USA - North Carolina’s Theatre Raleigh pretty much defines what small professional theatre can and should be. Theatre Raleigh is a regional, non-profit theatre company, operating out of the new Theatre Raleigh Arts Centre, home to four new performance venues ranging from an intimate 70-seat theatre to a 200-seat black box space. The company has served the arts community there since 2005, growing into one of the top theatre destinations in the area, employing both local professionals and Broadway veterans.
From 26 October through 6 November, it brought the Broadway hit, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 - an adaptation of a 70-page segment from Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel, War And Peace - to its stage. Directed by Tim Seib, the production starred Broadway's Manna Nichols as Natasha and David Toole, a Theatre Raleigh favourite, who played the role of

UK - 21CC Group, an events company based in Scotland, specialising in event design, technical production, hire, sales, fireworks, pyro and special effects has confirmed that they will be bringing the award-winning Ayrton Cobra moving lights to the Scottish events industry as part of a 32 Ayrton fixture deal from Ambersphere Solutions.
Geoff Crow, director of 21CC Group says: “We are delighted to be the very first in Scotland with this award-winning piece of equipment and to be working with such high-calibre brands as Ayrton and Ambersphere. This is only set to enhance the stunning productions we create and allow 21CC to take our creativity to the next level.”
These fixtures have already appeared at a variety of high-profile and festive events across Scotland; including Tales of the Castle at Stirling Castle, Scottish Canals 200th Anniversary celebrations, Beecrai

Canada - Marc-Antoine Girard - also known as DJ Phoenix - of Ottawa has reinvented the DJ livestream by immersing himself in a virtual world of his own creation with a large virtual lighting setup creatively driven by Obsidian Control Systems’ Onyx platform. The DJ sets stream three times weekly on Twitch with Girard controlling lighting and special effects, virtual camera views and video projection content while mixing electronic dance music and interacting with viewers in a virtual nightclub environment.
Stuck at home during the pandemic with no live gig to attend, Girard saw a virtual music festival online and fell in love with the concept. Seeking a challenge and a way out of pandemic lethargy, he first started livestreaming using a green screen but, finding he missed the emotion created with live lighting effects, then decided to jump feet first into learning virtual

UK - The line between the stage and audience quickly becomes blurred to the point of obliteration on Idles’ current world tour. Rocking out the crowd with their relentlessly intense vocals, the award-winning band from Bristol jumps right into things, quite literally, as the guitarists invariably leave the stage at some points in the show to crowd surf the giant mosh pits that gather before them.
A key part of the high-octane lightshow that adds to the wildly embracive atmosphere of the band’s performance night after night is an abundance of stage-melting strobing.
“Idles take their strobing extremely seriously,” said Ed Warren, their lighting designer. Warren, who has been lighting Idles since 2018, acknowledges that sometimes he wonders if he is strobing too much. However, when he brings this up to the band, their response typically runs along the lines of “

UK - Rockers Alt-J were back on the road again in 2022 having released their fourth studio album The Dream earlier in the year, and their live performance style could be enjoyed with a new lighting design by Davy Sherwin.
A striking scenic element of the design was created using 60 x Astera NYX bulbs hung on a series of asymmetric drops from the overhead trusses and attached to specially modified mic stands deployed on the floor.
All of this created an organic looking ‘forest’ of NYX Bulbs which were supplied together with the other lighting kit for the UK and European dates by Hampshire-based rental specialist, Liteup.
Davy wanted to bring a fresh look to the stage and something that was simultaneously intimate, quirky and interesting, and the NYX Bulb drops were one of the first visual pictures that came to mind when he started imagining the design.

Spain - The 10,000-seat capacity Bilbao Arena this year for the first time hosted the 2022 FIBA Basketball Champions League Final 4 season-ending tournament with over 100 Robe moving lights highlighting the action for a venue packed with enthusiastic basketball fans plus a vast televised audience.
In charge of co-ordinating lighting for the event was Iker Gartzia from one of the region’s leading rental companies, Abs Fluge Euskadi S.L (Fluge) which was the official supplier of lighting, sound, and video for this high-profile event. They were working directly for FIBA.
The various lighting requirements had to cover several bases. The tournament’s opening event took place at Bilbao’s famous and spectacular paean to modern art and architecture, the Guggenheim Museum, while all the sporting action and the closing ceremony were at the Arena.
Lighting inside t

Qatar - UK-based lighting designer Durham Marenghi is no stranger to high-profile events with numerous Winter and Summer Olympics Opening and Closing ceremonies, Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee events, many citywide New Year’s in London celebrations and more to his credit. He recently lit the Opening Ceremony for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which featured large complements of Claypaky Sharpy X Frame, Tambora Linear 100, Xtylos and Sharpy fixtures throughout the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar.
“The ceremony had many symbolic indications that expressed welcome, generosity and hospitality in Arab culture, as well as contemporary musical, cultural and visual performances that were used for the first time in the tournament,” Marenghi explains. Since the Opening Ceremony took place in a projected world devised by creative director Anghela Alo and the cont

UAE - Created for the largest event ever staged in the Arab world, Expo 2020 Dubai, and part of its legacy District2020 project, DP World Pavilion is a construction comprising five floors of content-led immersive brand experience, with a VIP floor for invited guests and government officials.
Creative Technology Systems Integrations (CT SI) Middle East team was awarded the contract for DP World Pavilion, with its team working alongside The OpenLab creative agency, responsible for designing the Pavilion, to supply systems integration of the audio, video, lighting, and control systems for this impressive complex.
Based around the concept of ‘Making Trade Flow’, DP World Pavilion’s content gives an insight into the world of global trade. Split over five floors, the lower four floors are dedicated to the public visitor experience, while the fifth floor is used for the

Switzerland - AV supplier Stagelight AG has recently purchased 44 Prologhts EclExpo Flood300VW, a 300W asymmetric LED floodlight with variable white.
The company made this acquisition since they are a large supplier of all kinds of events, including trade shows, corporate events, concerts and festivals. Stefan Rüttimann, head of lighting at Stagelight, commented, “We were very impressed with this fixture for its bright output, yet a very compact design and lightweight.”
The EclExpo Flood300VW was launched earlier in the year and has been widely successful across companies in many sectors. “We see us using this unit on many types of shows thanks to its flexibility and multipurpose use,” added Stefan. The CCT range from 2,700K to 6,500K is brilliant. The fact that we have DMX and Wireless DMX control makes it much more than a simple floodlight - it means we can

Germany - Prolight + Sound 2023 will be supporting the Women in Lighting initiative with the premiere of the Women in Lighting Lounge and specialised programme formats; the show will draw attention to the achievements of women in the sector and provide impetus for more gender diversity.
The lounge is located in Hall 12.0, near the booth of the initiative's entertainment lighting partner, Ayrton. It serves as a central meeting space for female professionals and interested newcomers alike, as a venue for interviews with inspiring personalities and as a source of information about career scenarios. In cooperation with Light Collective, the initiator of Women in Lighting, there will also be topic-relevant lectures and discussion rounds on the Theatre + Light Stage in Hall 12.0 on all days of the fair, as well as daily WIL Meet Ups at the Ayrton stand which provides valuable net

Italy - Prolights has launched the Astra Profile400, a compact LED moving profile with an efficient, punchy output. The Astra Profile400 has a 400W LED source calibrated at 7,000K and a smooth zoom system from 6.5º to 50º.
The new moving light includes an extensive feature set including four-layer motorised framing shutters, linear CMY and CTO, colour and gobo wheels, an animation wheel, a frost filter, a prism and an iris.
The colour wheel includes a CRI enhancement filter that increases its CRI value and meets a 6000K white, suitable for broadcast and studio applications. Despite its heavy feature set, this fixture is compact and lightweight.

Portugal - Lighting designers Omer Israeli & Dor Aichner of Tel Aviv-based lighting and stage design company, LEAD, chose a large complement of Claypaky fixtures to illuminate the dynamicHack the Galaxy event held by Rapyd at the 2022 Web Summit in Lisbon. They utilised 96 Tambora Batten Square, 16 Mythos 2 and 48 Xtylos fixtures for the third and last event in Rapyd’s Hack the Galaxy campaign held at developer conferences in Europe in 2022. Previous events took place in Berlin, Germany and Zadar, Croatia.
Lisbon’s Web Summit is an annual tech conference focusing on Internet technology, emerging technologies and venture capitalism. More than 70,000 attended the November 2022 gathering.
Rapyd is an Israel-based fintech company, which provides worldwide payment solutions. Hack the Galaxy was staged by The Moment, Rapyd’s experience brand, as part of a recruiti

Cyprus - Described as ‘the modernised wine festival of Cyprus’, ΟίνοFest took place in mid-October in the picturesque inland village of Lofou. Organised by Agro Escape, the three day event attracted thousands of visitors who enjoyed sampling local wines, shopping for locally made products, and partying at two outdoor music events featuring DJ sets and live performers.
Audio and visual production for the mainstage, as well as ambient lighting for the site, was provided by local production company Sound & Vision by DJ Nick. ADJ fixtures, including moving heads, static washes, and atmospheric effect generators, were used exclusively to illuminate both the stage and the historic building that provided a striking backdrop to the event.
Agro Escape is a company based in Cyprus with a mission to help visitors discover all the island has to offer, not just the most

USA - Post Malone’s GLP lighting solutions have been no strangers to Post Malone’s stage scenography over the years, and his latest Twelve Carat tour - with Dan Norman (of Evolve Lights) now in charge of the visuals - is no exception.
Introduced to the creative team in 2019 to help programme new songs that were added to the Runway tour, he has subsequently worked consistently with the Posty touring team, along with production manager Dennis Danneels. Along the way Norman designed the artist’s Billboard Awards remote performance in a sand quarry and a New Year’s Eve Bud Lite livestream event during the pandemic prior to a 2021 festival run.
These successes earned him the right to light Post Malone’s latest concert tour, in support of his fourth studio album Twelve Carat Toothache. Once again, the LD has drawn on a slew of impression FR10 Bars and JDC1 h

Spain - Italian Lighting designer Valerio Tiberi of K5600 Design specified a zactrack SMART real time tracking system for a new production by Letsgo of popular musical Charlie y La Fàbrica De Chocolate (Charlie and The Chocolate Factory), now playing at the Espacio Delicias Teatro in Madrid until February 2023.
This is one of the first European musicals – following successful shows in the UK, the Disney parks in France and a production of Starlight Express in Germany – to utilise this technology, and therefore “very energising” explained Valerio, to whom the system was initially demonstrated by zactrack’s Italian distributor, RM Multimedia. He believes zactrack is a creative tool that “truly unlocks the mind in achieving so many new and different possibilities” with lighting.
The idea of harnessing the flexibility and creativity of zactrac

USA - With benefits like greater reliability, increased energy efficiency and less maintenance for a lower cost of ownership, the transition from discharge lamp-based lighting fixtures to LED source luminaires in the entertainment lighting industry was understandable if not inevitable. Then, as LED engines began to compete with discharge-based fixtures in terms of brightness, the writing seemed to be on the wall - it was only a matter of time before discharge-based luminaires would disappear completely. But that hasn’t been the case. So why are manufacturers still launching lighting products with discharge sources? We spoke to Elation to find out their take . . .
“It’s really about what you want to accomplish optically,” states John Dunn, national sales manager at Elation Professional’s Los Angeles headquarters. “The physics behind an LED source don’t make sens

USA - Rising artist Riley Clemmons launched her first headlining tour with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. With over 210m global streams and 50m YouTube video views since the beginning of her almost decade long career, Clemmons’s ocals and touching lyrics have endeared her to millions of fans around the world. The First Christmas Tour is named for her hit Christmas song.
“Bandit had the opportunity to work with production manager Chris Newman and lighting director Dominic Hickman on a tour earlier in the fall, and on completion of that tour we were asked if we could continue on with Ms. Riley Clemmons on her Christmas tour,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. “Chris and Dom have been outstanding to work with and they are very hands on in terms of production value, logistics and practicality.”
Lighting designer Dominic Hickman assemble

USA - Phoenix, Arizona, the second driest city in the USA (only Las Vegas gets less precipitation) has gone as long as 160 days without rain; that happened back in 1972. The organisers of the inaugural Zona Music festival had no such luck. On 3 December, the day the festival opened, Mother Nature dropped .76 inches of rain down on the city, breaking a record that had stood for 115 years.
Yet, despite the unexpected downpour, a large crowd poured in to Margert T. Hance Park in the downtown district for the two-day festival, eager to take in performances by 50 different acts, headlined by Portugal The Man, Beach House, Bleachers, and Japanese Breakfast. Brightening the cloudy skies and reflecting the music of each artist in vivid colours were dynamic lightshows created on rigs designed by John Garberson and the team at Creative BackStage that featured over 100 Chauvet Professi

Spain - From Hall 7, Stand J875 of next year’s ISE Show, Out Board will demonstrate the latest product innovations from the TiMax family of immersive audio and showcontrol products.
Following on from one of the company’s busiest years, both in sales and in product development, Out Board will showcase new software and workflow enhancements to TiMax2 SoundHub and also some significant TiMax TrackerD4 precision stagetracking performance upgrades. Visitors can also anticipate sneak previews of some new spatial management power within the TiMax SoundHub platform.
You can get hands-on with the new TiMax 600-Series Mac and PC software, which boasts significant boosts to TimeLine and PanSpace object-based spatialisation functionality, as well as enhanced GUI workflows. The 600-Series software also addresses essential stable compatibility with the latest Windows 11 and Mac

USA - Janes Addiction were out supporting the Smashing Pumpkins beneath a lighting rig of Elation Artiste Monet and DARTZ 360 LED moving heads designed, programmed and operated by Alex Picard. Lighting supply and support was from Legacy Production Group.
The Spirits on Fire tour, which started 2 October in Dallas, played arenas as the Smashing Pumpkins’ special guest openers. Alex got the call to start working on a design in early September, his first ever gig with Janes Addiction, which gave him little time until tour launch. Still, he dialed in the design “pretty quickly” and with great support from the Legacy crew, it all came together.
“When I got the call there was already a stage design and setup in play,” reports Alex, who says he was given a comprehensive rig from the Smashing Pumpkins to use - eight overhead trusses plus wash and hybrid fixtures on

Saudi Arabia - Christopher Bauder, founder and creative director of WHITEvoid, Berlin collaborated with musician and composer, Strahil Velchev, of KINK to produce a spectacular and original art installation of light and sound at the Noor Riyadh Festival 2022 in November.
Named Axion, the temporary large-scale light art piece is inspired by a hypothetical elementary particle which, if it exists, might be a component of dark matter which cosmologists believe makes up 95% of the universe. The dark matter theory describes how the universe went from a smooth initial state to the uneven distribution of galaxies and their clusters we see today.
Such an ambitious work called for a light with a big personality to achieve the necessary impact the design required, and Bauder chose 80 Ayrton Cobra fixtures, supplied by Kaiser Showtechnik of Augsberg, Germany, to define the paramet

UAE - Creative Technology (CT) Middle East has made a major investment in Robe moving lights with the purchase of Fortes and LEDBeam 350s which join the company’s busy and expanding rental fleet at their Dubai HQ, servicing projects across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Sam Connolly, head of lighting for CTME, explained that it was important to invest in Robe’s innovative technology for several reasons. While the company is well known for its full-service, they have recently expanded further into their lighting department, making huge investments in lighting fixtures to ensure they can be the number one service provider in the region. When Sam came onboard, he started looking for flexible and multifunctional luminaires that would offer immense value for CT’s diverse cross section of projects.
Sam highlights the concept similarities - maximum power and multiple

Germany - To celebrate 700 years since the 1322 consecration of the initial eastern part of Cologne’s impressive Gothic cathedral, German piano/electronic music duo Grandbrothers played a spectacular gig within its hallowed walls. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Cathedral’s 157m twin-spires are the tallest such styled church in the world, and it is Germany’s most popular visitor attraction.
Lighting designer Oskar Felix Funke chose a full MA Lighting grandMA3 control system to run lighting for this show that was recorded, both for a new album for later broadcast over the ARTE Concert network. The musical numbers were all specifically created by the artists - Lukas Vogel and Erol Sarp- to work optimally in the Cathedral setting, considering its vast size and acoustic nuisances like the very long reverb.
The performance was instigated by and the brainchild of the

USA - Mesa Community College Arizona’s 462-seater Performing Arts Centre held its first full production in November 2022 using an upgraded rig of Vari-Lite LED luminaires from Signify. Dominating the new array of lighting fixtures were the VL2600 Profile, VL800 EventWash and VL800 ProPar, which have dramatically reduced power consumption at the centre and provided smooth, rich colours for a premiere run of The Addams Family musical.

The college’s modern, architecturally striking Performing Arts Centre, located just east of Phoenix, opened in 2014. It was initially rigged with a range of traditional Fresnels, pars and tungsten wash and profile fixtures, which were ageing and power hungry. Kyle Rivieccio joined Mesa Community College in 2019 as PAC technology coordinator/master electrician, and he was later tasked with delivering a lighting rig

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