USA - PLASA has announced that Steve Terry will receive its highest honour, the Eva Swan Award, which recognizes exceptional long-term commitment to the association. The award will be presented at PLASA's Annual General Meeting on Thursday, 22 October, from 2:30pm-4:30pm at the Westgate Las Vegas Casino and Resort.

Steve, vice president of research and development at Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC), has made a significant impact on the Association during his many years of service with the Technical Standards Program, the Entertainment Technician Certification Program, the ESTA Board of Directors and the PLASA Governing Body.

Steve's unparalleled contributions to the lighting industry include leading the team responsible for the development of the original USITT standard for DMX512 and the formation of the original ESTA Technical Standards Program. He was a founding member of

USA - Italian lighting manufacturer, Novalight, has introduced its latest moving light fixture - the NovaScope; now sold, supported, and serviced in North America by the entertainment equipment distribution company DNJ Pro.

Novalight's Nova-Scope is a weatherproof aerial effect light that can withstand all weather conditions. Using the HTI 2000W/D7/60 lamp combined with a different approach to reflector setup, the Nova-Scope provides a high output light, delivering stunning aerial effects.

This large scale effect light, while best suited for the largest entertainment environments, is still suitable for all forms of live performance, says the company.

The Novalight Nova-Scope can tolerate the harshest of production environments. The fixture boasts a seven option gobo wheel, a kaleido wheel effect, shutter, dimmer, and strobe effects, six colours, white, and CMY colour mixing,

USA - When frequent and heavy storms hit Texas recently, causing flooding and widespread damage across the Lone Star state, Omar Dawoud, promoter at live music venue, The Marc in San Marcos, felt he needed to do his part to help the community. So he organised Band Together Texas, booking headliner Blue October - with all proceeds going to the United Way of Hays County Flood Disaster Recovery Fund.

In order to provide relief as quickly as possible, the event came together in short order, and Dawoud called on Colorwave Lighting and other rental houses for gear. Colorwave Lighting owner Erik Johnson didn't hesitate to volunteer his equipment, made up of PR Lighting fixtures, for the charity event. "When Omar asked if we would want to be a part of this it was a no brainer," he stated.

The company provided an inventory to The Marc's house lighting designer Alex Soto, know

USA - Focus on the Family, one of the largest Christian ministries in the US, put out a request for bid to upgrade the lighting system in its Chapelteria, a 750-seat large multi-functional conference and event space at its headquarter campus in Colorado Springs. Focus on the Family's AV team had a set of lighting products in mind and worked with Ben Gleason of LVW Electronics, the local systems solutions provider that won the contract, to ensure their needs were met.

LVW reached out to Elation lighting who in turn put them in touch with Jay Cid of Professional Sound and Lighting Products, who was integral in determining the best Elation lighting products for the space. In response, a turn-key solution was created that provided Focus with an outstanding and cost effective lighting system.

Ken Toal, Focus on the Family's audio visual services manager, recently reflected on the p

USA - A small spec on the map in the western part of America's 46th most populous state is hardly the type of place where one would expect to encounter a traffic jam. However, anyone who journeys to little Sturgis, South Dakota (population 6,900) during the first week of August will find that every street has been turned into a virtual parking lot, not of cars, but of motorcycles.

From 3-9 August this year, Sturgis was transformed into America's eleventh biggest city, ahead of such stalwarts as San Francisco and Boston, as an estimated 1m bikers and friends descended on the town for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. At the centre of it all was a Sturgis landmark, The Knuckle Saloon, decked out for the occasion with a lightshow that featured close to 40 fixtures from Chauvet Professional supplied by Blue Seed Entertainment.

Erich Meitzner, the lighting director for the Casey Donahe

China - The first Infinity Summer Festival took place on 8 August in Shanghai, being the first interactive carnival themed music festival there. The festival was EDM oriented, with a lot of house and trance music.

The laser show was a central visual element of the event, so the organizers decided to go for high end laser gear from Swiss and German manufacturers. Ten SwissLas PM-10.000RGB lasers as well as six RTI PIKO RGB 18 were used to make this festival more than spectacular.

This whole laser setup had an overall laser power of more than 200W laser power and worked well with the video walls and conventional lighting, as the power was more than sufficient to cover the whole festival area.

Featured artists included Roger Shah, Dzeko & Torres, Alvaro, Genix and Ben Nicky.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Production Resource Group (PRG), the world's leading provider of entertainment and event technology solutions, today announced it will extend its branding in Germany and the UK to integrate the brand of the recently acquired XL Video Group. The integrated companies will be known as PRG XL Video for a transition period while the operations are being merged.

PRG will continue to use its brand name in all other countries across Europe and North America. XL Video teams in those territories will be immediately transitioned into the PRG family.

"Part of our decision to acquire XL Video was the premier value of its brand in many of our markets," said Jeremiah J. Harris, PRG's Chairman and CEO. "We recognize that the XL Video name and logo are synonymous with outstanding quality, customer service, and technical expertise in some of our territories, equal to that o

Canada - Toronto-based contemporary dance company, Ballet Creole, marked its 25th anniversary with many events and performances, including their annual spring season at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre. A.C.T Lighting, Inc., the exclusive distributor of Clay Paky fixtures in North America, helped lighting designer Brad Trenaman obtain a complement of Alpha Spot QWO 800s, which were not yet available from local rental houses. Trenaman also deployed Clay Paky A.leda Wash K10 and K20 fixtures during the season.

Ballet Creole's spring season featured world premieres of Agua Como Vida, Myth of Atlantis and Reflekson. It also included a remount of the company's very first piece, Fete.

"The theme for this year's season was water," says Trenaman, who has been with the company for just over half of its 25 years. "So I wanted a fixture

Israel - High profile Israeli rental company KolOr Eli - based in Ceasaria and owned by Linda and Eli Avitan - are delighted with their investment in Robe BMFL Spots, 14 of which were supplied by Robe's Israeli distributor, Danor Theatre & Studio Systems.

The BMFLs were the company's first Robe purchase. However via Danor Rental, they have regularly used different Robe products over the last two years, all of which helped in making the decision to choose BMFLs when seeking a powerful and versatile multi-purpose light source.

KolOr Eli was founded as a lighting and sound specialist in 1988 by Linda and Eli and with business booming, a few years later became a limited company. By this time they had a well-established client base and were looking after the technical requirements of several major artists including vocalist Shlomi Shabat, band Caveret and singer Gidi Gov.

"W

UK - Colour Sound Experiment has provided lighting kit to LD Alan King for his illumination of the castle at the antithetical theme park wonderland of Dismaland, a temporary, pop-up art intervention that turns the safety of simulacrum on its head - at the site of Tropicana, a derelict seafront lido in Weston Super Mare, UK . The experience is curated by graffiti artist and provocateur, Banksy.

The mangled, rusting, mean, grimy steelwork of the castle is a sinister visual centrepiece for the dystopian experiment, and has been constructed by art collective Block 9, known for their detailed, raw, edgy urban environments created at festivals and music events.

Alan regularly lights Block 9's scenic spaces, so they invited him to add some special hard treatment to their version of the sacred saccharinity of Anaheim's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

In keeping with the mean overall spirit

South Africa - Established in 2010 by Brian Chigwendere, rental company Puredeal is making waves in the entertainment industry and have taken ownership of a new Avolites Tiger Touch II to keep up with demand.

"We started off with an Avolites Titan One," says Chigwendere. He started the company after working at Gearhouse South Africa for eight years. "When I left I had a month's salary and my garage from which I operated," he says.

Hard work and good service has seen Puredeal grow in reputation and earlier this year saw Kgomotso Malbye join the team. "We were the first black rental company to do work at Vodaworld," commented Kgomotso Malbye.

The Avolites Tiger Touch II was purchased from Schalk Botha at DWR Distribution.

(Jim Evans)

Denmark - Martin Professional reports that the JEM ZR45 is now shipping. The JEM ZR45 is a high-end fog machine designed to deliver "superior and uninterrupted performance in demanding professional applications". With its enhanced and powerful 2,000 W heat exchanger, the JEM ZR45 produces an exceptional peak output suitable for major venues and stages in both install and rental markets.

The rugged yet weight-optimized JEM ZR45 also features variable output control for more subtle effects and is fully up-to-date with digital remote DMX and RDM.

The entire JEM ZR range is compatible with a wide range of JEM Pro fog fluids. As machines designed and built to last, the JEM ZRs will continue to perform with great output and low consumption.

"We have put a lot of effort into the new JEM ZR series with the goal of being able to quickly deliver a full family of profess

UK - Elation Professional's new Emotion moving head digital luminaire will have its European debut October 4-6 at the PLASA show in London where a number of other top innovations will also be on display at Elation Stand A40, including the world premiere of the newest Satura Series luminaire, the Satura Profile.

The Emotion attracted a lot of attention at the InfoComm show in North America in June with its next generation technology and accessible price tag and now it's European lighting professionals' turn to get a closer look at the compact yet powerful moving head digital luminaire. Another highlight will be the first showing worldwide of the Satura Profile, a powerful new LED-based color-changing moving head with 440W LED engine, framing system, zoom and more.

Also showing at the ExCel exhibition centre will be Elation's powerful Platinum FLX hybrid moving head, a multi-fun

UK - The London Studios on the South Bank are well known for hosting light entertainment and comedy shows. However, LD Martin Kempton was faced with a rather different challenge in studio 1 recently - a lecture on world poverty by Swedish statistician Professor Hans Rosling.

Despite sounding very dry, this was in fact surprisingly upbeat and a thoroughly entertaining presentation for BBC2 using a virtual reality graphics system called Musion. This state-of-the-art equipment enables the presenter to appear to be surrounded by objects, graphs, numbers and other images - all in a visually stunning way.

The LD had to avoid light falling on certain areas, whilst allowing the presenter the freedom to move almost anywhere. "Light levels were lower than normal but the production asked that the studio should not look dark on camera."

Martin requested that some set elements

UK - Arcadia's giant fire-breathing spider landed in the Queen's Square in Bristol and unleashed the new Metamorphosis show - compete with three mini-spiders, Lords of Lightening, an eye-popping mixed-media and visual extravaganza with high energy performer and DJ line up for two nights - enjoyed by over 20,000 people.

Working closely with Arcadia's technical production manager Tim Smith, Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) supplied projection equipment and crew.

The CPL team was led by Richard Burrow, who commented, "We are all passionate about our part in bringing the Arcadia concept to life, and it was hugely exciting and challenging to work in a completely different environment from a green-field site."

The juxtaposition of the 50 tonne spider, created from recycled industrial waste and the brainchild of Pip Rush and Bert Cole, and the historical - much of i

UK - Avolites' consoles and servers controlled diverse rigs on 12 major stages and further smaller performance areas at this year's eclectic Secret Garden Party festival.

More than 20,000 revellers travelled to Mill Hill Field in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire to experience the atmosphere and hear headliners including Public Service Broadcasting, Roots Manuva and Kate Tempest.

London-based Colour Sound Experiment supplied a 22-strong team of LDs and operators to man numerous Avolites Sapphire Touch, Quartz, Tiger Touch II with Wing and Expert Pro consoles. Jonathan Ricketts was head of lighting for the festival, working directly with festival producer, The Dark Horses.

On the Great Stage, Frankie McDade and Chris Brown manned an Avolites Sapphire Touch, with a Quartz running as backup. An ART2000 touring rack and Power Cube powered the rig, which included Robe MMX Spots and 600

USA - The 13,000 people who came to Gunstock Mountain Resort every day for three days to participate in the SoulFest Christian music festival could count on seeing a lot of good things, like inspiring speeches and great performances by bands such as Third Day, Tenth Avenue North and For King and Country. Another thing that those who attended this popular event were certain to see was a differently configured video wall on stage every day.

At the end of each day's performance the festival's video wall, which was made of PVP X6IP LED panels from Chauvet Professional, was taken down, reassembled and repositioned to give the stage a fresh new look that fit the needs of the next day's headliner band. "It's a good thing the panels are so easy to rig, because we had to take them down and put them back up on a daily basis," said Tim Messina, owner of Events United, which suppl

UK - British metalcore band, Bring Me the Horizon, recently rocked their high-profile main stage slots at the Reading and Leeds Festivals with a new lighting design by Ben Inskip - controlled by Jands' flagship Vista L5 console.

The band's long-time lighting designer, Ben Inskip designed a new lighting concept for the festival shows, which served as a launch pad for the group's new album, That's the Spirit, and the accompanying upcoming world tour.

"The band were really keen to make a huge impact as they haven't performed since December," says Ben. "We had the 'sunset' main support slot to Metallica, so I really wanted to impress and make the house rig and our floor package look like one design. Fixtures choice and some in-depth programming specific to this show was how I planned to achieve this.

"My choice to use the Vista L5 was instant. We didn'

The Netherlands - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) is showcasing a selection of the latest premium performance broadcast lighting solutions available from their portfolio of over 200 leading brands - on stand A70 in hall 11 at the IBC 2015 show (11-15 September, RAI, Amsterdam).

Staff from the company's dedicated lighting sales division, which has extensive experience supplying to the broadcast, film and TV industries, will be on hand to demonstrate the latest technologies showing exclusively on the AC-ET stand from Chroma-Q, and Fiilex. Additionally they can discuss the specialist studio lighting fit-outs service that AC-ET offers.

Designed and manufactured in North America, the Chroma-Q Studio Force LED range has been specially developed for studio and location use, and features both single and award-winning remote phosphor LED fixtures which produce a beautifully sof

USA - Bandit Lites has announced the addition of GLP impression X4 Bar 10 fixtures to its touring inventory. The high performance battens can be seen on the road with award-winning recording artist Jason Isbell who recently announced four sold out shows at the Ryman, a feat never before achieved in history.

Lighting designer Michael Cummings of Pulse Lighting has utilised 12 of them on the upstage floors for both beam looks, pixel effects and as a light curtain.

"We love them," said Cummings. "We use them quite a bit, and in fact, we are using some on Needtobreathe's tour as well."

According to GLP, the GLP impression X4 Bar uses high output RGBW LEDs that are packed tightly to give a full batten of light. High quality optics ensure a smooth, homogenised output across the batten through a broad pallet of pastel and saturated colours, allowing for subtle g

USA - Disco Donnie Presents was one of the drivers of the EDM movement in the '90s and remains at the top of its game today, producing over 1000 club events, arena shows and outdoor festivals a year. Creative Production and Design is a rapidly growing lighting and video company that has been spinning heads of late with its eye-popping work at major festivals. Together the two made magic happen at a recent Hardwell appearance in Dallas with help from a collection of Nexus LED panels, Legend moving fixtures, Amhaze hazers and PVP video panels from Chauvet Professional.

"We were really very, very happy to work with a legendary company like Disco Donnie Presents for an artist like Hardwell," said Justin Jenkins of Creative Production and Design. "We knew there would be a high level of energy at this event, so we wanted to immerse the whole stage in vibrant light and c

UK - Eaton's New Zero 88 FLX lighting console is proving a great solution for Howden Park Centre in Livingston, Scotland, a busy multi-functional venue featuring a 300 seater theatre, three fully configurable studio spaces, two galleries and meeting rooms, complete with a vibrant and varied programme of music, arts and performance.

The FLX console is a recent addition to the equipment inventory. The console was specified by Howden Park's technical co-ordinator Ian Gibson and theatre technician Stephen Oakes, who undertakes most of the show operation - and they are delighted.

Ian and Stephen first became aware of the FLX - launched at the 2015 Prolight+Sound, expo in Frankfurt - via a Zero 88 mailshot, which was followed up by a demo from Eaton's Paul McEwan.

The new console was delivered via Edinburgh based Zero 88 distributor Black Light, and is installed in the theatre at

USA - Scott Warner of Karate Pinky Visual Design specified four Robe Cyclones onto the current Sublime With Rome US tour for which he designed lighting, being co-ordinated on the road by programmer / operator Aaron Craig of AC Lighting Design.

Sublime With Rome is a musical collaboration between bassist Eric Wilson formerly of the band Sublime, and singer / guitarist Rome Ramirez, presenting an eclectic mix of Sublime's distinctive ska punk and their own original material.

Four Cyclones are on the tour - supplied by Karate Pinky Visual Design together with other special effects and the control console - and they are positioned upstage at the base of the backdrop.

Scott was the person who originally thought of the Cyclone - a moving head integrating a ring of 24 high powered RGBW multichip LEDs and a fan as a tool to create some fabulous visual atmospheric effects. He took hi

Spain - The Laserworld Group continues to grow, with Laserworld Ibérica, a sales office in Spain which will handle all the company's Spanish and Portuguese customers.

"Being able to provide great customer service everywhere in Europe is very important to us," says Norbert Stangl, CMO of the Laserworld Group. "Running our own sales and service office locally helps our Spanish and Portuguese distribution partners in improving their customer base and their services. With Daniel Patricio, Laserworld has acquired an experienced sales manager with a laser show background: He is already familiar with the products of the Laserworld Group from his own experience and thus can start over immediately."

The Laserworld Ibérica office is located in Basauri-Bizkaia and provides sales support as well as show laser light services. The local staff speak Spanish

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