USA - With artists like Matthew West, Big Daddy Weave, Jeremy Camp and Natalie Grant on stage, the Impact New Year's Eve concert at Lipscomb University's Allen Arena in Nashville featured some of the biggest names in Christian music.

Broadcast online to churches and youth centres around the world, the five-hour celebration of music and entertainment also represented what many are calling the largest faith-based global gathering ever assembled in one evening.

Such an event required a powerful lighting statement, which is why LD Mark Carver of Mark Carver Designs in Nashville selected 28 Legend 230SR Beams from Chauvet Professional for his Impact New Year's Eve rig.

"We chose the Legend fixtures because we knew that their hard sharp beams would help us create the right energy level for the audience at the arena and the millions viewing the broadcast of this event," h

Israel - Rising Star's ratings tell a clear success story: The show debuted to a 38 percent of market share in primetime on Israel's Channel 2 network. The concept of Rising Star is broadly similar to Idols, The Voice or X Factor: A group of unknown artists compete to be the 'best' singer. The twist comes in the voting. Instead of call-in votes that are tallied over the course of a show with a winner announced at the end, audiences for Rising Star vote live on the air during a singer's performance, and their decisions play out in real time for the audience and the performer to see.

For lighting and video control, lighting designer and operator Ronen Najar relied on an MA System, consisting of one grandMA2 full-size, one grandMA2 light, one MA onPC command wing, one MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) and one MA NSP (Network Signal Processor

UK- A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. deeply regrets to inform the industry that beloved colleague, Kevin Fitz-Simons, passed away peacefully at home in the early hours of Tuesday 31 December 2013, aged 53.

As Northern Lighting Sales Manager for AC-ET's Leeds office, Kevin held an important senior role in the company. He was an extremely well liked and respected colleague, and a larger than life character.

Kevin was also very well known in the industry, with a diverse career spanning over 30 years. During this time, he built an incredible number of customer relationships and friendships.

After leaving St Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool in 1978, it was whilst Kevin was studying for a BSc in chemistry at the University of Newcastle that he caught the 'theatre bug'. This led to his decision to leave after two years to pursue a career in his newfound passion.

Ke

World - Three years after it first took to the road, Jamiroquai's epic world tour is drawing to an end. The tour, which culminated at the Sundance Festival in Dubai, is a sharply entertaining show lit by LD Mark Wynn-Edwards, whose creative tools of choice are Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots and Washes.

UK-based Wynn-Edwards - who has worked with artists such as Grace Jones, Rod Stewart, and Paloma Faith - created a dynamic design that complements and contrasts with the full stage width video backdrop. He uses the VL3500 Washes not only to fill the stage with colour and bring a dynamic perspective to the stage but also as backline lighting, firing intense beams across the stage.

"The VL3500 Spots are on key light duty, rigged on the front truss, but also double stacked on the rear truss to provide the workhorse fixtures of the design," explains Wynn-Edwards."I de

Denmark - A new concept and tradition has been born in Denmark: a light festival in the city of Kolding. With the purpose of presenting a new and different experience for the city, local business people pooled together to add culture, beauty and technology to the public domain.

Project manager from Get Visual, Jacob Elsig, delivered lighting installations to many of the graphic and innovative projects and participated in the creation of the urban attraction together with the festival's coordinator and his lighting designer, Christian Vigsø. With the environment in mind, a key factor for the festival was to utilise light sources based on LED technology.

"It seemed natural to contact SGM in relation to this festival," says Elsig who was involved in The Spanish Steps, The Train Station Square's installation named The Spider, Hotel Saksildhus and other smaller one

Denmark - Naestved-based distributor, AV-Huset, has been appointed the Denmark distribution- partner for Pan Beam, the advanced steerable audio specialist from Wolfenbüttel in Germany.

Jens Ravn, owner of AV-Huset stated their choice for Pan Beam, "We from AV-Huset have been looking at the different systems appearing in the market and they all had their strong and weak points. As we were looking for a company that is not only specialised in steerable products, that had the leading designing technology and the feature set that the market required. We required a uniquely and prefect performance in combination with a simple, system set-up with an intuitive software, to prevent our dealers and installers need to be a programming experts to get the best results".

"In Pan Beam we found exactly this, but we also found a comprehensive range covering all of the applicat

USA - One of the nation's premier art fairs, this year's Art Basel in Miami Beach drew a record 75,000 visitors, who viewed exhibits from over 250 leading galleries representing 30 countries around the globe. None shone brighter, however, than the Alexander Mijares Gallery, which featured a massive 36ft wide by 26ft high surrealistic mural on its front wall, bathed in a stunning rainbow of colours by Chauvet Professional fixtures.

Chauvet Professional fixtures were also in high profile inside the Mijares Gallery, where award-winning Ovation E-190WW LED ellipsoidals focused warm white light on the most important works of art in the 30-piece display, giving them weight and articulation.

According to lighting designer Ruben Laine of DMDS7UDIOS, the Chauvet Professional products helped him meet the challenges of illuminating the outdoor mural and indoor space at Mijares, which, li

Brazil - Wireless Solution Sweden AB's award-winning W-DMX made Bradesco Seguros Christmas Tree a sparkling success in Rio de Janiero. This is the 18th edition of the annual Tree, which according to the Guinness Book of World Records is the largest floating Christmas tree in the world, standing at an astounding 85m high with an 810 m2 base and weighing in at a massive 542 tons.

The scenography and lighting design is by Abel Gomes from P&G Cenografia, and charms all the visitors of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and also those who follow the Tree on the Internet and social media.

The entire show was programmed using W-DMX. The Bradesco team needed to program from a long enough distance to get the right visibility. They team used 2 W-DMX F-1 units as transmitters and 2 W-DMX F-1 units as receivers, plus an antenna of 9 Db. They installed a grandMA console 800 meters away and we

USA - Two top performing artists - Fleetwood Mac and Maroon 5 - helped revellers ring in 2014 in Las Vegas with two shows using Robe equipment provided by VER, which included Robin Pointes, Robin LEDWash 1200s and Robin LEDWash 600 moving head fixtures.

Fleetwood Mac entertained the high rollers of the MGM Grand Casino in a special New Year's Eve VIP Party in the casino's Grand Garden Arena. The event's Show Designer of eight years, Benny Kirkham, claimed this season's show as "The biggest ever - massive - and more challenging this time".

Only an hour after Fleetwood Mac's regularly scheduled concert for the public on 30 December, Benny Kirkham and his crew began loading in at midnight to set up the VIP High Rollers party and concert where he supplemented the regular concert set-up with a whole new environment, and the Robe rig.

After 19 hours of prep, doors opened

Belgium - Belgian-based automation engineering specialists Wicreations designed and created five major automation elements for Mylène Farmer's highly visual 2013 Timeless tour, using a combination of bespoke and standard Wicreations products.

Mylène Farmer is one of the most successful French recording artists of all time. She has sold over 30m records worldwide and had 13 number one hits in the French charts eight of them consecutive, as well as working as a model and actress during a prolific and successful career.

Wicreations, renowned for their innovative work in the entertainment industry, were approached by the tour's production manager Didier Gaume and technical director Pascal "George" Meley, who have worked with them before on a number of projects, and asked if they could provide a number of solutions to help stage this spectacular show.

Timeless'

Australia - American rockers Fall Out Boy recently toured the country in support of their new album Pax Am Days which reached No. 2 on the ARIA album charts.

Lighting designer Robb Jibson toured a Vista L5, the latest addition to the Jands Vista range of consoles and control surfaces, with a Mac Mini based S3 as a system back up.

Robb has been a Vista user for over 18 months reporting that he was instantly blown away by the simplicity of the interface and the intricate timings that he could dial in.

"My favourite feature is probably the swing based FX," he added. "Not having to create multiple macro-based cue lists and the ease in which you can lock sync with the band and those FX. Close second would be the way the console deals with multipart fixtures and matrix FXs."

Robb further commented that he particularly likes how the software is designed

USA - The EZ4 from Elation Professional is a high-quality, 4mm pixel pitch LED video panel and the highest resolution LED panel offering in Elation's expanding line of affordable LED displays.

Designed for indoor use in installations, broadcast environments, corporate productions, car shows and more, this light weight yet sturdy panel is ideal when outstanding high-definition image quality is required, says the company.

Black face LEDs ensure high contrast while a high density of 10,816 pixels (104 x 104) per panel ensures a clear and sharp picture. Colours display vivid, consistent and uniform, and a brightness level of 1,200 Nits means the EZ4 performs well even in high ambient lighting conditions.

A high-precision die-cast aluminium frame produces a flat and seamless video display and professional-grade features like modular rigging and design options allow users to easil

USA - Since the launch of its Impact series of LED video display panels -featuring Cree high-brightness SMD (Surface-mount diode) LEDs - Lighthouse has dominated the outdoor SMD LED display market with more than 107,639sq.ft of active outdoor SMD LED area. Powered by LEDs from Durham, N.C.-based Cree, Lighthouse and its partners have wowed people around the world with installations such as the 2013 display at Safeco Field, home of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

At Safeco Field, ANC Sports Enterprises installed a Lighthouse display distributed by Panasonic which is the largest LED video screen in Major League Baseball. A Lighthouse Impact 16 using Cree CLV6 LEDs, Safeco Field's new LED display is 1080p high by 3840p wide, the equivalent of two side-by-side high-definition screens. Standing 56.7' (17.28m) high, stretching 201.5' (61.42m) across, and totalling over 4m pi

Germany - AVM Event GmbH recently invested in Clay Paky - it increased its stock with 60 A.leda Wash K10s, as well as various products made by other companies.

These lights were used for the first time in Halle 7 in Bremen, where several events took place in the second half of October. AVM has organised shows of all kinds for 20 years, including summer festivals, megashows and industry conferences, with between 100 and 20,000 guests.

"With its A.leda K10, Clay Paky has come up with an exciting LED washlight from every point of view," said Mr Wiegandt, the head of the German rental company. "Thanks to the individually controlled LEDs, the light offers an incredible variety of effects and functions. However, of course, the extremely high standards of Clay Paky lights also play a key role. They are extraordinarily light and therefore suitable for use everywhere.&qu

Europe - The Christmas Metal Symphony 2013 European tour blazed its way through Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany to packed houses appreciating the metallic full force of the Magnum Opus Rockestra directed by Joost Van Den Broek, a collaboration between the Metalforce 1 band and a 32 piece Hungarian symphony orchestra.

The featured vocalists for 2013 were Michael Kiske (Helloween), Joey Belladonna (Anthrax), Chuck Billy (Testament), Joacim Cans (Hammerfall), Udo Dirkscheider (ex-Accept) and Floor Jansen from ReVamp and Nightwish.

Lighting this mix of metal mayhem was Nick van Balen, who is based in The Hague, The Netherlands ... an experienced designer with a particular penchant for lighting the various genres of rock music.

He chose to light the 2013 Christmas Metal Symphony entirely with Robe LED Wash moving lights - 44 x LEDWash 300s and 12 x LEDWash 600s to be preci

Foundation Funding - Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation has announced six grants, totalling more than £150,000, which will support apprenticeships within professional arts organisations.

Five theatre organisations and one music festival will receive funding. Shared Experience will receive £105,000 over three years to support one trainee director and producer per year via paid six-month apprenticeships; Tangled Feet will receive £14,000 over two years to help fund its participation programme for young people; Manchester Royal Exchange's Young Company will receive £10,000; Chickenshed will receive £15,000 towards its Young Creators Programme; Icon Theatre in Medway will receive £9,000; and the Lake District International Summer Music Festival will receive £10,000.

Since the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation was re-launched in 2011,

Norway - When Ibsenhuset Theatre in Skien, Norway, was about to undergo a complete refurbishment, the technical managers looked for new lighting fixtures and controls that could take the theatre well into the 21st century. They ended up specifying over 100 ETC Selador Desire LED luminaires, along with two different - but connected - ETC Unison control systems.

The installation was complicated by the existing mix of DMX and DALI systems at the theatre, according to Benjamin Reinhoff, project manager at Elektrik Solutions, who supplied the products and helped with specification. "We installed two Unison Paradigm systems to control the new Selador LED lighting in the auditorium and around the stage area, as well as in nearby rehearsal and side rooms. There's also a new Mosaic processor for controlling the 600 DALI lights in the 800 square metre foyer, which is used as a perfor

France - Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris is one of the most fashionable streets in the world, and it is here that the flagship store of Hermès is located. This famous luxury department store, dating back to the 18th century, recently decided to decorate its façade and called in the established Paris-based technology specialists Lumière et Son to help fulfil the project.

Offering close cooperation, SGM's French distributor, Sonoss, delivered 360 LB-100 LED Balls (measuring 30 x 12m). The company's product and project manager, Vincent Criulanscy, explains, "They were looking for a 'soft' kind of illumination; different from that of a Christmas tree - more elegant."

It is not the first time Lumière et Son has selected SGM fixtures for their projects. Previously, the SixPack LED blinder has been used to great effect for fashion shows by Yves Saint Lauren

USA - Preston Hoffman provided a dynamic lightshow with a difference for the third consecutive year at the annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. He decided to use GLP's new compact impression X4S almost exclusively, bolstered by few other discharge or conventional tungsten effects.

The Pulse Lighting designer is no stranger to GLP's impression series (or the U.S. Cellular Center, Asheville, NC where the show takes place). Last summer he pulled 12 of GLP's larger X4 fixtures for the Red Rocks show by Slightly Stoopid in Denver, so he knew all about the strength, intensity and flexibility of the lightweight LED sources.

For the 25th edition of Christmas Jam, Dizzy Gosnell at Bandit Lites' San Francisco office - described by Preston as "one of the best in the business" - provided 56 of GLP's X4S for the special Christmas show, enabling the technician to group 36, divided

UK - Stage Electrics' popular regional exhibition, hosted by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, heads to the city of Cardiff on Friday 21 February. The one-day event aimed at schools, colleges, theatres, the arts, broadcast and entertainment includes over 25 industry leading manufacturers exhibiting their latest products in audio, lighting, video and staging in an intimate friendly environment.

The 2014 event welcomes new exhibitors, Allen & Heath, Chroma-Q, 5 Star Cases, Doughty and Robert Juliat, alongside Prolyte, Martin Professional by Harman, ETC, Avolites & Avolites Media, Le Maitre, Rosco, Philips Entertainment brands Selecon, Strand, & Vari-Lite, EM Acoustics, DiGiCo, Lee Filters, Sennheiser, Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Yamaha, ELC, Analog Way, Chauvet, Zero 88, Roland Systems Group, Pulsar, Swisson & Magic FX.

"We are looking forward to welcoming visitors to

USA - While the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is dubbed the 'Wizards of Winter' for their heavy-metal holiday songs, show designer Bryan Hartley wears the magician's hat as well. He made this year's The Lost Christmas Eve tour a bigger production than last year with the amazing trick of shrinking it - making three trucks and extra generators simply disappear!

His secret? Switching from some standard lighting tools to over 100 pieces of Robe's smaller-brighter-lighter Robin series fixtures - Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 1200s... all supplied by VER in Los Angeles.

TSO's $20m-plus production has performed for more than 7m people in over 80 U.S. cities in the short duration of this leg of the tour (under seven weeks). Because of the show's popularity during the short holiday season, they created duplicate productions to simultaneously tour the East and West coasts of

The Netherlands - Elation Professional will show a spread of new products at ISE in Amsterdam next month on Stand 11-H45.

On display will be two low wattage yet high-output moving head luminaires, the Platinum Wash 16R Pro and the Rayzor Beam 2R, both powered by Platinum lamp technology. In Elation's line of innovative LED lighting, the multi-functional Protron LED Strobe, as well as a pair of dynamic white LED luminaires, the DW Fresnel and DW Profile, will also be on display.

Platinum Wash 16R Pro: Featuring the new 1,500-hour Platinum MSD 16R lamp from Philips (330W, 16,000 lumens), this versatile moving head functions as both a beam and wash luminaire. It is loaded with features such as CMY color mixing plus fixed colors, 6.5-48° motorized zoom, beam shaper, shutter/dimmer and has an EWDMX receiver built in. Compact yet powerful, output is comparable to 1,000 watt unit

World - Lighting and stage designer Andy Hurst is utilising the razor-bright beam of the Clay Paky Sharpy for electronic dance music duo Chase and Status's first ever arena tour.

Inspired by the dance clubs of the nineties Hurst has put together a theatrical stage design of curvaceous trusses and Clay Paky fixtures, provided by Blackburn based hire company HSL, along with a set backed by five large video screens.

"The feeling of the new album is kind of nineties so I went for that look in my design," explains Hurst. "I remember how all the clubs were designed in circles, loads of circular tread plate everywhere so I have rigged lots of curved trusses on stage to give it that nineties rave sort of feel.

"I chose the Sharpys because I needed a small, lightweight fixture that was easy to rig but can still produce a bright enough beam to punch through all the

USA - American singer-songwriter Amos Lee has been on the road promoting his fifth studio album, Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites. The tour began 21 September in New York and wrapped its first leg 30 November in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Lighting designer Morgan Leek wanted to illuminate the folk artist by "creating a classic feeling show: clean, minimal and refined".

"I felt that the more common LED fixtures on the market were not appropriate for the aesthetic we were shooting for," explained Leek, "so I set out to find a US vendor that could supply some great fixtures that I had come across in Europe the previous year, but had not seen a lot of on the road. This led me to Bandit, and a rig that suited our needs perfectly.

"We ended up taking out eight GLP Spot One and 16 GLP X4S. These fix

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