South Africa - The spectacular Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 proved yet again why it holds a triple-award winning status as it performed fantastic light effects at the 2nd Annual South African Premier Business Awards in Johannesburg.

Attended by none other than the country's president Jacob Zuma, the awards, organized by Outlaw Events, is a lively celebration of outstanding achievement in the world of South African business and enterprise. Production director Chris Bolton of Johannesburg-based production specialists Keystone Productions designed and directed the project's impressive set, AV and lighting elements.

"I knew straight away that I wanted to make the B-EYE the crowning jewel of my design," says Bolton. "I saw the fixtures in Italy last year and instantly wanted them. All I can say for these awards is - wow they did not let me down, what an event."

USA - Elation Professional invites visitors to Booth C5446 at InfoComm in Las Vegas for the debut of several new products including the world premiere of the new EMAG 4 Pro, a 4.8mm pixel pitch LED video panel optimised for the fast setup and tear down of on-the-road productions. Also featuring in Elation's growing line of LED video displays will be the EPT9IP, an ultra-bright 9mm pixel pitch LED panel that ticks all the boxes for a professional LED display.

Debuting on U.S. soil at the Las Vegas Convention Center from 18-20 June are three new luminaires in Elation's popular Platinum range of professional moving heads - the Platinum BX, Platinum SBX and Platinum Profile LED - two discharge lamp-based and one LED-based. Other Platinum range fixtures on display will be the Platinum Wash 16R Pro, a flexible feature-packed luminaire that can be used as both a wash and beam, and the

Denmark - Harman's Martin Professional has introduced the Soft Lens accessory for the MAC Quantum Wash light. This optional accessory is designed to enhance the capabilities of the MAC Quantum Wash and optimise the fixture for theatrical applications, the company says.

The Soft Lens accessory allows the MAC Quantum wash to create a more compact and dense beam. By utilising the Soft Lens accessory, the synthetic LED look of the lens is reduced for a more Fresnel-style appearance of the front lens.

"With the Soft Lens accessory, the MAC Quantum Wash is the most effective LED washlight available for professional theatrical applications," commented Markus Klüsener, product manager for Stage Lighting, Martin Professional. "The lens creates a more even colour wash that enhances the audience experience at any theatre production."

The lens also eliminates potent

UK - Chauvet Professional will be showcasing the Ovation series of fixtures on stand 42 at this year's ABTT Theatre Show (The Old Truman Brewery, London - June 11-12). The company's Ovation line has been created especially for stage and theatre and includes Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal-style luminaire, Ovation C-640FC cyc light, Ovation F-165WW and Ovation F-95WW Fresnel fixtures.

"Chauvet is committed to theatre and to the elite community of creative and technical lighting users therein. The Ovation line was created to directly address issues faced by the many theatres still using large volumes of older luminaries and cannot afford to switch over to more energy efficient solutions due to the large capital investment requirement," says the company.

Chauvet Professional is a member of the Theatres Trust in the UK. In the US, Ovation and other Chauvet Professional produ

South Africa - The new and recently opened 6,000-seater auditorium at the Christian Revival Church (CRC) in Silver Lakes, Pretoria, South Africa is benefitting from an all-Robe moving light rig, which was specified and installed by DWR Distribution.

DWR's Robert Izzett was contacted by CRC's Head of Media Clinton Powell, who oversaw all the technical aspects of the project which has been three years in the making and replaces CRC's previous temporary tented venue on the same site.

"The initial brief from CRC was for a lighting rig that would allow them to stage Idols without needing to hire in any additional equipment," explains Izzett, adding that they were also keen on having the latest and best technology available in-house. He decided to call on Idols SA's real LD Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier to consult on the basic design, and from this a specif

Poland - For the recent canonisation of Pope John Paul II in Poland, TSE Grupa played a key role as one of the longest-serving lighting companies in the Polish market. TSE Grupa supplied all lighting equipment and multimedia solutions, and carried out the installation at the Sanctuary of John Paul II near Cracow, while their own Adam Tyszka and Sebastian Pachciarek were responsible for designing, preparing and coordinating the light show for the great celebration concert.

For this major event 45 SixPack blinders and 44 P-5 wash lights were deployed. TSE Grupa has had the LED fixtures from SGM as part of their stock almost since product launch, and the company says it is more than satisfied with its investment, having used the fixtures in various applications.

Pachciarek commends the SGM fixtures for their low weight, low power consumption and quality of light output. "The

UK - Lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment kick started another busy festival season this year by supplying lighting equipment and design, LED screen, rigging and crew to We Are FSTVL which made some serious noise at Damyn's Hall Aerodrome, Upminster, east London.

It was the second event after bursting audaciously onto the EDM scene last year and this year the organisers upped the ante on several fronts, expanding the event to two days, increasing the level of production and securing an action-packed line-up with main stage headliners Richie Hawtin (Saturday) and Fatboy Slim (Sunday).

Colour Sound deployed five trucks of kit, 26 crew, around 500sq.m of their proprietary BT LED screen, over 350 moving lights and lots of strobes, blinders and atmospheric effects to the site, where all their elements were co-ordinated by crew chief Andy Melleney.

Colour

USA - At the Lightfair Show in Las Vegas (3-5 June), TMB will introduce Firefly's premium LED Marquee/Festoon lighting systems to the American market. The Firefly range offers the "old school" look of traditional Marquee/Festoon lighting without the headache of constantly changing the bulbs, the risk of broken glass, and the danger and power draw of high voltage.

Available in frosted versions in warm white, cool white, and a selection of rich, deep colours, plus the warm white 'filament' bulbs, the Firefly system runs on safe 24-volt AC or DC, with shatter-proof bulbs, making it economical to operate and virtually maintenance free. The clear V6 and V12 'Filament' bulbs will satisfy the most discerning lighting designer with a beautiful warm, vintage look and unrivalled colour temperature consistency.

Also in the Firefly range are a selection of unique flat, self-leve

France - In the Bohemian Marais District, in the centre of bustling Paris, a new tech hub opened in the final months of 2013. The Silicon Sentier aims to provide a digital ecosystem to help aid and accelerate tech innovation in small and upcoming companies.

Media and tech designers Blow Factory offered the Sentier the idea of providing some interactive fun and excitement, using Light Emissions creative LED video display system. Blow Factory owner

Paula Guastella had worked with Light Emissions previously in London, and knew that the Art system could provide the brightness and pure video speed needed.

Blow Factory's Paula Guastella explains: "We wanted to surprise people entering the lobby. As they walk past this large glass wall with colourful moving images, they spot their own 'body shadow' shown on the screen. They stop, turn around and wave and have a little dance!&q

Spain - A Chinese telecoms giant recently staged their 'Mobile Changes The World' event for over 1,000 special guests at the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, with a gala evening of entertainment at the St Jordi Arena. This was produced by Imagination Asia, a global creative agency headquartered in London (UK), complete with lighting design by Steve Nield, which featured over 150 Robe moving lights.

Nield, working directly for Imagination's Shanghai office under senior executive producer Linda Bell, specified 80 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 800s for the event - together with other moving and generic luminaires, strobes and LED fixtures. Unbeknown to him until he arrived in Barcelona, it would be the first time that he used Robe Pointes.

72 Pointes were installed on the lighting rig by lighting supplier Arcoiris Lighting System, replacing the original beam fixtures

UK - PixMob recently partnered with Coldplay to amaze their fans during their concert at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, on Saturday, 24 May in Glasgow. While singing A Sky Full of Stars, the second official single from their latest album, Ghost Stories, a shower of stars fell on the audience, delighting the crowd.

At the climax of the concert, 10,000 blinking PixMob Helicos were dropped, creating a beautiful surprise for the thousands of lucky fans attending the show. As Chris Martin sang, stars slowly began to descend.

The Helicos, printed with a design inspired by the band's album cover, were dropped from four scissor forklifts placed around the crowd at a height of 20m. They blinked with bright white light, falling at a speed of 1.5 m/s into the hands of the attendees.

The main challenge for PixMob in creating this performance was the weather, specifically the w

UK - White Light is returning to the annual ABTT Theatre Show for 2014, after many successful years at the show. The leading lighting supplier for West End and touring theatre will exhibit on stand 70, showcasing the latest in lighting, AV, and effects equipment from popular manufacturers including: ADB Lighting, Altman Lighting, Avolites, CORE Lighting, ETC, GDS, Interactive Technologies, JB Lighting, LSC Lighting, Look Solutions, Philips Selecon, Rainbow Colour Changers and Wireless Solutions

White Light team members will be on hand from all areas - hire, sales, installation, events, and technical service - to answer questions and discuss project and venue-specific solutions for lighting challenges of all shapes and sizes.

Those planning to attend the show can register for FREE through White Light by visiting bit.ly/abttshow2014.

Managing director Bryan Raven describes Whi

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. have been appointed as the exclusive UK dealer for the Prolights brand.

The range of lighting, video and effects products was recently officially unveiled at PLASA Focus, Leeds, receiving a great deal of interest and an overwhelmingly positive response from a wide range of visitors to the show.

The Prolights range offers designers innovative technology solutions which deliver reliable, creative tools at a price that all productions can afford. By taking advantage of high efficiency production methods, products deliver the ideal balance between quality and value to professionals looking to maximise the return on their investment.

The impressive lighting range features over 200 high performance product lines from a wide selection of LEDs, including Pars, battens, moving lights, matrices, Fresnels, Profiles and effects, to Plati

South Africa - The evolution of Ultra Events started in 1996 when the Cape Town based company supplied DJ equipment to the industry. Within two years, the demand for dry hire and technical support overtook sales, and as a result the full time rental company was born. The revolution of Ultra Events has been continuous, morphing from an initial sound company to provide a full house of services including sound, lighting, staging and events, and as a testimony of keeping up to date with the latest technology, the ownership of 12 Robe Pointes.

"I saw the Pointes at Mediatech in 2013, and being a true Capetonian, it took me a while to come round and make a final decision," said Costa Champanis, owner of Ultra Events. "Due to their versatility and market acceptance we have now embarked on first purchase, 12 of 24 units."

The purchase was made from the Robe South A

USA - A pair of Robert Juliat Victor followspots with DMX dimming has been installed at Studio 54 in Manhattan where the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Cabaret is packing the house. Tony Award-winner Alan Cumming reprises his role in Cabaret which also stars multi-Oscar nominee Michelle Williams who is making her Broadway debut.

"I was very familiar with Juliat fixtures from working in Europe," says Mike Baldassari, co-lighting designer for Cabaret with Peggy Eisenhauer. "The Victor followspot was in the exact neighbourhood of what we needed at 1800 watts. We did a shoot out with some other followspots to test not only for brightness but also for noise level. The shoot out was facilitated by electrician John Wooding; Ron Fogel of Fogel Associates and Fred Lindauer of Robert Juliat provided the Victors for us to test."

Baldas

Chile - The South American Games (a.k.a. ODESUR Games or Juegos Sudamericanos) are a regional multi-sport event featuring competitors from across South America and organised by the South American Sports Organization. Starting 1978 in La Paz, Bolivia the event is staged every four years, and the last edition was in Santiago, Chile. The Games have featured an equivalent to the Olympic Flame since their inception: the South American Flame, which is relayed from Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, to the host city.

Lighting designer Luis Pastor is known to be a big MA fan. Therefore it was no wonder that he used two grandMA2 full-sizes, one grandMA2 light and four MA NPU (Network Processing Units) for the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 South American Games. "It was an extremely important event for Chile its government," said Pastor, "The challenge was tremendous as the setup had to be

UK - LightGeist, specialists in cloud-based audience engagement products for live music and sport events, has announced the appointment of Simon Hicks as director of software products. An experienced product development manager and software engineer within the industry, Hicks will be responsible for the continued development of software for LightGeist's future product roadmap.

Hicks gained experience as a software engineer with Carallon Limited, developing products for leading industry clients, before branching out into product management for Pharos Architectural Controls, where he later joined the board as technical director.

"I'm thrilled to have Simon come on board the team," says LightGeist CEO Liza Sutherland. "LightGeist has developed, and will continue to build, exciting new audience engagement products for live entertainment. Simon's talents in product d

Sweden - As part of the 'by Light' project in Malmö, Sweden, Bo Andersson and Johan Moritz created the idea and artwork for a special installation on one of the city roundabouts in 2004. Now came the time to renovate the installation and Moritz called upon SGM to deliver the LED lighting.

Mikael Uddh from SGM Sweden suggested the LP-700 LED Pix as best fit for purpose, and so the installation comprised 20 cabinets with three LP-700 strings in each (a single string incorporates 56 RGB LED pixels in a chain measuring 6.75m and provides a pixel pitch of 120mm).

The concept for this installation is based on a scene from the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, where a man builds in a four-walled house turned inside out. Thus the door that people would be inclined to take into the house opens into a lawn with benches and pedestrian pathways.

Mikael

On The South Bank - Arts Council England is to fund the lion's share of a £24m repair and maintenance programme for the Southbank Centre's music venues and gallery after warnings by English Heritage that restorative work "could not be further delayed". The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery will benefit from work aimed at improving workshops and backstage areas, disabled access for audiences and artists and restoring building interiors to their original appearance.

ACE is to provide £16.7m - equivalent to 70% of the total cost - with the London venue intending to raise the remainder through trusts, philanthropists and audiences. The work had originally been announced in March last year and was planned as part of a larger, £120m redevelopment of the complex following significantly increased attendance numbers to the Thames-side comp

USA - The Tempe campus of Sun Valley Community Church recently installed a Martin Audio MLA Compact loudspeaker system as a key component in a significant upgrade of its technical capabilities.

According to Eric Johnson, technical director for Sun Valley, "Sun Valley Tempe merged with Bethany Church two and a half years ago and we inherited a large campus and an auditorium with technical capabilities that were deficient by today's standards. The audio system was old and primarily designed for natural speech, orchestra and choir reinforcement in an acoustic setting. That, plus the building is a complex geometrical design, basically a five-sided pentagon with a seven-sided auditorium that's about 160 degrees wide, has a raked floor, many complex angles and no parallel surfaces. Needless to say, this presented a real challenge when it came to choosing a new loudspeaker system.

USA - The summer Broadway season is heating up and the Tony Awards are just around the corner. Both long-running shows and new productions are getting accolades for their incredibly ambitious and striking lighting designs that are created with the latest technology. In every show on Broadway, ETC equipment plays a big part in accomplishing the awe-inspiring lighting creations, especially ETC's trusted lighting control systems, which can be found in nearly every Broadway house.

ETC's Eos control family - made up of Eos Titanium (Ti), Gio, Ion and Element desks - is the most prevalent on Broadway. The family was developed to be both designer- and programmer-friendly with its powerful software and direct programming syntax. "Most desks are designed solely for the programmer," explains ETC Eos product manager Anne Valentino. "We paid attention to what the lighting des

UK - City Theatrical will be demonstrating their new technology at ABTT (Stand 14) on 11-12 June 2014, at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, including new QolorFlex LED Tape and D Series Low Voltage Dimmers, SHoW DMX wireless DMX products, data distribution products from Pathway Connectivity, and Moving Light Assistant software.

Andrew Voller and Chris Hurst will be on the stand to demonstrate Moving Light Assistant - an application designed to document both the moving light rig and console data used on moving light shows used in the entertainment industry. The application runs on both Apple Mac OSX (Intel only) and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

City Theatrical's SHoW DMX is the wireless DMX of choice for lighting professionals on West End and Broadway shows, permanent entertainment installations, architectural landmarks, major music tours such as U2 and Madonn

USA - The 1,500-seat Worship Centre at the Centerville Campus of Fairhaven Church in Ohio has been in the process of renovation for the past few years. Installed just in time for this year's Easter services by Scenic Solutions was a 135-panel Elation Professional EPV6 LED video screen with high resolution 6mm pixel pitch.

"We chose to go with an LED wall due to our desire to 'future-proof' the Worship Center and set us up for the next decade or more visually," explains Mike Rall, who heads a full-time video staff at Fairhaven

"The debut of the LED wall at our Easter services provided an incredible visual experience for the nearly 8,000 attendees that weekend as we were able to create custom in-house videos that spanned the entire length of the wall, really tying in the themes of our songs and other special elements together well."

Dan McLaughlin, a partne

USA - GrooveBoston stages some of the most legendary dance parties in the US, and each year produces a college campus tour taking their unique, fun-loving atmosphere on the road for the full enjoyment of their enthusiastic audience. A massive part of creating that "electro-awesome" experience is ensuring that production values are high and that the design and technical elements of the show are equally as spectacular and memorable as the music!

Nathan Almeida from East Coast Lighting & Production Services (ECLPS) has had the honour, for the past eight years, of ensuring that all the energy and magic coming from the stage reaches right out and touches everyone in the audience... and this year he had the help of some Robe moving lights for the GrooveBoston Vitality tour.

This year's Vitality theme embraced life, liveliness and the general feelings of being in a natural

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