The Netherlands - As part of the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), electronic music fans partied the day away at the combined Dockyard Festival x Mystic Garden Festival ADE 2023 in the Havenpark in Amsterdam on Saturday 21 October.
Think! AV supplied and set up lighting equipment for several of the areas at the festivals with the company's Niels de Feij managing the light project. He also created the light design along with YES! Your Event Support's Itai Joosten who also worked as the technical producer.
The Dockyard Festival x Mystic Garden Festival ADE offered revellers the chance to enjoy electronic music in contrasting settings. While the Mystic Garden Festival had a magical, fairytale-styled theme, the Dockyard Festival went for dark and industrial. In total, there were six stages with Chris Liebing, Dax J, East End Dubs, HI-LO, Olympe and Vuur headlining the Mystic G

Italy - Indie group Pinguini Tattici Nuclear (Tactical Nuclear Penguins) played Reggio Emilia’s RCF Arena, Europe’s largest outdoor concert venue to a crowd of 80,000.
Supporting the pulsating, upbeat music of this six-member Italian pop band, which takes its name from a Scottish beer, was a vibrant light and video show by Ombra Design that featured 120 Chauvet Professional COLORado PXL Bar 16 motorised battens, imported by Zalight and serviced by Agora.
Designing for Pinguini Tattici Nuclear’s entire 11-date tour run, Ombra Design created looks that were as big and embracive as the music of the band itself. The two large IMAG walls to either side of the stage, and the immersive video display at its centre were joined visually by a smooth horizontally oriented lighting display that used vivid colours to set an emotionally engaging tone for the big audience.

UK - London welcomed 2024 with its biggest ever New Year’s Eve fireworks, lights and drone show on the banks of the Thames River. Lighting Designer Tim Routledge returned for a second year to light the giant London Eye Ferris wheel, choosing laser-source Claypaky Skylos fixtures to deliver spectacular beam effects from each of the Eye’s 32 pods.
The festivities featured more than 12,000 fireworks, 600 drones, 430 lights and a varied soundtrack of songs and voice-over clips. Attending the huge party were 100,000 lucky ticketholders while millions around the world watched on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Routledge positioned 32 Skylos in the Eye’s passenger pods or capsules to create amazing beam effects that complemented the fireworks and drone display in the night sky.
Neg Earth supplied the Skylos fixtures, which are much more than classic searchlights. Skylos

The Netherlands - Renowned trance music festival Transmission transposed to the Gelredome in Arnhem in The Netherlands for the first time, presenting its newest Elysium show concept at the end of 2023 and keeping the winning international production and supply teams that have helped make the event such a success in its native Czech Republic and globally.
Organisers United Music turned to their long-term lighting, audio and LED screen supplier, Ministry Rentals to supply the production kit - every bit of the kit came from Banska Bystrica in Slovakia - and lighting designer Bas Kempers to create an eye-catching visual environment to work in conjunction with their spectacular scenic design.
Bas’ lighting scheme included over 250 Robe moving lights, a dynamic combination of Fortes, MegaPointes, Pointes and BMFL WashBeams, together with multiple strobes and LED w

UK - Ayrton has announced that David Stewart has joined the Ayrton team as UK designer relationship manager. The appointment takes place with immediate effect.
Stewart’s role will be to support new and existing lighting designers and production staff, and to work closely with Ambersphere Solutions, Ayrton’s exclusive UK distributor, in promoting the Ayrton brand and product range.
Stewart comes with more than 30 years of experience within every facet of the entertainment industry, having worked as a freelance LD, operator and technician, and as a business owner, through to full-time sales and business development with key manufacturers and distributors.
Stewart comments: "I'm really excited to join Ayrton at a time of incredible innovation and growth, to strengthen relationships and take on the challenge of pushing such cutting edge products and services f

Germany - The Adam Hall Group will once again be presenting its extensive event technology portfolio in a variety of ways at this year's Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt.
The event technology manufacturer will not only be represented with two stands (Adam Hall Networking Space and Cameo) in the exhibition halls, but will also open its Experience Centre at the nearby company headquarters in Neu-Anspach for the exclusive Adam Hall Group Surround Experience. The Adam Hall Group's presence at the trade fair will be rounded off with a presentation by Herbert Bernstädt (senior research & development engineer, light technology) as part of the Manufacturers' Forum.
The Adam Hall Group's Networking Space (12.1 A24) is the central point of contact for all those interested in the company. With its designated business area, the Networking Space offers a location for focused cust

USA - The first Super Bowl played in Las Vegas attracted the largest audience ever to watch the game on a Spanish language television network.
Over two and a quarter million viewers tuned in to Univision’s Super Bowl broadcast to watch the Chiefs top the San Francisco 49ers. To mark the occasion, the popular Spanish language network staged a lively pre-game celebration at Caesars Palace at the centre of the festivities was a performance by the multi-award-winning Puerto Rican rapper and singer Myke Towers, which was broadcast on Televisa, Univision’s sports special for the Super Bowl.
Pumping up the energy level around the performance for the live audience and TV viewers was a production design by Rene Garcia of Absolute Lighting Designs that featured over 75 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by 4Wall Entertainment.
Working with programmer Chris F

The Netherlands - Created in 2013 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of dance in The Netherlands, the Amsterdam Music Festival is the biggest electronic dance music event of Amsterdam Dance Event which takes over the city annually each October. AMF’s popularity in its first year saw it move from the RAI Amsterdam to the 40,000 capacity Amsterdam ArenA (now the Johan Cruiiff ArenA) where its top EDM line up attracts the most international visitors of any dance event in the city.
Lighting designer, and owner of The Art of Light, André Beekmans chose a wealth of Ayrton Cobra, Huracán Profile and Ghibli fixtures to light the 2023 edition, the line up of which consisted of EDM royalty Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Charlotte de Witte, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Headhunterz, James Hype, Purple Disco Machine and Vini Vici.
The show’s lighting and rigging were supplied b

UK - Playing at London’s Old Vic Theatre, Just For One Day is a new musical which tells the story of Live Aid and those who came together to create this event. Penned by John O’Farrell (Mrs Doubtfire), it features the songs of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, U2, Queen, Elton John and Paul McCartney among others. The show also features a lighting design by Olivier Award-nominated Howard Hudson, who approached White Light (WL), a d&b solutions company, to supply his lighting rig.
Just For One Day is an insight into the origins of the history-making concert held at Wembley Stadium on 13 July 1985; one which was attended by 72,000 and watched by a staggering 1.9bn worldwide. Discussing the show, Howard comments: “Live Aid was such a ground-breaking event and one which has a vast amount of now iconic imagery associated with it.
“Our show tells the

Europe - Light and Sound Design (LSD) Serbia is now officially an exclusive SRS Group distributor for Serbia, Kosovo, and the Balkan region.
“Immediately after LSD reached out to us, we quickly understood that they are a very well-established company, that anyone would like to collaborate with,” says Samuel Sloboda, CEO of SRS Group. “For over 20 years, Milan (the CEO of LSD) and his team have been doing a great job evolving the entertainment industry in the Balkan region from the heart of Serbia - Belgrade. With the extensive time investment LSD put into the construction of its new futuristic building, we are thrilled to see the Balkan market expand and prosper, as we are sure LSD is future-proof and absolutely ready for it.”
LSD covers all areas of the industry - rental companies, theatres, television and movie production companies, hotels, bars and clubs,

Germany - Lighting control specialist Pharos Architectural Controls will be exhibiting at this year’s Light + Building expo, continuing the company’s busy calendar of events as part of its milestone 20th anniversary year.
Pharos will showcase its Expert, Designer and Cloud product ranges at the expo, held from 3-8 March 2024 at Frankfurt am Main, demonstrating the substantial benefits these technologies bring to the industry.
Located on stand 8.0-C71, Pharos will be demonstrating a number of key solutions from across its lighting control portfolio. Visitors will be able to explore and interact with the latest features in the Pharos Designer range and get hands on with the most recent addition to the Pharos product portfolio, Pharos Expert.
Expert is an innovative and straightforward control solution centred around a single, reliable, set-and-forget controlle

The Netherlands - Visitors cannot help but feel the freedom of the sea when they encounter Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, the National Maritime Museum of the Netherlands. The attraction sits on an artificial island built in 1656 as a naval base near Amsterdam’s city old harbour.
Designed by Belgian architect Laurent Ney, the symmetrical roof, engenders an air of openness and discovery in the courtyard below, while projecting a nautical image. Accentuating this effect and enhancing the aesthetics of the courtyard is a new LED lighting system by Leon van Warmerdam and the team at Lichtpunt that features 32 Ovation CYC 1 FC LED fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
“In this historical monument there are many restrictions. We did search for the most low-profile solution with maximum performance. By wrapping the luminaires, they got the same colour as the background,

China - Hypersonic Fest was a one-day experimental event organised by Hypersonic Lab in Hong Kong, aimed at inviting people to enjoy the talents of 37 diverse Christian artists and music bands from Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia and to explore the possibilities of Christian music. The festival was staged at Kowloon Bay International Trade & Exhibition Centre and featured four action-packed stages of live music performance.
Production equipment for the Main Stage including lighting was supplied by the MPHK Group and project managed by Raymond Wong, working closely with LD Kei Lui who utilised a grandMA3 full-size console, a decision taken jointly between the LD and Raymond.
Kei is based in Macau and is technical manager of the famed Para Club, as well as running his own company in Hong Kong / Macau for freelance lighting design projects like th

Qatar - Lighting designer Roland Greil turned to two power luminaires in Elation’s Proteus series to bring the grandeur of the AFC Asian Cup opening ceremony to life.
Held 12 January at Lusail Stadium in Doha, Greil chose the Proteus Brutus and Proteus Excalibur to deliver captivating lighting displays and theatrical impact for this major event production.
The AFC Asian Cup, organised by the Asian Football Confederation, brought together 24 national teams in Qatar to crown the men's football champion of Asia. The opening ceremony was a celebration of unity and inclusivity with performances by renowned Qatari and regional artists who revealed the secrets of The Lost Chapter of Kelileh & Demneh in a visual narrative.
Greil was hired by executive producers Katara Studios to deliver the full lighting design, a scope that also included previz, programming

USA - LightenUp Inc. (LUI), a Los Angeles-based professional lighting company, has added 48 Ayrton Rivale Profiles to its extensive inventory of Ayrton fixtures and quickly put them to work on a cross-country Paramount+ project. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting products in North America.
Owned and operated by skilled and experienced technicians, LUI supplies a full range of lighting equipment and power distribution to all types of events. It also offers lighting rentals. The Rivale Profiles join a roster of Ayrton fixtures that includes Diablo, Perseo, Zonda 9 FX and Zonda 3 FX units.
Rivale Profile is the most versatile fixture Ayrton has created to date. Rivale is a 450W 6500K LED IP65-rated moving head profile with 4-52º zoom developed for mixed use indoors and outdoors, in all conditions. Surprisingly lightweight, it offers contin

Australia - Every January, when the sun is at its hottest, thousands of country music-loving people make the pilgrimage to the country town of Tamworth for the Toyota Country Music Festival which runs over 10 days.
The heat of over 40°C and the flies are no deterrent as the festival, presented by Tamworth Regional Council, is now in its 52nd year and is recognised as the second biggest country music festival in the world, after the CMA Music Festival in Nashville USA. The town comes alive with ticketed and free shows alike, and buskers that line the main streets.
The festival culminates in the televised Golden Guitar Awards which celebrates Australian country music and is fortunately held at the air-conditioned Tamworth Regional Entertainment & Events Centre.
Sydney-based Live Event Services has been providing production for the past 10 Golden Guitar Award

The Netherlands - After suffering fire damage last year, Bowlo Bowling & Lounge in Kerkrade has shifted gears and taken its customer experience to a new level. In a major renovation they have transformed the bowling alley and surrounding facilities into a modern leisure area with ‘a breathtaking level of style and ambience’, using products from Showtec, Infinity, DAP and Showgear.
The recent makeover by Parkstad Support has fashioned a chic and modern atmosphere, inviting guests to indulge in a game of bowling or pool, or simply to enjoy a drink and a chat.
To enhance the ambience of the bowling lanes, 14 colourful Showtec LED Light Bar 12 Pixel are mounted in the ceiling, all controlled by an Infinity Chimp 100.G2 Tourpack DMX console, a Chimp Dongle for OnPC and three Showtec TR-512 Pocket DMX Triggers/Recorders. Various accessories such as DAP DMX and power

UK - Production Futures recently staged another successful On Tour event at Fly By Nite Studios in Redditch. Young people from across the Midlands were able to connect with representatives of Production Futures’ brand partners to explore paid work opportunities and free training across the sector.
A feature of the event was the presence of a team of apprentices from global production specialists, PRG.
Having been engaged by Production Futures to build and equip the event’s TALKS Stage with audio, lighting and video provision, PRG, which places a strong emphasis on in-house education and training, suggested using the occasion as an opportunity to provide its apprentices with valuable real-world, hands-on experience. Dovetailing with Production Futures’ vision, PRG’s apprentices, who divide their two-year apprenticeship between in-service training and studying w

France - The 3,723-seat Grand Amphitheatre at Paris Convention Centre, a multi-space venue staging a diverse range of national and international events and entertainment, has recently converted its auditorium lighting to Anolis LED with the installation of nearly 400 x Anolis Ambiane range lighting fixtures.
These are dramatically improving its energy efficiency and reducing power consumption for the lighting by 300%.
The previous PAR 56 500W halogen lighting fixtures had been in residence since the venue’s inauguration in 1974, and this new installation is part of a renovation process initially launched in 2020. It has been co-ordinated by venue operator Viparis in conjunction with French lighting design agency, Lyum.
Installed by Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, the electricity saving in the Grand Amphitheatre is very much welcomed, as the house lighting often ru

The Netherlands - Dutch National Touring Opera, also known as Nederlandse Reisopera, has upgraded its lighting equipment with 30 Source Four LED Series 3 fixtures ahead of its latest production Powder Her Face.
The venue, which is based in Enschede, Netherlands is known as the largest travelling opera company in the country with an ambitious programme that spreads throughout the region. Powder Her Face explores the real-life scandal and much-publicised divorce that disgraced the Scottish Duchess of Argyll in 1963.
American lighting designer Thomas Hase lit the production. He says: “Artistically the fixtures are amazing, I had used the Source Four LED Series 2 fixtures before, but this was my first time using the Source Four LED Series 3 fixtures. The colours are excellent, and the fixtures are brighter than anything else out there. The full spectrum ar

UK - Event production and audio-visual Installation company, Spotlight Sound has announced that Ashton Gold will join the team as account manager.
Ashton comes to Spotlight Sound from The Lion Inn in Boreham where she was the event planner.
“I will be fundamental in liaising between the client and technicians from the planning to execution of their event,” says Ashton. “My role means that the technicians can fully concentrate on the production of the event and I can make sure everything else runs smoothly.”
Sam Dimond, director of Spotlight Sound adds: “We’re really pleased to welcome Ashton onto the team. Her experience in planning and running events will be fundamental to the ongoing success and growth of Spotlight Sound.”
Spotlight Sound produces a spread of events including the Willow Ball and London Football Awards. Last year they prov

The Netherlands - Rogier Trok is joining the Avolites international team as sales and technical key account manager for mainland Europe, where he will be based in the Netherlands, and overseeing and co-ordinating with the pan-European distribution network there.
His work will include assisting distributors with sales and demonstrations as well as console and media server training.
Rogier brings onboard 20 years of rental company experience as a lighting technician, lighting designer and project manager. He also worked at Avolites’ Dutch distributor, Fairlight, providing console and media server training, garnering valuable experience related to the needs and demands of a distributor.
Rogier has also taught theatre technicals - programming, focussing, technical drawing, networking, etc - at Deltion College in Zwolle, Netherlands. He has also always been an Av

USA - Bandit Lites is lighting platinum selling hitmaker Cody Johnson. With his recent sold-out appearance at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Cody broke records as the most tickets sold by a male country artist in their Bridgestone debut. Johnson performed a nearly two-hour set before a crowd that never sat. One of the most poignant statements from the superstar during the night: “God put me on this earth to make country music country music again.”
“Richard ‘Wookie’ Whitley designed The Leather Tour floor package and the full 360 rig used in Bridgestone,” said Bandit Lites client representative Allen Deneau. “Both are dynamic in their capabilities, but easy to transport and deploy. Project manager Don Lockridge was extremely instrumental in helping Wookie and Clint shape the rig into what we used for the show. Months of discussions, drawing updates, gear discu

Belgium - The rides in Circus Bumba never leave the ground, at least not literally. But when seen through the eyes of a child, they soar high, up to the rarified, faraway space where colour meets imagination.
Based on the popular Flemish television show of the same name, the recently opened 3,000m2 themed attraction captivates guests with its bright, cheerful panoramas complete with whimsical characters and fairytale-like scenery.
Enhancing the magical effect of this transformative venue is a collection of over 300 Chauvet Professional fixtures. These units are positioned throughout the main ride, Op Reis met Bumba (Dark Ride), as well as other rides and the park’s theatre.
Drawing on the colour-rendering capabilities of these fixtures, Pieter Dewaegeneere, technical investment manager, and rest of the Circus Bumba team have created a wide array of enchanting l

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