UK - A final few tickets are available for Rob Halliday's Computers in Entertainment talk tonight at the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley.

In his talk, Halliday will look at how computers moved into entertainment lighting, from pioneering systems such as Strand's IDM up to the remarkable Lightboard created for the National Theatre, which still has some tricks that the current generation of PC-based control systems in use today can't replicate. The common link across all of these systems: lighting's critical need for things to happen right now, right on the beat of the music or the snap of an actor's fingers, not a few moments later when the computer decides it's ready.

The event takes place at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley, Milton Keynes on Thursday 12 March 2015. Doors open at 7:00pm. Tickets range in price from £4.50 - £7.50.

To purc

UK - Lively US pop punk band All Time Low have just completed a co-headlining UK arena tour with UK rockers You Me At Six, and are kicking off their new Future Hearts album campaign.

All Time Low's Boston based lighting designer Jeff Maker lost no time in specifying Robe's BMFLs on the rig, together with an all-Robe floor package comprising 24 x Pointes, 27 x LEDBeam 100s and 11 CycFX 8s. These joined the overhead rig - shared with You Me At Six - comprising 18 x BMFL Spots and 18 x Robe LEDWash 600s.

Jeff worked closely with You Me At Six's LD Louis Oliver from Okulus on creating the production design for the tour, with Leeds based Zig Zag Lighting appointed as the tour lighting contractor. As the second UK rental company to commit to buying Robe's new signature moving light, Zig Zag actually purchased their BMFLs to go on the Gaslight Anthem UK tour at the end of last

Austria - Vienna has hosted the Wiener Eistraum (Vienna Ice Dream) every year since 1996. This huge mobile ice rink measures over 75,300sq.ft. It is assembled in Rathausplatz, the square in front of the town hall, and is one of the largest public attractions in the city. Nearly 250 miles of pipes are laid and connected to three chillers to chill the rink. Alongside the always long-awaited skating and curling rinks, the 'Traumpfad' (path of dreams) made its debut in 2005. This 2460ft -long path leads visitors through the southern part of the city park.

This year, an inauguration party was held in grand style for the Eistraum's 20th anniversary. One grandMA2 light and three MA 4Port Nodes were used to control 40 moving lights, including Clay Paky B-EYE K20s. Christian Weisskircher was the show designer and Jürgen Erntl was in charge of programming and setting up the lights.

UK - Drapes, soft goods and LED special effects specialist S+H Technical services supplied large quantities of silver lame draping for the series and final of ITV's new Get Your Act Together talent show, where assorted celebrities had the chance to let their hidden talents shine by learning and polishing new skills ... and performing live onstage.

The eye-catching set was designed by Patrick Doherty with whom S+H has a long-standing working relationship. Patrick's design was a nod towards bringing a touch of classic 'variety' nostalgia to the performance space . . . but with a contemporary twist. One way of doing this was through the smart application of softs.

The set architecture was based around three shrinking perspective arches. The two larger (outer) ones were constructed using a steel structure with offset mirror and glitter interior, and a contrasting X-dome int

UK - Ambersphere Solutions was formed back in 2011 with just four staff to look after the UK sales, service and support for Clay Paky and MA Lighting. Since then the company has gone from strength to strength, growing steadily whilst maintaining its strong support ethic.

In June 2013 lighting manufacturer Robert Juliat came on board and just over a year later Ayrton joined the Ambersphere family. Likewise, from the original team of four, the company's West London base is now home to a much larger workforce and is still recruiting.

Sales director Philip Norfolk explains: "We are very proud of our reputation for delivering the very best in sales, customer support and service so expanding our team was a vital ingredient in maintaining or even improving the level of service we offer to all of our customers."

Most recently, Ambersphere has taken on an additional five pe

UK - London-based creative technology expert Realtime Environment Systems Ltd (RES) has provided the media server know-how in collaboration with LM Productions and Mapp3D Producciones for a 'full dome' installation celebrating Mexican culture.

The temporary 25m white dome was constructed at Potter's Fields Park on London's Southbank for two weeks as part of the official Year of Mexico in the UK celebrations. Inside, the Mexican Tourism Board pop-up featured a huge projection mapped dome, where images of the country's rich cultural and natural heritage swirled above visitors' heads.

RES's Mark Calvert worked closely with LM Productions' Tim Kingsmill and Stephen Harvey to supply an Avolites Ai EX8 Pro 2 media server running the latest software - Ai V8 - which features the powerful new Autoblend feature. This feature uses a camera-based warp and blend tool set, allowing m

UK - Avolites provided lighting control to Paines Plough's Roundabout which won Theatre Building of the Year at the 2015 Stage Awards. The touring pop-up theatre features lighting controlled via an Avolites Sapphire Touch console running Titan Version 9.

The structure, described as "one of the most exciting new spaces in the country" was praised for its unique portability by the judges. Roundabout shares the honour with The Everyman in Liverpool.

The Roundabout is one of the first venues to utilise Titan Version 9, having had close involvement with the Avolites team. Lighting designers Emma Chapman and Howard Eaton specified Avolites for the installation, with Howard particularly keen on Titan for its Pixel Mapping ability.

Avolites technical director, JB Toby and lead software developer, Oliver Waits had close involvement with the Roundabout team, developing softw

UK - The new Chroma-Q Color One 100 premium performance LED Par is being utilised on some of Northern Ireland's most prestigious opera and television projects after Belfast-based ACK Productions added the fixture to its rental inventory.

ACK Productions opened for business in 1991 and is a specialist hire company, installer, systems integrator and reseller, offering a wide range of theatrical equipment and services tailored to suit the needs of schools, theatres, venues and live events.

Owner, Alastair Kerr first encountered the Color One 100s at PLASA London 2014, and invested in a quantity of the units soon after.

"Lighting designers have historically not been interested in our LED Pars, but this has now changed as the technology has advanced," says Alastair. "I was immediately impressed with not only the intensity of the Color One 100s, but also the dimming

UK - In response to a recent increase in demand, Stage Electrics has decided to invest in a fifth manufacturing workshop. The already busy manufacturing function assembles a range of products including internally wired lighting bars, facility panels, equipment racks, mains and low voltage cables as well as standard and bespoke stage management desks.

This change in demand has prompted the decision to move the process nearer to the components stock, which will allow the team to cut their current production time by 15% and support the manufacturing department's effort of hitting their operational targets with greater ease.

Head of manufacturing, Richard Thompson comments: "The existing workshops are at maximum capacity therefore this new infrastructure is vital to the busy manufacturing process we have here at Stage Electrics. Much of the £1.5m that the department tur

Denmark - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has announced the appointment of Brith de Blanck in the new role of regional sales representative for Denmark - with immediate effect.

Brith has over 25 years of experience working in sales andmarketing roles for various technology and media companies. Since joining the industry in 2006, she has gained extensive commercial experience and knowledge of the latest entertainment technologies whilst working in product marketing roles for Martin Professional A/S and Harman International.

This previous experience makes her well placed to provide the highest level of local sales and support for the many exclusive and key technology brands available in this region from AC-ET. These include the Chroma-Q range of premium performance LED entertainment and architectural lighting solutions. Other technologies include the Jands range of award

USA - Elation Professional has announced two new ellipsoidal spot fixtures with the superior quality of light required for broadcast and theatre environments, the multi-colour Colour 5 Profile and the warm-white WW Profile.

Both the Colour 5 Profile and WW Profile emit an exceptionally flat field of light with CRI's over 94 for more faithful reproduction of an object's colour. Both luminaires support multiple interchangeable lens options - 19°, 26°, 36° and 50° (sold separately) - making for highly effective and highly flexible directional spot luminaires. Manual focus and a four-blade framing system allow for full control of the beam shape for more precise illumination with less light spill. Both luminaires support B-size metal or HT transparency gobos for custom gobo projections.

The Colour 5 Profile is an ellipsoidal spot that houses a 180W five-colour RGBAM

UK - A lighting project for Stansted Airport designed by Morgan Sindall Professional Services (MSPS), the multidisciplinary design and engineering firm, working with lighting manufacturer OSRAM has been nominated for a prestigious Lighting Design Award.

The nomination for the Low Carbon category marks the second accolade for MSPS' electrical engineering team in three years.

To win the highly-competitive Low Carbon award, a project must demonstrate significant energy savings through excellence and innovation in terms of design, equipment or technique.

The project was for Stansted's 306m undercroft. The brief was to optimise lighting levels with improved controls that could vary illuminance levels, to reduce maintenance costs, and future proof the system so that it could be updated or integrated with other building management systems when required.

Daniel Eggington principal

UK - Brit rockers You Me At Six have stormed through the UK this month on their first ever arena tour. Lighting designer Louis Oliver of Okulus chose an array of Clay Paky's newest product, the award-winning Mythos, for his vibrant show design.

Co-headlining with pop punk foursome All Time Low, the band played such venues as Cardiff Motorpoint Arena and London's O2. For this run of major shows, Oliver used his design for the band's Cavalier Youth touring campaign. However, he scaled it up with more dramatic looks, using 27 of the super powerful Mythos supplied by Zig Zag Lighting.

"For the arena tour, we just made everything bigger and grander," says Oliver. "The video screen behind them has expanded so when we started looking at the fixture choices for the run we had to keep this in mind. Having fixtures that could not only complement the content but cut throug

USA - Barry Manilow has taken to the stage for his One Last Time Tour with Bandit Lites providing the lighting. In what is being hailed as his grand finale (or at least a goodbye to a full production touring show) Manilow brings his epic catalogue of hits from his 40+ year career to the adoring masses.

Back in 1998, Seth Jackson was told he was 'filling in for a guy' and now jokes, "I don't know when that guy is coming back!" "Over the years I moved from lighting director to lighting and set designer, production designer, and now I'm the show's creative director and production designer," he said. "We've been around the world a few times, spent seven years in Las Vegas residency, and now I guess we've got One Last Time."

Planning for the tour started back in October with conversations between Manilow and Jackson starting with a blank drawing board

UAE - Lighthouse is one of the most successful and prolific lighting and production design practices in Dubai. Headed by Terry Miranda and his brother Steve, Lighthouse is busy continuously through the thriving events season in the UAE, and also works in other parts of the Middle East.

The Mirandas founded the company 10 years ago in 2003, initially with Terry as an LD and since then have evolved into a complete turnkey design and production house with a reputation for imagination and flair.

Lighthouse invested in Robe products immediately after they set up, and have stayed with the brand. They now have over 250 Robe units of various types which are used almost exclusively to facilitate their own shows.

The kit ranges from the most recent CycFX 8s, MMX WashBeams, Robin Beam 300s and PARfects - to older products like the ColorMix 240, ColorSpot and ColorWash 575 and 1200E ATs

USA - Wireless LED lighting manufacturer Core Lighting enjoyed a busy PLASA Focus in Orlando last month and has already committed to the Kansas City event in May.

This was in fact Core's second PLASA Focus - their first being in Baltimore in 2014, and since that time, the brand has upped the ante with the opening of a new US operation based in Virginia, which was launched in November.

Says UK based Core Lighting's MD Phil Ion, "The Orlando expo was great timing for us in relation to the launch of our American operation a few months earlier. The location was excellent as with the numerous entertainment industry businesses operating out of Orlando and the place has a real buzz about it."

The latest Core innovations were showcased at the exhibition, with particular emphasis on the new PinPoint and the new Mk2 version of the best-selling ColourPoint battery powered upl

The Day the Music Died - The Music Producers Guild is backing a campaign to ensure that songwriters get a larger share of royalty income generated by digital music sales. Spearheaded by the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and entitled The Day the Music Died, this initiative will focus on the role and importance of songwriters and composers in the digital music industry. It will press for three key actions - a 50/50 split of gross digital royalty income, the removal of auto-predictive search functionality in search engines, which point people to illegal content and a push for all digital advertising income to be paid to creators for all usage.

BASCA is also asking for more transparency around digital deals and is calling for improved regulation of illegal content on search engines, plus the easier removal of infringing websites and apps. P

South Africa - Durban in South Africa once again came alive with the buzz and the excitement of the 2015 Metro FM Awards, with Robe BMFL Spots taking centre stage - as part of a rig of nearly 150 Robe moving lights - for a stunning stage presentation at the Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre.

Staged for the third consecutive year right in the heart of the city, attended by 4000 enthusiastic guests and VIPs, the massive evening organised by one of the country's leading radio stations was broadcast live on national channel SABC1 and saw the presentation of 20 coveted awards and nine special live performance collaborations.

Co-ordinating all the technical elements was Dream Sets. Their Project manager was Robert Hoey, who was also working on the event for the third year for event producers, Blue Moon. Lighting designer Francois van der Merwe from the Wizardry Group wa

Czech Republic - Often hailed as the 'Czech Pink Floyd', progressive rock legends Stromboli have played a special one-off sold out show at Prague's O2 Arena to celebrate their 30th anniversary, with lighting and set designer Radek Havlicek choosing to use an array of Clay Paky fixtures to complement his impressive volcano-themed set.

Havlicek, of design agency and rental operation Pink Panther, worked alongside his colleague Petr 'Panki' Volek to choose 50 x Clay Paky A.leda Wash K10, 20 x Sharpy, 12 x Alpha Beam 1500, 24 x Alpha Spot 1200 and 12 x Shotlight Wash fixtures for the vibrant and immersive design, which was centred upon a vast volcano set piece to represent the band's name.

"We rigged some of the Clay Paky fixtures on ringed trussing around the volcano," explains Havlicek. "We positioned 14 of the K10s, which we used for vibrant washes of colour, on

UK - Warner Music UK has chosen the reliability and quality of the Chauvet Professional PVP S7 LED video panels for showcasing the latest music videos at their West End offices in London's Kensington Borough.

The 3-by-2m screen, consisting of 24 individual PVP S7 panels, was installed to project content visible from the high street over 500m away, by Emiror Research, a team of specialist audio consultants who pride themselves on creative and innovative electronic installations.

The company attends to the audio and electronic installation needs of Chappell Music and Atlantic Records amongst other prestige clients. The screen forms the public part of a larger installation of screens throughout the property. Run via the proprietary Chauvet VIP drivers, through a HD Kramer switching and matrixing system, the screen updates an older Barco product.

Emiror Research CEO, Giles Smith

Denmark - When the specifiers of the aesthetically stunning new build Musikkens Hus (House of Music) in the northern Danish city of Aalborg were planning the venue in 2009, they filled it with some 250 traditional tungsten Source Four fixtures. Although by the time the venue opened, the rig seemed outdated, with the help of ETC's Danish distributor Bico, the venue nevertheless ended up with the most up to date lighting products on the market, including ETC Gio control, Sensor3 power control and over 50 ETC LED fixtures.

The project was first specified - and budgets allocated - when LED fixtures were still in their infancy and would not have been relied upon as a venue's main house lighting; tungsten was still in charge. So in 2013, in order to help the 20,000 sq m venue plan for the future, Bico's project manager Søren Jørgensen worked closely with venue consultant

Germany - Jazz and pop star, Roger Cicero and his band have been on tour throughout Germany and Austria promoting his latest CD, Was Immer Auch Kommt.

Lighting, sound and stage design, were of the highest quality to complement Cicero's superior mix of swing jazz.

The prime service provider Soundhouse commissioned the company Big Mama Production from Hannover for the implementation of the lighting. The rig featured semi-circular segments of staggered truss, with PR Lighting fixtures much in evidence.

Among the effects used by lighting designer Fabian Kuhn was a selection of XR200 Beam and XLED 590 as well as some powerful XL5000 series spots, which were provided by Focon Showtechnic, PR Lighting's German distributor

Jens Ottenhus from the German distributor Focon Showtechnic says, "PR Lighting fixtures are finding their way increasingly into professional rental

Germany - Three international entertainment technology brands - Altman Lighting, Core Lighting, and Interactive Technologies will team up to showcase the latest in lighting and wireless control solutions at the Prolight & Sound exhibition in Frankfurt from 15-18 April. Visitors will find products from all three manufacturers located on Hall 9.0 Stand A65.

Core Lighting, the UK manufacturer known for its innovative, wirelessly controlled LED products, will debut its new LED batten - the StripPoint. Featuring 18 RGBW LEDs, the W-DMX controlled StripPoint delivers 4000 lumens of output and is powered by a lithium ion battery. Available in 1m lengths, the fixture also features individual pixel control and an IP65 outdoor rating. Also a first for Prolight & Sound, CORE Lighting will display the new PinPoint wireless LED pinspot complete with Bluetooth and W-DMX control. Joining these

Germany - Zero 88 is set to launch a new lighting console, FLX at Frankfurt. Says the company, "FLX creates more time to be imaginative, inventive and efficient ...Its clean, straightforward, intuitive user interface offers tools like Patch Wizard and Auto Palettes to take care of all the prep work, so LDs and operators can be free to work faster and more harmoniously."

The FLX will offer straightforward three-step programming - what, how and where - you want it, streamlining time and the operational process.

Further, "Even when working with fixtures that colour mix using different methods, the software will work everything out so all the fixtures respond correctly and accordingly.

"The simple yet sophisticated philosophy of FLX enables operators of all backgrounds and experience levels to feel instantly comfortable, due to familiar industry standard synt

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