South Africa - Robe once again was right at the heart of the action in South Africa when specified for filming of the newest South African TV talent show series, Clash of the Choirs.

The Endemol SA produced talent show presented by Bonang Matheba was broadcast on DSTv channel Mzansi Magic and had massive impact in a country with a fantastically rich musical culture of choir music and performance.

Seven amateur choirs from different provinces were mentored by celebrity musicians and are competing for a prize of 500,000 ZAR, 250,000 of which goes to the winning choir and 250,000 to a charity of their choice.

The first series' rounds were recorded at the new Soweto Theatre, Nr Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, and the final will be battled out by the top three choirs in April.

Lighting for the series was designed by Peter Reick from Blond Productions. The rig included ov

UK - PLASA Focus will see the UK launch of the LEDHead Mini-Map miniature LED screen. The Mini-Map will be the first of the LEDHead range to be manufactured in the UK.

The LEDHead range has been expanded to include two pixelmap products for stage, corporate and entertainment lighting use, the Mini-Map miniature LED screen and the 3D-Pixeltube.

The Mini-Map measures 150mm x 150mm with 36x 5050 tricolour pixels. It can be used individually or in clusters to produce video and graphic effects. The Mini-Map has a steel casing, PowerCon and XLR5 connectors and is designed for touring and installation use. The PixelTube is a 3-dimensional lighting system designed to give spectacular lighting effects when the LED tubes are hung above a stage or from the ceiling in entertainment venues. Both products use DMX512 control to allow compatibility with the many DMX512 pixelmapping systems no

Germany - PR Lighting has reported an excellent response to the suite of new products, premiered on the stand of their German distributor, Focon Showtechnic at this year's Prolight+Sound Show in Frankfurt.

According to international sales director, Ernie Armas, feedback to all three new products couldn't have been more positive.

Pascal Vieregge at Focon confirmed that the PR Lighting booth had been one of the real eye-catchers - an inviting area with friendly faces and 72 XLED 336's, designed as sunstripes, dominating the backwall.

"At the same time beams appeared to come out of the heavens, crossing each other like an alien invasion - projected by the innovative PR Lighting XR-200, XR-300 and PR-5000 Beam. The booth design, by Focon's Jens Ottenhus, in combination with Gunnar Loose's intelligent programming, brought an enthusiastic response from the customers."

Brazil - The 2013 Brazilian Lollapalooza Festival staged at São Paulo's Jockey Club featured a selection of Robe moving lights on the main two stages, Cidade Jardim and Butantã.

These were integral to the respective lighting rigs used to illuminate a truly stellar line up of international and local artists, enjoyed by around 60,000 people a day who flocked to see the action across the event's four performance stages.

The Butantã stage lighting rig included 27 x Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs and 10 Robin 600 LEDWashes, while on the Cidade Jardim stage were 34 x ColorSpot 2500E ATs, 19 x ColorWash 2500E ATs and 10 Robin 600 LEDWashes. Additional units were located above the side IMAG screens on both stages.

The principal lighting contractor was São Paulo based LPL Professional Lighting.

LPL director and LD Caio Bertti states, "We chose Robe moving lights because of the g

USA - City Theatrical is inviting visitors to explore its new website (www.citytheatrical.com). The new website has been designed to provide the ultimate user-friendly experience with improved navigation and functionality throughout, allowing customers to access detailed product information and videos with the option to share information across all major social networking sites.

The new site includes extensive product information to help customers understand City Theatrical's complete range of products for theatrical and architectural lighting. Technical data, videos, and case studies work together to provide a detailed overview of City Theatrical's capabilities over a wide range of sectors, including custom manufacturing.

The new website means that customers can now benefit from richer online content that is easier to navigate and share with others, says the company. All of t

Sweden - Södra Teatern (Southern Theatre) located in Stockholm's lively and creative Söder district, is one of Sweden's best known privately run theatres and the oldest such venue in Stockholm, established in 1859.

A Robe LEDWash installation is another facility that can be offered in addition to its seven stages, two restaurants, outdoor terrace and fabulous panoramic views across the city.

The theatre's action-packed programme of events focuses on live music and performance and stages up to 1000 events over an average year.

The newest Robe fixtures in the house are six LEDWash 600s and four LEDWash 300s, which were specified by Head of Lighting Lars Ekdahl, as part of a general lighting upgrade.

The first Robe fixtures in the venue were ColorSpot and ColorWash 575E ATs, purchased ten years ago - and still working well today - so they already knew from experience that t

Mexico - Wireless Solution Sweden AB and RED Lighting, W-DMX distributor in Mexico, recently transformed the exclusive Grupo Vidanta resort, Santuario into a stunning light display.

Grupo Vidanta is one of the leading South American hotel chains, with several resorts including Grand Luxxe, Grand Bliss, Grand Mayan and Mayan Palace. Grupo Vidanta approached RED Lighting to manage the installations for all the chain's new hotels.

Santuario is a luxury hotel and entertainment resort, complete with a large lounge, bars, discotheques, theatre and live entertainment. For these areas, RED Lighting installed 200 of their own brand Quadro 10 and Quadro 24 fixed projectors. The fixtures chosen have an IP65 protection rating, which permits outdoor use - essential for a facility like Santuario with open air sections.

Several Classe S700 moving head projectors are used as well, each with

UK - Highlite International (Stand N-E7) will this year be launching a whole range of new products at PLASA Focus, of the back of a very successful Pro Light & Sound Show, Frankfurt.

Highlite International will be showing the New Range of LED Theatre Luminaires, The Performer Range, Including the Performer 1000 Led Fresnel (with manual focus) Performer 2000 Led Fresnel (with on-board dmx focus), Performer 600 Led Profile (with a 24 degree beam), Performer 5000 LED theatre flood (with wide electric zoom & adjustable colour temperatures).

The Showtec Expression 1800 Battery Uplighter (now with Q4 led chip RGBW & lithium battery making it much lighter at only 5.5kg in weight). The Showtec XS-6 Led Centrepiece, which incorporates six 10w led dichroic colours and nine metal gobos' in each moving head, big room filler).

Showtec will be showing some of the new COB (chip on Board) r

UK - ETC is getting ready to show a range of new and updated products at this year's PLASA Focus in Leeds.

The newly released Eos v2.0 software, which introduces a new Magic Sheet function, will be available for demonstration. Designed to make programming even easier with Eos-line control desks, Magic Sheets allow users to set up customised, interactive live/blind displays organise and work with channels in ETC's traditional tombstone view or via channel symbols.

Eos v2.0 software is released simultaneously with the latest addition to the Eos control desk line, the Eos Titanium, which was first seen at Prolight + Sound in April and which uses new hardware and features to make designing and programming even easier.

Also on the stand and available for demonstration will be the new 50W ETC Source Four Mini; and Source Four LED Studio HD.

At 23cm long and weighing just 740g, t

UK - Visual Productions will be attending PLASA Focus in Leeds next week. Although regular attendees to PLASA Focus this is the first time that Visual Productions take their own stand, RA-A15.

Following on from the successful launch of two new products at Prolight+Sound, Visual Productions now bring these direct to the UK market: CueluxPro software lighting control and the B-Station, networked button interface. These two new products really complement and enhance the current Visual Productions product line.

CueluxPro is an advanced and scalable software lighting control application. The software is designed to control medium to large lighting installations, for both architectural and live entertainment situations. CueluxPro works in combination with the CueCore and IoCore as its DMX and IO interfaces and with the new B-Station user-interface.

As with the popular Cuelux softw

Germany - Intelligent LED lighting manufacturer, Chroma-Q unveiled their new Inspire LED house light at this year's Prolight + Sound exhibition in Frankfurt.

The new Chroma-Q Inspire LED house light is a powerful multi-purpose creative lighting tool that utilises some of the innovative core technologies found in the popular Chroma-Q Color Force range. Providing a choice of beautiful whites, soft pastels and bold saturates, the Inspire incorporates industry standard DMX-512 control, fully homogenised colour mixing, a high CRI of 90, a powerful 4,000 hot lumens output and an adjustable CCT.

Featuring a compact, energy-efficient LED design, the Inspire house light has an incredibly low power consumption of 110W - which will show you a significant return on your investment with its high energy efficiency.

The Inspire's custom optical design provides a smooth, uniform output, mat

Juno Awards - Carly Rae Jepsen has won three Junos at the annual Canadian music awards, including album of the year, pop album of the year and single of the year for her hit Call Me Maybe. The 27-year-old's album Kiss beat Justin Bieber and Celine Dion. Bieber took home his fourth Juno in the fan choice category with Mumford & Sons winning best international album. k.d. Lang was inducted into the Canadian music hall of fame. Leonard Cohen, who started his music career in the 1960s, won two Junos for songwriter of the year for the album Old Ideas and artist of the year.

Opera Awards - Tenor Jonas Kaufmann has won best male singer and the readers' award at the inaugural International Opera awards. Known as the "new king of tenors", Kaufmann debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2006. The reader's award was voted for by readers of

UK - TV Lighting specialists Aurora Lighting Hire, based in Greenford, has announced that Samantha Wiseman (formally Dean) has recently joined their team.

Samantha has been appointed as Business Coordinator and commented: "I am very excited to join Aurora in their rapidly growing business and happy to be back in the lighting industry. I have had time out getting married and becoming a mum and now my boys are at school, I felt ready to get back into work and was thrilled when this opportunity came up."

She started her career at Brilliant Stages just out of college and then moved onto Vari Lite/VLPS for many years and has nearly 10 years' experience working in the lighting industry.

Nick Edwards, Managing Director added: "I am delighting to welcome Samantha to Aurora. We have known each other for many years working together at VLPS/PRG. Samantha has a lot of kno

Germany - SGM used Frankfurt's Prolight+Sound to demonstrate the growth it has experienced since coming under Peter Johansen's ownership just over a year ago.

The booth was permanently packed with visitors wanting to be among the first to witness the global launch of the new IP65-rated G-Spot, and make sure it lived up to its claim of superior optics and weather-resistant body. A constant stream of water splashing across the chassis left no-one in any doubt.

But equally important, SGM has built up a family of loyal and highly-motivated resellers during the intervening period and the company CEO was able to welcome partners from across the world to a pre-show dinner, awards presentation and distributor conference, so they were primed for action when the curtains were raised on the opening day.

Once again, Peter Johansen, made sure everybody got what they came for - with a bol

UK - West London based rental specialist, Entec Sound & Light supplied lighting equipment for a massive one off show by chart busting Hong Kong based band Big Four at London's O2 Arena, working for producers, Netherlands based Orient Touch.

Entec's team was production managed by Simon Tutchener and crew chiefed by Pete "Pepper" Schofield. The challenge was getting a substantial one off loaded in and set up and rocking in the same day ... although this is something that Entec has honed to a fine art! Soundcheck/rehearsals were scheduled for 1pm.

The Entec team - project managed by Noreen O'Riordan - worked to a lighting plot submitted by Big Four's lighting designer Lund and his assistant Boris.

The lighting rig comprised three straight trusses and two bespoke trussing constructions which flanked an upstage centre LED video screen that was supplied by XL Video.

Th

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. will be showcasing products at PLASA Focus 2013 from a selection of the leading brands which it distributes, including Chroma-Q, Jands, High End Systems, Spotlight, SGM, PixelRange, Chauvet, LedGo, Green Hippo, Christie Nitro, Soundcraft, RCF, BroadWeigh, Columbus McKinnon and many more - on stand N-E2.

Chroma-Q's new award-winning Inspire high output, RGBW colour-changing LED House Light and AutoLED II ultra-bright (16,430 lumens) daylight white LED moving head fixture will share their UK tradeshow debut at PLASA Focus 2013. Also on show from Chroma-Q are a selection of other intelligent LED lighting products including the Studio Force multi-purpose and Studio Force Phosphor broadcast-sector ranges of white LED fixtures available in daylight, tungsten and variable white, the hugely popular Color Force range of RGBA colour fixtur

USA - In order to meet market demand for Martin Professional's M2GO lighting controller, Christie Lites has purchased no less than 200 of the compact consoles for its rental inventory.

"We were looking for the best console for everyday rental and found that the M2GO made the most sense," says Christie Lites CEO Huntly Christie. "It was the only console in its category to offer powerful onboard processing with a small footprint."

The M2GO is equipped with a fast, dual-core processor with no external computer required. Having set Martin records earlier in the year for the largest number of pre-sale orders for a lighting controller, it continues to establish itself as the lighting control choice for rental houses.

"We are extremely pleased that Christie has added the M2GO to their inventory," states Martin product manager Paul Pelletier. "It w

Finland - Finnish rockers Sunrise Avenue used Robe LEDWash 600s and MMX Spots on their recent Big Band Theory Tour 2013 European tour which were specified by their LD, Timo Saarinen.

The 16 x LEDWash 600s and 10 MMX Spots formed the core of the lighting rig and were used for a variety of tasks and effects including washing the stage with many colours and hues, and for creating complex multi-layered effects with the MMXs.

Timo was hugely impressed with the reliability of the fixtures - which was 100% for the whole tour!

He's looking forward to using more of Robe's latest technology on upcoming festival dates this summer and also for Sunrise Avenue's ongoing touring work which is scheduled to continue into 2014.

The fixtures were supplied to the tour by Finnish rental company RMC Light & Sound based in Vantaa, who bought them from Robe's Finnish distributor, Live Nati

UK - Richard Martin Lighting supplied 30 of the MilTec Batten2s to the BBC for the main Red Nose Day broadcast.

Steve Wells, RML operations manager commented,"Comic Relief is one of those National Treasures that as a company we are always so proud to be involved in and support. For a rental company or manufacturer, high profile show such as this are an ideal opportunity to showcase their most recent products and it goes without saying, that as a company, RML will always help the lighting designer achieve their desired look. With this in mind we provided Chris Kempton with the MilTec MTC-Batten2 LED Batten, the ideal choice to match his chosen specification."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Professional Nexus 4x4 once again makes a statement during a significant event, shining on the Outdoor Theatre stage at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, an annual music and arts festival featuring various music genres for two consecutive weekends.

Forty-eight Nexus 4x4 fixtures were placed in vertical columns equidistantly on stage and used for their pixel-mapping capabilities to accompany hip-hop group and headliner Wu-Tang Clan, and performances of Jurassic 5, Beach House band, Puscifer, Pretty Lights and Two Door Cinema Club.

"Nexus 4x4 were stacked into six columns of eight and they were built onto traveller truss so they could be slid on and off the stage," said Todd Roberts, owner of Visions Lighting, a premier lighting, staging, video and production company that provided the fixtures.

Nexus 4x4 has 16 20-watt RGB COB LEDs and is capable of del

Canada - Associate Designer for the Times of India Film Awards, Robert Sondergaard of Electric Aura, encouraged lighting designer Atul Sonpal to go with the 1000 W Martin MAC Viper Profile instead of an originally speced 1500 W fixture, a decision that Atul and Robert proved happy with.

"Given my previous experience with the Vipers on the 2012 Grey Cup, I encouraged him to try out the Vipers instead," Robert Sondergaard stated. "I was very impressed with their speed and output and I knew he would be as well."

The Vipers were hung on three set arches as well as the furthest upstage truss where they worked as top color and gobo wash onto the stage.

The MAC Viper Profile is an award-winning fixture whose 26,0000 lumens of power outperforms that of market-leading profiles in the 1200-watt range and is even finding service as an alternative to 1500-watt

South Africa - Cape Town University's The Baxter Theatre has invested in 10 Philips Strand Lighting Wallrack Dimmer units as part of a major upgrade to its lighting facilities.

The theatre, which is the second largest performing arts complex in Cape Town (after the Artscape Theatre Centre), purchased four Philips Strand Wallrack Dimmer 24 x 2.5kW, two Philips Strand Wallrack Dimmer 6 x 5kW - 25 Amp, and four Philips Strand Wallrack Dimmer 6 x 2.5kW units from Philips Strand Lighting's South African dealer DWR Distribution.

"We chose Strand because it is a trusted name in theatre lighting," commented Patrick Curtis from The Baxter. "The linkage to Philips is a positive development, and added to that with Strand Lighting products we are assured of 100% backup from DWR."

The Philips Strand Lighting Wallrack is designed for small to medium entertainment and a

UK - With just a week left until the doors of the Royal Armouries Museum open for the fifth annual PLASA Focus: Leeds trade show, taking place on Tuesday 30 April and Wednesday 1 May, PLASA Events can confirm that visitor pre-registration figures have reached 3000: an all-time high for this event. Now firmly established as the leading industry event for the North, visitors will have access to stands from 133 different companies that represent each and every sector of the live entertainment and installation market.

Sponsoring the event are leading lighting innovators Chauvet Professional, Robe, and one of the UK's largest suppliers of technical production services, Hawthorn. The sold-out exhibition floor features new products from a number of exhibitors including Martin Audio, d&b audiotechnik, Philips Entertainment, Martin Professional, Artistic Licence, Robe, Midas, Ampetronic,

UK - Richard Martin Lighting (RML) has announced the recent purchase of the Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330 which are available for hire now.

Steve Wells, operations manager at RML said of the new investment, "The Sharpy has been such a successful purchase for RML, when we heard about the Sharpy Wash 330, we had to see it. The unit is extremely diverse and the multi function aspect means that the lighting designer has so many more options when using them. The concept that you could have a whole rig of just one type of fixture, but are able to create a much more varied look, is potentially a very exciting one."

(Jim Evans)

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