Singapore - Believed to be the first production in Singapore to feature Claypaky’s Tambora Batten, the revival of The LKY Musical recently concluded its run at the Sands Theatre at the Marina Bay Sands. Lighting designer Gabriel Chan chose 24 of the high-powered batten fixtures to provide backlighting and effects lighting for the show, presented by Aiwei and Singapore Repertory Theatre.
The LKY Musical is one of the most successful Singaporean shows of all time and the first large-scale musical to play the Sands Theatre in more than two years. The production opened to a sold out run at its debut in 2015 and was nominated for several categories in the Straits Times’ Life! Theatre Awards, including best lighting design by Gabriel Chan.
The production is based on the life of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. It spans about 30 years fro

Australia/UK – When UK-based lighting supplier Version 2 invested in dimming technology from LSC Control Systems, the new equipment paid dividends on its debut outing. Version 2 purchased 12-way GEN VI dimming modules from LSC, the Melbourne-based manufacturer, to go straight onto ITV’s 2021 production of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
Managing director Nick Edwards has been an LSC customer for many years, and continued investing in them when he founded his own company, Version 2. “LSC’s reliability has always stood out,” he says. “Having used them for so long, I know it’s very rare to get a call from site to say an LSC dimmer’s gone down. It’s pretty much unheard of!”
His faith in LSC’s technology – and its world-class customer support – was rewarded when Version 2 deployed 10 x 48-way GEN VI dimming racks on the production

Open Air Abba - Mamma Mia! is to perform outside at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre next year to celebrate 24 years since the show premiered in London in April 1999. The show will run at Scarborough Open Air Theatre, the largest open-air concert arena in the UK, from 14-18 June 2023, as part of the show’s UK & International Tour. It marks the return of theatre to the venue, which has hosted music acts in recent years. More than 30,000 tickets are on sale for the six performances.
Creator and producer Judy Craymer said: “We are so excited to be bringing Mamma Mia! to Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer. With its heart-warming story told through the wonderful music of ABBA, Mamma Mia! lends itself perfectly to the outdoors.”
Closure Threat - The future of a Manchester music venue which has hosted bands such as Wet Leg, Elbow and the Arctic M

USA - Following long careers of service to the entertainment technology industry, two of Elation Professional’s sales partners have announced their retirement effective at the end of the year. Jim Harrington of JLH Marketing and Richard Wilson of R.L. Wilson & Associates, both independent sales representative firms based in Southern California, will be retiring effective 31 December.
The choice to call it a career after so many years in the industry was naturally not an easy one to make for either professional. “The decision took a lot of soul searching,” said Jim Harrington, who has worked in the entertainment technology industry for some 50 years, “but I believe it’s time.” Jim first met ADJ Group founder and chairman Chuck Davies in the early ´70s when both worked in retail audio, and he has been working with and for him ever since. In 2008, he started h

Germany - Astera Titan Tubes provided a solution for the lighting of a rolling ‘small stage’ scenic truck which was central to the action for the 2022 Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival’s production of Allessandro Nell’Indie by Leonardo Vinci, directed by Max Emmanuel Cancic and lit by David Debrinay from Paris and Lyon, France, based design studio, LJOMA.
Three performances were staged at the Margravial Opera House (Markgräfliches Opernhaus), a UNESCO World Heritage site.
David is well acquainted with Astera products, and he initially asked lighting specialist Kai Fischer, the festival’s technical production manager who co-ordinates all the lighting procurement, if he could source Astera AX1s or Titan Tubes for the task of lighting the small stage – which played an integral role in the narrative.
The story is focused on Alexander the Great’s

Europe - The Rolling Stones took to the road this summer for their first European tour since 2018 with their new show, Sixty, in celebration of their 60th anniversary. The show had a new set design by Stufish and lighting by Patrick Woodroffe, the Stones’ lighting designer and creative director for over 40 years.
“When designing a European tour, you must consider the vast range of weather conditions you might meet across the summer from beautiful sunny days to end-of-the-world storms,” says Terry Cook, associate lighting designer at Woodroffe Bassett Designs. “One thing Ayrton has become famous for is their high-powered IP rated fixtures. On the 60th Anniversary Rolling Stones tour we have 83 Ayrton Perseo Profiles over the stage. We have used these units on multiple shows and found them to be bright and reliable.
“At FOH, for the first time ever, we specifi

USA - Joe Beardsmore and Jonny Gaskell channelled the power of contrasts when designing the light and video show for David Gray’s recently concluded USA leg of his 20th Anniversary White Ladder tour.
Divided into two distinct parts, their client’s show was lit in “black and white shades of CTO cold whites and CTB” for one hour, as Gray performed back catalogue hits; then, following an intermission, concluded with saturated coloured lighting as the star played his seminal 7m sold album White Ladder in its entirety. (Gray changed outfits to mirror this contrast, wearing a black suit at the start of the show and a white one in in its concluding section.)
“There were many different things we did to keep it interesting as we created this contrast, between black-and-white and colour,” said Beardsmore. “We relied on about eight different shades of white i

Croatia - The 256-capacity Concert Hall at the Hrvatski Dom in Split, Croatia’s second, is enjoying new Robe T1 Profile moving lights as part of a technical investment that was instigated and specified by the venue’s head of technical, Slaven Tahirbegovic.
The fixtures were delivered by Robe’s Croatian distributor LAV Studio and installed when the building re-opened after extensive renovations which returned the Art Nouveau architecture and décor back to its original 1908 splendour simultaneously integrating contemporary elements enabling it to function fully as a cool 21st century performance space.
They join the existing 10 x Robe LEDWash 600s which were delivered in late 2019, a great combination of fixtures to facilitate the current programme of shows and events.
The Concert Hall is an intimate space. It has outstanding acoustics and is utilised for

Slovakia - Leyard has announced a new addition to the company’s portfolio of outdoor fine pitch LED display solutions with the release of a fine pitch, high bright outdoor LED video wall designed for up close viewing. The Leyard Luminate Ultra Series LED video wall display features coated LEDs to deliver ruggedness and exceptional image detail for high-ambient light environments.
Designed to enhance viewing angles, the Leyard Luminate Ultra Series provides nearly 140-degree visibility with limited interference, even in direct sunlight. Featuring models in 1.5 and 1.9mm pixel pitches and up to 3,500-nits of brightness, the Leyard Luminate Ultra Series supports comfortable viewing from as close as 1.8m for applications spanning transportation signage, retail exteriors, poolside cinema, entertainment, hospitality, and other large venue facilities.
“We are increasingly

USA - The annual iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas is, at its core, a nationally televised special. Tom Kenny always has this firmly planted in this mind when designing the lighting rig for this two-day series of performances by stars like Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull, Lionel Ritchie, Diplo, and The Black Keys.
“This is a big, multi-camera TV show,” said Kenny. “Every year I try to have the most modern and popular fixtures for the visiting designers to work with so they can create dynamic looks in this big space (T-Mobile Arena) that come off well from every camera angle.”
To achieve this vision, Kenny works closely with the entire design team to ensure the seamless integration of light and video on stage. Toward this end, he strives to minimize empty spaces between video walls and the lighting rig, which although they may be ok for live audiences, come off d

USA - Design firm Darkroom Creative is handling lighting design, set design and video content for Walker Hayes’ Glad You’re Here Tour and has employed Elation Professional’s compact Smarty Hybrid moving head in a multifunctional role. The 15-city run kicked off on 29 September in Johnstown, PA with lighting supply by Bandit Lites.
Early this past summer, Darkroom Creative received a call from Walker Hayes’ manager Robert Carlton, who was forming plans for the emerging country star’s first headlining arena tour. Thanks to a successful album release earlier in the year, along with the breakout Fancy Likewhich was nominated for Best Country Song at the 2022 Grammy Awards, his popularity has taken off.
“At that point, it was all just building blocks - arenas, two trucks, six weeks - and from there it was a good deal of collaboration between us, W

USA/Europe - Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys has completed her sixth concert tour playing 31 dates in North America and 21 in Europe on the Alicia + Keys World Tour. The show, which celebrates the 15-time Grammy winner’s career from her early R&B music to her seventh and eighth studio albums, finds Keys singing, playing piano and DJ-ing to the delight of fans.
Lighting designer, Bryan Barancik, principal of Luxious Creative in Boston, selected 142 Ayrton Perseo Profiles as the workhorse fixtures on the rig in the European leg. He also chose two grandMA3 full-size consoles with five NPUs to control the lighting plus a grandMA2 onPC command wing for use by the touring techs. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive North American distributor of the Ayrton and MA Lighting brands. 4Wall is the lighting and video equipment vendor for the tour, which kicked off in Birmingham,

USA/Europe - Elation’s Proteus Excalibur includes the innovative Sky Motion system that enables operation of the fixture as an impactful searchlight effect without the need for a dedicated lighting controller.
“During development of the Proteus Excalibur, we made comparisons with legacy Xenon fixtures in order to get a sense of how the aerial beams compare to each other,” explains Elation product manager Matthias Hinrichs. “We quickly realised that in many respects, the Excalibur outperforms these fixtures. It became clear that there was a unique opportunity for the fixture to replaces expensive and power-hungry Xenon searchlights for special events, theme parks and other applications.”
Built into the latest firmware of the Proteus Excalibur and accessible via a simple menu display, Sky Motion searchlight mode allows an Excalibur unit or group of Excaliburs

USA - Goodspeed Musicals, a professional musical theatre located in an historic Opera House on the banks of the Connecticut River in East Haddam, Connecticut, is using 15 Ayrton Diablo S fixtures from PRG for its new production of 42nd Street. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
Goodspeed is the first regional theatre in America to earn two special Tony Awards, one for outstanding contributions to the American musical and a second for distinguished achievement. Goodspeed mounts both new and newly revived musicals each year on its main stage at the Opera House and its second stage in Chester – a total of more than 400 performances during the April to December season attracting 130,000 patrons to the Connecticut River Valley.
The revival of 42nd Street is the first theatrical production for which PRG has sup

The Netherlands - Having worked with singer/songwriter Eefje de Visser since 2019, lighting designer Randall Diagre understands and appreciates Eefje de Visser’s emotive approach to her art. It is a quality that inspires and invites collaboration, leading to creations that support her songs with evocative visual displays.
The fruits of this creative process were one full display at Pinkpop, where Eefje de Visser was named the festival’s Number 1 act by the Dutch media. Wrapping itself seamlessly around the singer’s captivating performance was an evocative lightshow designed and operated by Diagre, with help from light artist Nick Verstand, who created a remarkable mirror scenic piece that helped define the show’s transcendent quality.
As Diagre recalls, the distinctive design grew of a project organised by Motel Mozaik Rotterdam during the pandemic lockdown. He

Germany - Bayreuth hosted its third Baroque Opera Festival (BBOF) this year with a lively programme of works including Allesandro Nell’Indie, which was lit by French LD David Debrinay using over 50 Robe moving lights including T1 and T2 Profiles and LEDBeam 350s.
Three memorable performances directed by Max Emmanuel Cencic, also artistic director of the festival and one of the principals, were staged at the Margravial Opera House (Markgräfliches Opernhaus). Opened in 1748 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2012, the venue reopened in 2018 after extensive renovations. It is also a museum and is licensed for just 30 live performances per year.
David, from the Lyon-based design practice LJOMA Studio, and Max have worked on several previous projects including the two other Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festivals in 2020 and 2021.
Multiple creative star

USA - The streets of Cincinnati were awash with colour in October as an estimated 1.5m people enjoyed the BLINK light and art festival, which featured four large-scale projection mappings powered by Hippotizer Media Servers.
During the four-day event, video installations turned the city’s landmark buildings into ‘a techno cityscape of the future’, bringing existing artworks and architecture to life and creating eye-popping 3D projections.
Some of the most spectacular video mapping installations were Hippotizer driven, including at Memorial Hall on Elm Street where the building’s four striking pillars and grand architectural shapes were perfectly video mapped and projected upon with sweeping, kaleidoscopic artworks by Italian multimedia studio, Antalless Visual Design. Titled In The Middle, the installation harnessed the power of a Hippotizer Boreal V4+

USA - Old time country is in good hands with ACM and CMA award-winning singer/songwriter Jon Pardi whose classic country sounds on his Ain’t Always the Cowboy Tour are being complemented by lighting from Elation Artiste Mondrian and Artiste Monet luminaires.
Described as ‘the kind of honkytonk that gets people drinking, dancing and drowning their heartaches,’ Pardi combines an old-fashioned country vibe with youthful energy. He hit the road July 14 in support of his new album Mr. Saturday Night with stops all over the US.
Chris Reade and Jay Ballinger of KYVA Design have been designing and conceptualizing with Jon Pardi for the last eight years. For the Ain’t Always the Cowboy Tour this past summer, Reade says that Ballinger proposed the idea of projecting strength with steel beams and rugged structure elements that resonated within that co

USA - Patrick Dierson oversaw the production design at the Jay-Z curated Made in America festival in Philadelphia. “I love this event, because it never fails to surprise with unexpected challenges,” he said, looking back on the 2022 edition of the festival.
Made In America more than lived up to Dierson’s expectations this year, as just a few days before load-in he got a message that one of the headliners at the urban and Latin music festival, Lil Uzi Vert, wanted two Lamborghinis on the stage for his performance.
“This required a little more than your average production coordination,” said Dierson. “Let’s face it - this is Philly. The concept of handing two Lambos to a teamster in a forklift is enough to make an eyebrow raise. We didn’t want these things going back to the King of Prussia, PA exotic car dealership with two holes in the wing doors and co

USA - The University of Tennessee in Knoxville held its annual celebration of alumni at 2022 Alumni Awards Gala, and Bandit Lites donated a lighting system for the event which honours alumni across the state, country and world who bring recognition to Tennessee’s flagship campus. This year’s honourees included 24 notable alumni including Samuel E. Beall II, Tamika Catchings, Sara Croley, Donald E. Frieson, Ronald Earl Frieson and Sharon G. Lee. Bandit Lites founder Michael T. Strickland was honoured with this award in 2021.
To set the tone and ambiance for the room, Bandit supplied an upstage and downstage truss loaded with 44 GLP X4S, 8 VL 2500 Spots and 2 VL 3000 Spots. The GLP X4S fixtures were used in part to light the stage while most of them washed the ceiling in colours. The VL 2500 cast gobo patterns on the ceiling and walls, while the 3000s had custom Power-T al

Singapore - To transform the commercial building 61 Robinson into a luxurious office space, LuxLight Pte Ltd, and the lighting consultants involved in this project selected and installed a comprehensive selection of Martin Professional lighting solutions.
Located in Singapore’s Central Business District, 61 Robinson is a 20-story commercial building previously known as Robinson Centre. Built in 2000, the building features an art deco-inspired marble facade ornate classical architecture that provides a distinctive, memorable look.
To modernise and reinvigorate the space, the owners of 61 Robinson wanted to remodel the lobby and convert the fifth-level parking garage into an office building. These major renovations therefore required a lighting system that both accentuated the structural alterations and complemented the building’s existing features. To meet these re

Japan - Built in 1633, Kiyomizu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of several Buddhist temples located in the foothills of Mount Otowa in Japan’s Kyoto prefecture.
Shortlisted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, Kiyomizu’s main building is famous for its 36m wide stage, supported by many wooden columns, which juts out over the hillside and to hover spectacularly 13m above the valley. Artists standing on the stage cannot see an audience in front of them, but instead look out over a beautiful tree-filled valley.
It was against this setting that Italian vocal trio, Il Volo, performed a special charity concert on 5 August 2022 in aid of Wedu Global, an organisation which supports the development of women in leadership roles around the world.
The concert was filmed in preparation for a worldwide premiere, in front of an invited VIP audien

UK - Fourteen fixtures from the first batch of Robe Painte moving lights off the production line have been installed as part of the house lighting rig at central Manchester’s New Century venue, a recently renovated 1200 (standing) capacity, multipurpose music, performance and event space in the city’s NOMA business and entertainment district.
The building has been completely refurbished and restored to its original 1960s glory when leading acts of the day graced the stage.
The 14 Paintes were specified, together with LEDBeam 150s and 350s, by Neil Hunt from ZigZag Lighting in Leeds, who came onboard to consult, specify, supply, deliver and commission the house lighting production package.
Neil worked closely with Abby Moore, one of the venue’s directors, to establish what was needed in terms of stage lighting production, and then weighed up the options to


UK – The Manchester home of !Audacious Church has benefited from the installation of 34 Chroma-Q Inspire RGBW LED house lights, supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET). The new fixtures were delivered and installed by Manchester-based lighting consultant, Urban Lites, after the church’s management decided to upgrade its flagship venue’s auditorium with a higher quality, more consistent and reliable lighting solution.
Founded in 2007, !Audacious Church has grown to the stage where its 1,400-capacity location in Salford regularly attracts a full house for each of its three scheduled Sunday services. With an ageing, failing house lighting system of early-generation LED fixtures limiting the venue’s potential, the management put the upgrade requirements out to tender.
Mark Steele, operations manager at !Audacious Church, says, “We wanted a bet

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