London Calling - Punk pioneers The Clash are to be given an honorary award recognising their contribution to the music industry at the Silver Clef Awards next week. Mick Jones, the guitarist and co-frontman of the group which split up almost 30 years ago, said it was a "real honour" to receive the award..

David Munns, chairman of music charity Nordoff Robbins, which organises the awards, said, "The Clash's music has just as much influence today as it did when they first came onto the music scene in 1976." Other award winners to be honoured at the event in London on 28 June include Coldplay, Labrinth, Alison Moyet and Barry Gibb. The winner of the best live act prize will be announced on the day. The Kinks' Ray Davies will get an ambassador of rock award. New York band Vampire Weekend will also receive the international award.

Glastonbury Live - The B

Maldives - When the exclusive World Travel Awards - Indian Ocean Gala Ceremony took place recently at the luxurious Paradise Island Resort & Spa in the Maldives, local event company, Azidon Pvt Ltd used the occasion to introduce its new lighting inventory from the Chinese lighting manufacturer PR Lighting.

Azidon Pvt Ltd sponsored the production for the World Travel Awards - Indian Ocean Gala Ceremony as an event partner. "Our intricate local knowledge of the seas, islands and beaches gives us an edge when it comes to delivery," says Azidon's managing director, M. Fayid Farouk.

In addition, Azidon also offers private and exclusive VVIP event packages in partnership with its sister company, Lets Go Maldives Pvt Ltd.

As an event partner, the company knew that the set needed to be dressed to perfection and it turned to its recently acquired PR Lighting inventory, whic

USA - Enhancing the overall shopping mall experience for visitors - by creating a unique atmosphere with low maintenance colour-changing fixtures, which can be activated for selective events - is a challenge facing all management companies.

And when Gene Tasche, operations manager of Pine Street Group LLC, the company responsible for the Pacific Place shopping centre in Seattle, contacted GLP authorised dealer PNTA, it was precisely with that in mind.

With the Christmas season approaching, and the annual Snow Show looming, he needed something innovative to grab the attention of passers-by, and give the 15-year-old retail centre a fresh approach. Having worked on other projects at the site previously, the lighting specialists recommended seven of GLP's LED fixture, the impression Spot One, to be installed in each of the mall's seven columns.

Sheldon Warshaw, PNTA's Cus

Sweden - Ulfsunda Slott, situated near Stockholm's city centre in Sweden, is a castle with much history and numerous anecdotes. Built during the Thirty Years' War, and having been used by royalty, the history of this castle is indeed a rich one.

The building has been in the possession of private families, a prime minister, the county council and has now returned to private ownership - furniture designer from Svensk Inredning (Swedish Interior) Torbjörn Blomqvist, who initiated a major renovation upon the acquisition in 1999. Now the 1600's have met the 2000s in an amazing contrast, and the castle is now ranked as Sweden's number one luxury hotel, featuring facilities for art showrooms, conferences and restaurants.

In this special environment, every detail is of high importance. The illumination of the castle by night has been a challenging task for Blomqvist, and for the owne

UK - Vernon Kay is back to present a new series of the ITV show Family Fortunes . Dave Davey designs the lighting rig which is provided by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).

Each show, two teams of five family members (led by a celebrity captain) go head to head trying to guess the top answers in a series of open ended survey questions given to 100 members of the general public. At the end of this, the teams play Big Money. All prize money raised goes to the teams chosen charities.

Lighting-wise, this has seen some significant changes, the main one being the use of LED. Davey uses Robe Robin 600 LEDWash and Robe Robin 100 LEDBeams amongst other units including MAC 500s.

(Jim Evans)

UK - London-based lighting specialists, White Light, have become the first UK company to invest in SGM's new IP65-rated P-5 LED wash light to boost its hire fleet.

The agreement to supply 24 of the high power, low profile rectangular fixtures, was confirmed at this month's ABTT Show in London.

Incorporating 44 x RGBW 10W LEDs, the fixture offers CTC and White Balance control, with just 450W power consumption and LED source life expectancy of 50,000 hours. Stretching the output-to-consumption envelope by providing an overall efficacy factor of 52 lumens per watt (channelled through the 15°, 21° and 43° lens options) the green credentials of the P-5 raise the benchmark considerably.

Said SGM UK's Ian Kirby, "This is a highly significant sale for us as it is the first substantial P-5 rental sale - and to one of the industry leaders. Given that White Light also

Germany - ETC's stand at Showtech in Berlin was busy throughout the three days of the show, with visitors often spilling into the aisles. And regular presentations at the Layers of Light Theatre in both German and English drew large crowds who found out more about how LED fixtures work and how they can work as part of a mixed traditional and LED rig.

Given the 34º heat outside, ETC was keen to proving how cool the LED fixtures run - a plastic gobo would melt in front of a tungsten lamp, but they work perfectly with Source Four LED fixtures.

Visitors to the ETC stand were invited to draw a gobo on a square of plastic, with ETC's Facebook friends deciding which were good enough to win a Source Four Mini. Hundreds took part in the public vote, with Linus Zahn, Lilith Gardell and Elana Siberski the clear winners.

European Promotion & Advertising Manager for ETC GmbH Rosi Marx s

Sweden - The world's biggest song contests - Eurovision and Melodifestivalen (Melody Festival), the annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio, both rely on CAST Software's pre-visualisation suite wysiwyg for their production designs.

As chief LD on both productions this year, distinguished lighting designer Fredrik Jönsson of Eyebrow Designs, employed wysiwyg in order to deliver stunning visuals for the likes of Robin Stjernberg and Emmelie de Forest, winners of Melodifestivalen and Eurovision, respectively.

Regarding WYG's involvement in the production design for Melodifestivalen, Jönsson remarked, "Well, it's all we use! wysiwyg is the backbone of the lighting production, we use it for all aspects: CAD, lighting design, pre-production, technical specs and drawings. I use it as a tool for the presentation o

UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment has invested £350,000 in the latest Robe moving lights - to up its stock and service its busy on-going work schedule.

Forty LEDWash 600s, 40 x LEDWash 300s and 35 x MMX Spots, all from Robe's Robin range, have joined Colour Sound's rental inventory which now features over 250 Robe moving heads - as well as a few hundred more from other brands.

Colour Sound's Haydn Cruikshank remarked, "These particular Robe fixtures are appearing with increasing frequency on band and LD specs, so we need to have them on board", adding that they are "light, bright and excellent value".

(Jim Evans)

UK - Ambersphere Solutions have announced the dates and venues of their upcoming open days.

The Ambersphere Open Days offer customers a localised opportunity to meet the team behind Clay Paky, MA Lighting and Robert Juliat products in the UK, and spend some time familiarising themselves with the latest products available from each of these highly respected brands.

The Midlands Open Day will be held on Tuesday 9 July at the Swan Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, followed swiftly by the South-West Open Day later that week at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School on Thursday 11 July.

And hot on the heels of the announcement that Ambersphere Solutions has become the exclusive distributor of Robert Juliat in the UK there will be plenty to see and talk about with the team.

"There really is no surer way of understanding the quality of any piece of equipme

UK - When searching for the right spot luminaire system to enhance Vive Forever the West End musical based on the songs of the Spice Girls, lighting designer Howard Harrison held a light shootout. The Martin award-winning MAC Viper Profile was chosen to light the stage.

"The Viper is a very good unit, very bright. It's as simple as that," Harrison says. "We use Vipers in every scene - they are the workhorses of our lighting rig for 'Viva Forever.' Throughout the show's running they've been reliable and have maintained their brightness very well."

Harrison's rig places the Viper Profiles on the stage's overhead truss with additional units at the FOH position. White Light, the London-based lighting contractor, supplied the Viper Profiles. The company debuted MAC Viper in the West End in late 2012 on another Harrison-designed musical, Loserville.

Denmark - Martin's new line of affordable lighting effects, Rush, will be starring in a series of YouTube videos aptly titled, Films in the Fast Lane. With a complete demonstration of the technology's capabilities, each video will showcase the range of features and benefits each Rush product offers.

Subscribing to the RUSH by Martin YouTube channel by visiting http://www.youtube.com/user/RUSHbyMartinPro, viewers will be in the driver's seat, able to discover new and creative lighting deployments using the Rush lighting series.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Atlantis Nightclub, situated at the end of Eastbourne Pier, has recently undergone a full re-fit complete with brand new audio and lighting systems.

Christos Stylianou, general manager of Eastbourne Pier and Atlantis Nightclub commented: "I wanted to use 3D LED tubes to maximise the impact of the arched ceiling. In addition to this we required moving heads, architectural highlighting and a complete sound system. All of this was needed on a budget."

Christos approached Ian Goacher from Accord Audio, based in East Sussex, to specify and install the equipment. Ian has a very long working relationship with the venue and understands their requirements perfectly. He sourced the majority of the equipment from MilTec (UK) Ltd, based near Maidstone in Kent.

The Miltec lighting equipment comprised of 172x 3D-PixelTubes and 4x EPW2 LED moving heads. For the architectural

Germany - A hundred and twelve Robe moving lights were used by set designer Valentin Lüdicke of Heidelberg based design practice Atelier Kontrast to light Floor 2 of the 2013 Time Warp EDM event at the Maimarkt-Areal Arena, Mannheim.

This saw 15,000 revellers party hard to some of the best dance music on the planet including Ritchie Hawtin, Sven Väth, Dubfire and many more.

Valentin's imagineering followed the dynamic architecture of the specially designed 'Tri-Arc' curved roof structure, constructed from a series of interlocking triangles, which, combined with some clever lighting trickery, created an infinity perspective.

He chose 56 x Robin LEDBeam 100s and 56 x Robin MMX Spots to be at the hub of the lighting rig, together with a smattering of LED-PARs and a bunch of strobes, working closely on the lighting elements with programmer / operator Matthias 'Lumpy' Vollrath.

UK - Lighting designer Tim Routledge used Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash and Spot Luminaires to deliver a powerful and dramatic backdrop for the World War Z action film premiere after-show concert by Muse, held at London's Horse Guards Parade.

Epic and apocalyptic, Routledge's lighting design not only took care of the stage but the buildings and park surrounding the area to create an eerie, experiential evening of atmospheric entertainment for the 15,000 Muse fans attending.

Routledge - who was the lead lighting programmer for the London Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies - specified a massive 100 VL3500 Wash luminaires to wash the full expanse of the Horse Guards Georgian buildings and the audience with intense, bright blasts of colour.

"We positioned the VL3500 washes around the quadrangle, up-lighting the buildings with some of the throws only 2m from the

USA - grandMA2 full-size consoles are heading out on the road with Tim McGraw as the country superstar kicks off his Two Lanes of Freedom 2013 tour in support of his new namesake album. McGraw's tour will play 30 cities across the USA. It follows his successful joint Brothers of the Sun tour with Kenny Chesney, last year's highest-ranking country tour in Billboard's list of the top treks of 2012.

For McGraw's latest show Premiere Global, which has been a vendor for the artist for the last decade, supplied two grandMA2 full-size consoles.

Everything in the show, including the video content, is triggered by the grandMA2; a backup unit is also on hand. "We had a multi-user interface for two programmers," says lighting designer Pat Brannon. "They could save to the same cue files at the same time, and that was great. The main feature is the video interf

USA - Elation Professional has introduced the EZ6, a high-resolution 6mm indoor LED video display panel whose affordable price, light weight and modular quick assembly make it suitable for visual displays at nightclubs, concert venues, live stages, exhibit halls and public spaces who want the excitement of a video screen without overstepping their budgets or getting bogged down by complicated installations, says the company.

Powered by high-quality Tri-Color 3528 SMD LEDs, the EZ6 will impress viewers with its uniform colour, high contrast and sharp, clear picture, making it a video superstar. It features 6mm pixel pitch, 1,800-nit brightness and 960 Hz refresh rate, producing high-definition graphics, text, logos or images -- limited only by your imagination! Wherever it's used, the EZ6 offers reliable performance and easy setup. The 22.7" x 22.7" (576mm x 576mm) squa

UK - A special customised version of ShowLED Animation supplied by UK Distributor S+H Technical Support is being used on the current David Ian Productions and Ambassador Theatre Group UK and Ireland touring version of the hit Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical.

The Animation Cloth has been supplied to the tour's video contractors XL Video after being specified by their project manager Ed Cooper.

It measures 8m wide by 7m high and was specially manufactured by S+H for the tour with a 130mm grid matrix of pixels as opposed to the standard Animation Cloth where this is random.

The modifications were needed to display the specific Priscilla content being played through it in a certain manner to give it a very 'clean' finish.

The Animation Cloth is flown mid stage and is in for the first 15 minutes of the show, until the famous Priscilla bus is revealed.

It come

Germany - Over 200 Robe moving lights helped rock the house and showcase the very best of Berlin's sizzling, emerging DJs and techno, house, electro and minimal talent who made some serious summer noise in four aircraft hangars at the Templehof Airport site for A&P's 2013 Berlin Summer Rave.

The party was enjoyed by a capacity audience of 20,000 with a production lighting design created by Martin Kuhn. The Robe fixtures were central to the night of action in the Ostfunk, Planet Bass and House Floor arenas.

Berlin and Mexico based Kuhn - a high profile designer with vast experience working across multiple disciplines - was commissioned by event promoter A&P on this occasion to create a fantastic visual ambience for the Summer Rave.

He has used Robe products in his work for some years. He specified the brand on this occasion for its flexibility, reliability and the wide

USA - Along with LeBron James & Co., some other sharp shooters were on hand to ramp up the excitement at the Miami Heat's NBA championship celebration - Platinum Beam 5Rs from Elation Professional. Fifty-four of the Elation ACL effects thrust hard-edge, fast-moving beams overhead and onto the stage at American Airlines Arena, as the team received its championship rings in front of its most devout fans.

The breathtaking lighting design, which captured the thrill of a hard-fought victory, was created by David McCranie, using gear supplied by Everlast Productions.

"Elation is honoured that our Platinum Beam 5Rs were chosen to light up such a spectacular event as the Heat's victory celebration," said Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional. "The Platinum Beam has been one of our 'winning' lights since it was introduced, and we're proud to have it ass

Australia - Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4 impressed again with its capabilities and reliability, this time at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, spicing up Timomatic's first live performance of his new single Parachute. Nigerian-born Australian singer-songwriter and dancer Timomatic gained fame as a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance Australia. His debut single Set It Off was certified triple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association.

Josh Moffat of Events Infrastructure designed, operated and specified the lighting equipment, and also supplied the visual technical support for the 2013 State of Origin Game 1 pre-game entertainment. Moffat also has a long-standing relationship with the event producers at Time Square Productions in designing unique looks that work for both television and the live audience. Showtools International supplied the Ne

UK - Manchester-based dbn Lighting helped to bring an ancient legend to life for a landmark event in the UK's first City of Culture, Derry Londonderry.

dbn designed and supplied rigging and lighting for a breath-taking recreation of the famed Loch Ness Monster - which played a starring role in the Showdown on the Foyle finale to the weekend-long celebrations entitled The Return of Colmcille.

Showdown on the Foyle was a specially commissioned public performance written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, created by Walk The Plank and played out over 30 hours on the streets of the UK's City of Culture. Artist Francis Morgan's water bound Loch Ness monster ensured a gripping finale for the tens of thousands of spectators gathered along the banks of the Foyle River, with dbn's lighting bringing the beast to life in spectacular fashion.

The showdown saw Colmcille, a key figure

Australia - Each year, Sydney's famous landmarks take centre stage at Vivid Sydney, a two-week celebration of light, music and ideas. Headlining the show are the glorious sails of the Sydney Opera House which becomes the canvas for a spectacular display of architectural mapped projection.

The Electric Canvas has been responsible for the Sydney Opera House projections over the last four years of Vivid, providing the projection technology, technicians and architectural templates that are the backbone upon which the creative content is produced. Each year the guest artist is provided the appropriate templates, format and workflow to create their work for delivery by OnlyView media servers that feed the large array of high-powered projectors.

The Electric Canvas is also solely responsible for the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the projection system's pixel-a

South Africa - The MA VPU (Video Processing unit) recently underwent a complete technology change. MA's Rene Berhorst, accompanied by Michael Althaus, presented training at DWR Distribution, South Africa recently. It was aimed to bring users up to date with the power of VPU over an intense three day period.

"The VPU is the right video tool to offer users," commented Althaus. "And judging from the good feedback, it really is exciting what is achievable.

"The VPU has many functions and possibilities and is an ideal tool for lighting people. As key users already know the grandMA2, they don't have to learn something new or learn new languages. This makes it quick and easy. Next to the functionality, it's the integration we are highlighting. Setting up the server takes fifteen minutes, this saves at least an hour."

The MA VPU allows videos to be displayed

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