 2015 terror attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris, in which 89 people died, has been put on hold. Broadcaster France 2 said the love story Ce soir-la (That Night), would be postponed until victims' associations had been "widely consulted". Claire Peltier, whose partner David was among those killed, has called for the "scandalous" film to be shelved. She has started a petition to block the film, attracting 39,000 signatures. She said it was too soon for "such a painful" story.
France 2 said the film was still being edited, adding: "No transmission date had been fixed for the film..., which has not yet been seen by the station's management." Arthur Denouveaux, from the victims' group Life For Paris, told the Agence France Presse news agency: "Even if we have never asked for censorship, we are glad that modest

Details
USA - ESTA has named Erin Grabe to succeed executive director Lori Rubinstein in what is expected to be a year-long transition. Erin is currently ESTA’s assistant technical standards manager and part of the transition involves replacing her in that role.
Erin has been working in technical production in live events since the age of 15, including nine years working for Grand Stage Company as a sales associate, purchasing agent, and project manager. Following that, Erin worked as a freelance lighting technician and board operator for corporate and private events while pursuing a Bachelor of Technology degree in Entertainment Technology at New York City College of Technology.
Erin began as an intern with ESTA's Technical Standards Program in October of 2012, working as a scribe for some of the task groups writing American National Standards. In early 2013, Erin joined th

Details
UK - Our daily online news service is taking a short break over the holiday season and will resume on 2 January 2018 (Tuesday).
Thank you for reading and supporting LSi both online and in print throughout 2017. From the entire LSi team, we wish you a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and all good things for 2018!
(LSi Online)

Details
UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) awarded Dr David Wilmore an ABTT fellowship at an event backed by ETC and Really Useful Theatres Group and held at the New London Theatre on 8 December.
ABTT fellow Iain Mackintosh paid tribute to Wilmore, who is a leading consultant for historic theatres and the only person in the UK to hold a PhD in 18th & 19th century Stage Machinery.
On receiving his fellowship, Wilmore said: “This is fantastic. It’s been an extraordinary journey from geology to being here today, being involved and meeting so many fantastic people in theatre. Words fail me and I’m really moved to have this honour - and thank you, ABTT.”
The other ABTT fellows are David Adams, Ian Albery, Peter Angier, Jason Barnes, David Blyth, Tony Bond, William Dudley, John Faulkner, Tim Foster, Roger Fox, Chris Higgs, Geoffrey Joyce, I

Details
Live in London - The first live acts for The BRITs 2018 have been confirmed: Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, Sam Smith and Dua Lipa will perform at the BRITs show on 21 February.
BRITs chairman Jason Iley said: “I’m very excited to confirm such a strong British line-up as our first four live acts for the main show in 2018: Ed Sheeran has had an exceptional year, across the world and we are thrilled to have him back on the show. Then we have previous Critics’ Choice winner Sam Smith returning to our stage following the incredible success of yet another No.1 album this year. Stormzy has had a phenomenal 2017, putting grime firmly on the map with his No. 1 album Gang Signs & Prayer and Dua Lipa has been the biggest British female breakthrough story of the year.”
West End Return - Chicago is to return to the West End next year following a five-year ab

Details
USA - Hughston Engineering, a provider of full-service solutions for events, trade shows, conventions and out-door events, presented its second cheque to Behind the Scenes at LDI, reflecting sales over the past year of their Male and Female SOCAPEX Cable Testers.
The Female Tester features an Edison input, rotary dial for each circuit, 20A circuit breaker, and 6 indicator lights. The Male Tester includes a continuity tester and 6 indicator lights. These products are made in-house by IATSE Local 16 employees and are rigorously tested to ensure the utmost quality.
Eddie Raymond of the BTS Foundation Board of Directors, stated upon accepting the cheque, “Hughston Engineering is one of the more generous companies in the business. Whether it’s supporting family, employees or the union, Lance can always be counted on to lend a hand when needed. Hughston Engineering’s

Details
City of Culture - Coventry has been named UK City of Culture 2021. The city was announced as the next holder of the title on 7 December, and will become the third host city, after Derry/Londonderry in 2013 and Hull, which is UK City of Culture this year. It beat bids from Sunderland, Paisley, Stoke-on-Trent and Swansea to take the title, and has already set out plans that focus on youth and diversity in its proposals.
Each city was assessed over a number of months by an independent panel – chaired by television producer Phil Redmond – and set out the details of their plans to the judges when they visited each location. Coventry now has three years to prepare its year-long programme of activity, and will receive a £3m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to kick this off.
Arts minister John Glen congratulated Coventry on winning UK City of Culture 2021. He said:

Details
USA - Sales of Lex Products’s CineBox line resulted in a cheque presentation to Behind the Scene at the recent LDI Show as part of the BTS Pledge-a-Product Programme. These stackable and compact portable power distribution boxes featuring non-conductive, heavy-duty rubber enclosures are designed to withstand rugged conditions. They include a collapsible colour-coded handle for easy identification of input amperage ratings, flush mounted hydraulic magnetic breakers, LED indicators, and shock/impact resistant Lexan bumpers.
Upon presenting the cheque, Bob Luther, CEO Lex Products stated, “This programme is an opportunity to support people in our industry who are in need, through the products that they use. It is our pleasure to support the Behind the Scenes charity in this way.”
Todd Spencer, of the BTS Foundation Board of Directors, acknowledged the contribution

Details
USA - On the LDI show floor this year, ETC presented Behind the Scenes with a cheque for $24,873.84, representing this year’s proceeds from the company’s iRFR and aRFR focus remote applications. Since the launch of the iRFR in 2009, ETC’s mobile app sales have generated an impressive $322,825 in donations, helping the charity bring assistance to many ill or injured entertainment technology colleagues and their families.
The iRFR and aRFR mobile apps enable convenient, touchscreen-based remote control for Eos family consoles and controllers. ETC rolled out updated versions this year which enable mobile access to an even wider suite of control functions. You can learn more about the apps from the ETC website and download them from the iTunes or Google Play stores.
“I am proud that this programme has been such a success,” says ETC CEO Fred Foster. “It is impo
  1. The Week in Light & Sound
  2. HSL appoints theatre specialists
  3. In Memoriam: Richard Blamire
  4. The Week in Light & Sound
  5. Maestra London adds four team members
  6. 7thSense Design scoops double awards win
Page 39 of 239
GLP - Large MPU - Nov 2024
Robe - Large MPU
Showlight - MPU - June-July, Oct-Nov 2024

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline