USA – Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama staged a performance of the American rock musical Next to Normal recently, with a lighting design by David DeCarolis using VL2600 Spot luminaires as part of the Vari-Lite University Outreach Programme from Signify.
DeCarolis employs a musical approach to his lighting designs, having studied music in the past. He structures his looks based on form, harmony and dynamics, even seeing a lighting console as something of an electronic drum kit. He collaborated with the team at David Geffen School of Drama and Vari-Lite to deliver the right luminaires for the production of Next to Normal, choosing the VL2600 Spots as he required a high-output fixture offering a broad range of rich colours and effects.
The Vari-Lite University Outreach Programme initiative is an ongoing project allowing talented students to use Vari-L

Mexico - Bad Bunny’s two-hour show on the recent World’s Hottest Tour delivered all of the power-packed passion that fans have come to expect from this Puerto Rico-born superstar. The Latin American leg of his sold-out tour included stops in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
In each of his shows, Bad Bunny was supported by a fast-moving lightshow that featured 96 Color STRIKE M and 40 STRIKE Array 2 fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by different vendors in various countries.
The lighting designer for the tour, Travis Shirley reflected the transformative mood created by the beaches of Puerto Rico. Tour director, Roly Garbalosa, and the LD/programmer Krizia Velez helped bring this imaginative panorama to life at every venue.
“The looks were inspired

USA - Working with Solotech US, UK-based production and lighting designer Will Smith designed the lighting, video and set for the North American, Australia and Asia legs of American singer-songwriter Conan Gray’s Superache Tour.
Smith chose Claypaky Scenius Spots and Mythos 2 fixtures for the sold-out North American leg of the tour, which is in support of Gray’s second studio album of the same name. Superache was released in June 2022, debuted at number nine on the US Billboard 200 and spent 12 weeks on the chart.
Smith, who also worked with Gray on his previous tour, designed Superache “to befit the new album with its very romantic and rose-based aesthetic”, which includes “a big entrance and incorporating a heart in the video design,” he explains.
“I was inspired by the great romantic music videos of the ’80s and early ’90s that Conan i

Europe - Prolights has released the Astra Profile600IP, a bright, IP65-rated LED moving profile. The unit is designed for large-scale touring and exterior installations.
The Astra Profile600IP offers’ an outstanding performance’ that utilises a 600W white LED engine, reaching 21,000 lumens whilst achieving a flat field beam projection. Its optical system moves linearly from 7° to 62°.
This fixture has a CMY colour mixing system that delivers saturated colours, linear CTO correction from 2,700K to 5,600K and a colour wheel with six colour filters plus a 5,600K high CRI filter.
The Astra Profile600IP includes four-layer motorised framing shutters, an animation wheel, a rotating gobo wheel, one frost filter, a four-facet prism and an iris.

Europe - Ayrton has announced the appointment of BT.innotec as its new, exclusive distributor for Germany with effect from 1 March 2023.
A new company, yet with 44 years of professional industry experience, BT.innotec was established in 2021 by Michael Timmer and Raphael Berndzen to focus on the distribution of carefully selected professional lighting, trussing and control technology for the entertainment lighting market.
The company will be responsible for the distribution and support of the entire range of Ayrton products.
“Ayrton is a well-recognised A-brand in our industry and we are honoured to be chosen as a partner in the worldwide Ayrton sales network,” says BT.innotec managing director, Michael Timmer. “It is a great opportunity and challenge at the same time, and we are convinced that, due to Ayrton’s technological leadership and stable product

USA - Some venues just lend themselves to creating evocative looks on stage, believes Glenn Ottenbachker. That’s one reason why the lighting designer from A.G. Entertainment USA was only too happy to take on the project of lighting a shared headline show at The Pabst Theatre recently.
Opened in 1895, the Renaissance Revival style theatre on the Milwaukee River exudes history. (It is the fourth oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States.) The 1,300-capacity venue also provides a supportive backdrop for a variety of looks with its drum-shaped interior complementing its proscenium stage and Austrian crystal chandelier hanging over its seating area.
Ottenbacher played on these aesthetics when lighting shows by tribute bands Barracuda and 52nd Street, using Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by AG Entertainment to create a series of different looks tha

Curaçao – Singer Raynor ‘Raey’ Laufer recently performed a song entitled Kaminda tin Huma, Tin Kandela which translated from Papiamentu, the language of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao means Where There is Smoke There is Fire.
Many were warmed by the glow of the Curaçan artist’s own fire when he performed this number at the 51st annual Tumba Festival, a four-day event that drew over 40,000 fans from around the world and was broadcast on TV throughout the Caribbean and in Holland.
Even more people will be watching (and hearing) Raey song very soon. As the winner of the Tumba Festival’s competition, Kaminda tin Huma, Tin Kandela was named the official anthem of Curaçao’s internationally famous pre-Lent carnival.
Like all the other artists who entered songs in the Tumba Festival, Raey not only sounded great, he looked impressive too,

UK - TSL Lighting in has expanded their product offerings by adding Elation Professional’s KL Fresnel 6 FC to inventory.
According to TSL managing director Sam Tamplin, the company had been searching for an LED Fresnel light to add to their inventory for several years but they had not found one that met their high standards until now. “They were either too bulky, or the output wasn’t bright enough,” he said. “The KL Fresnel 6 FC gives us a unit which is compact, punchy and with a high-quality full colour engine, bright enough to satisfy even the most demanding lighting designers.”
Designed for any application requiring high output soft light with precise color reproduction and adjustable color temperature, the KL Fresnel 6 FC excels at projecting a uniform wash of soft field light while matching the white balance for camera. It houses a 220W RGBMA LED engin

Denmark - The lighting department of Danish rental and technical production specialist, European Touring Productions (ETP), based just outside Copenhagen, has started investing in Astera wireless LED lighting products.
The first purchase of 32 x Titan Tubes – four sets of eight – was recommend by project manager John Askwith, who came on board last summer and swiftly made a list of ‘must have’ products to service ETP clients, shows and events, especially in the corporate and television sectors. Titans were part of this list.
Previously, ETP had rented assorted Astera fixtures as and when needed. However, the increasingly frequent requests together with John joining the company energised the decision to start amassing their own stock of Astera fixtures.
“It was the way to go,” commented Emil Finsen who runs the lighting department with Sune Verdier. Ge

The Netherlands - Toverland theme park in Sevenum faced the challenge of opening its doors outside the standard theme park season for its immersive Winter Feelings experience and successfully turned to Antari snow machines supplied by Highlite International BV to add to the wintery ambiance.
From 26 November to 15 January, the Dutch theme park offered visitors a magical winter wonderland. For their immersive Winter Feelings concept, they aimed to transform the entire – normally tropical-themed – Port Laguna entrance area into a winter-themed world. To meet this challenge, they invested in 14 Antari S-500 L Snow Machines, acquired from Highlite. The Antari S-500 L is a professional, silent snow machine that delivers snow showers to medium and large venues and was therefore perfectly suited to the occasion.
The main activities centred around a large ice

Hungary - The worst band in Hungary! The popular quintet, Republic, has, on occasion, introduce themselves as such, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Anyone familiar with this group knows that this sort of self-deprecating humour, is in keeping with the freewheeling, let’s-not-take-things-(or ourselves)-too seriously attitude that has marked their career.
After 32 years and 30 top-selling albums, Republic remains as bold, adventurous, and irreverent as a newly formed garage band. As their lighting designer, András Praksch, knows the importance of keeping intense, contemporary looks front-and-centre in his shows supporting the band’s blend of traditional Hungarian folk music infused with new electro-rock sounds.
“Republic is legendary, and they’ve been around for over three decades, but they are definitely not ’old school,” he said. “Their sound is always e

USA - The sold-out co-headlining Trey Anastasio Band (TAB) and Goose winter 2022 tour played multiple arenas along the north-east coast and was a massive hit with fans, who, not only enjoyed some superlative music, but also witnessed a collaboration between the two artists’ respective lighting designers.
Marc Janowitz (TAB) and Andrew Goedde (Goose) plus their lighting directors / programmers and operators on the road, Patrick Hayes for TAB, and Tony Caporale for Goose, engaged in teamwork and creative synergy to make this happen while utilising Robe moving lights.
The mix of Robe Fortes, Tarrantulas, Spiiders, Spikies and Tetra2 fixtures was supplied by Gateway Studios & Production Services (GSPS), together with all the tour’s lighting equipment.
There was no playback video onstage, but all the shows were streamed, so both band sets were lit for a full

UAE - Over 400 of Elation Professional’s all-weather Proteus lights were used by lighting designer Bruno Poet on the UAE's 51st National Day celebration, a showcase of the nation’s past, present and future that took place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre in December.
A 108m cylindrical performance stage, lined with LED strips to form a tunnel and featuring portals at each end symbolizing the past and future, served as a dynamic platform for a parade of floats and massive cast of over 3,000 performers. A backstage staging area stretched nearly 2km before parading through the space and out the other end.
Es Devlin returned as co-creative director for the show, working with show producers People Creative. The organising committee of the 51st National Day Celebration was headed by creative executive producer Rawdha Al Qubasi and artistic director Ayesha Ha

UK - Lightware Visual Engineering has announced the opening of its new Experience Centre in the heart of London. This new facility will serve as a central hub for partners and customers across the UK and provide sales, customer, and technical support for all of Lightware's products.
Located in Lime Street, City of London, the Experience Centre is not only the new office of the Lightware UK team, but it also features a training room equipped with the company's latest signal management devices. Visitors will have the opportunity to get to know the Lightware team better and experience the company's products in live environments.
The centre showcases the full range of Lightware's solutions, Vinx, MX2M, TPX and LARA including award-winning technologies, Taurus UCX and UBEX. It provides customers with access to Lightware's products for testing, road map sessions and discussi

UK - CP Wave is the newly formed UK & Ireland official partner for Claypaky, with on the ground sales, service, and support as standard. The aim is to structure a dedicated Claypaky team, by having skilled local personnel.
Claypaky reports that with effect from 1 February 2023, A.C. Entertainment Technologies is no longer the distributor of Claypaky products for the UK and Ireland.
Alessandro Colangelo, Claypaky business development manager and sales manager for the UK & Ireland states: “Our focus is to meet the high expectations of our customers in such a respected and important market. Claypaky will proactively support CP Wave team, thanks also to our renewed structure and corporate strategy. We have foreseen a challenging business plan in the mid-term as we strongly believe in CP Wave project, but most of all in CP Wave people, whom I’m confident will de

UK - Recently, White Light was approached by BATS (Brantham Amateur Theatrical Society) who wanted to invest in a series lighting fixtures; both for their upcoming production of Guys and Dolls as well as all future productions.
The history of BATS dates back to 1972 when a drama subcommittee of the Community Council known as the Brantham Community Council Drama Group staged their first production. Ever since, it has regularly put on shows; all of them taking place at the Brantham Village Community Hall. The first show to be staged this year was Guys and Dolls, on which John Hoskyns was the musical director.
He comments: “Alongside my role as MD, whenever I’m working on a show, I always find myself becoming involved with the technical elements. Initially, this was just sound (alongside being a local GP, I also used to run a sound hire and sales compan

USA - Special Event Services (SES) has significantly expanded its Ayrton lighting inventory with additional purchases of Domino LT, Bora S, and Khamsin fixtures and further committed to the product line with large first-time investments in Perseo Beam, Diablo, and Zonda 9 FX lights. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton products in North America.
Headquartered in Mocksville, North Carolina, SES offers audio, lighting, design, video, staging, and live event production to a wide array of clients. The company has closely watched the growth of LED technology and set a goal of getting its lighting inventory as close to 100 percent LED as possible. While SES offers LED fixtures from several different manufacturers it has kept an eye on Ayrton and its new LED offerings.
“Ayrton became very attractive to us because, within one company, small to large size

USA - For the 2023 broadcast of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, lighting designer Lee Rose with supplier PRG selected and deployed a comprehensive range of Martin lighting solutions.
A network television staple since 1972, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve annually rings in the New Year with a varied roster of performers and guests alongside coverage of the festivities in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities throughout the globe.
The Los Angeles portions of this year’s special were filmed at two locations in Disneyland - Flo’s Diner in California Adventure and the Sleeping Beauty Castle -alongside the usual studio location, this year from Radford Studio Centre. Each location also featured performances by a wide variety of artists including singer Ciara, Halle Bailey of pop duo Chloe x Halle and K-Pop group Tomorrow X Together am

UK - For the 25th annual MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards at Wembley, SJ Grevett had to incorporate a distinctive M-shaped trussing into his design. This trussing was configured in two levels, a softer, less pronounced M in the upper section that ran horizontally, and a sharper, more dramatic, and vertically oriented rendition of the letter below it.
Working with this M-and-M configuration, SJ turned the MOBO stage into a vibrant canvas that lent itself to limitless design possibilities for the award ceremony. “Having the M on the top horizontal was very good, and easy to work with,” he said “However, the lower truss rigging was interesting due to its M shape.”
These challenges were complicated further by a tight production schedule. SJ and his team had only three weeks to pull the design together, yet still managed to keep the M-shaped trussing over and on

Germany - The cabaret-style Cologne Stunksitzung is the original father of the ‘alternative carnival session’ and the largest format of its kind. From 7 December 2022 to 21 February 2023, 46 Stunksitzungen took place at the E-Werk venue, including a TV broadcast on the WDR channel.
The lighting technology for the Stunksitzungen was once again provided by the Cologne-based event and media technology service provider al-media. Together with lighting designer Jojo Tillmann, the team relied almost exclusively on Cameo spotlights.
The al-media firm has been active as a technical service provider for the Stunksitzungen for many years and is located in the immediate vicinity of the famous E-Werk and Palladium venues. In 2021 and 2022, al-media owner André Lyrmann invested in a broad Cameo portfolio ranging from Zenit W600 washlights to Opus SP-5 profile moving heads and

Denmark - ETP is a large full technical production – lighting audio, rigging, staging and roofing systems, seating and grandstands– rental company based in greater Copenhagen, which started its lighting department in 2010 with 20 moving light fixtures.
There are now over 230 x Robe fixtures alone in the rental fleet, plus numerous other lights, with the most recent purchase being 34 x Fortes, acquired for the busy record-breaking 2022 summer touring and festival season.
The lighting department is headed by Emil Finsen and Sune Verdier. Emil joined as a student in 2010, and Sune, a well-known lighting designer in his own right, joined the ETP team full time in 2019. In addition to designing most of ETP’s in-house lighting projects, he continues to work on design projects for other clients.
“We wanted a large, bright LED moving light that could also be us

UK - Elation Professional and Obsidian Control Systems are partnering with Backstage Academy. Both Elation and Obsidian are providing the latest in cutting-edge products to Backstage Academy for use in educational courses and training purposes.
Backstage Academy is located in the heart of Production Park, a live events and entertainment technology campus near Leeds that combines industry, education and innovation. It features production studios, businesses and educational facilities, where creatives, technicians, designers, and engineers collaborate to advance the live events industry.
Backstage Academy offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, short courses and bespoke training programs that involve getting hands on with cutting-edge equipment and technology used by the entertainment industry. 4Wall Entertainment, TAIT and ROE Visual are onsite and entrenched in

UAE - A zactrack real-time tracking system was specified and used to control over 400 moving lights for the 51st United Arab Emirates National Day ceremony which featured creative direction and design by Es Devlin and was produced by People Creative.
The show was directed by Francisco Negrin, Gavin Robins & Bryn Walters, with lighting for this high-profile production designed by Bruno Poet, with associate designers Max Narula & Johanne Jensen.
A special tunnel shaped auditorium was designed by Es Devlin specially curated for the location at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi. The epic 45-minute show featured a full-scale parade and a stylishly choreographed cast of over 3000, including 1000 military personnel and 1000 children, which highlighted the history, values, achievements, and future visions of the UAE.
This fusion of colour, movement and drama was broadcast and

USA - Chase M. Strickland has worked in and around Bandit since a very young age. Armed now with a degree in business management from the University of Tennessee, Strickland has assumed the role of business manager at Bandit’s headquarters in Knoxville. He is tasked with a wide variety of business functions as he expands his role, working closely with VP of operations Roth Edwards, CFO Sharon Draper, media relations coordinator Sharon Gross, VP of business and innovation Jake Tickle and chair Michael T. Strickland.
“I am incredibly excited to begin my full-time career at Bandit Lites,” said Chase M. Strickland. “I hope to build on past successes that have played a role in solidifying Bandit’s position as an industry leader, as well as provide a fresh outlook on opportunities going forward. I have grown up around this business and I am eager to see what lies ahead.

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