UK - Aurora Lighting Hire has returned to the studio with award winning lighting director Chris Rigby for the new series of Alan Carr Chatty Man.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the ITV London Studios, Chris has used a variety of light sources across the stage to compliment the stylishly decadent set. Versatility is key throughout the installation, with proceedings staying clear and bright in Alan's sofa area, whilst the audience also remain illuminated. Additionally, a 'rock and roll' approach has been taken to lighting up the weekly musical performances.

To help keep things looking suitably glamorous, Aurora supplied an extensive LED package which has been integrated throughout the interview area. Pulsar Chromabatten 300 and Chromastrip X3s have also been incorporated to light up the set pieces, with Martin Aura Wash units hung overhead to provide additional w

South Africa - A theatrical performance of song and dance infused with African emotion and humour, made Elixir the Musical an absolute delight. The show opened in Mamelodi Community Hall on 19 August, to a large audience who experienced musical theatre in their own community hall.

The official opening was at the Breytenbach Theatre in Sunnyside on the 26 August and formed part of Tshwane University of Technology's Hello Community Theatre Arts Festival, sponsored by City of Tshwane, National Arts Council, Breytenbach Theatre, Blond Productions, MJ Event Gear, Blackmotion, DWR Distribution, Production Projects and 93.6 Tshwane FM.

TUT's Breytenbach Theatre in-house lighting equipment was utilised for the performance and included nine Robe Robin 600LEDWash, two Robe ColorSpot 250, 22 Longman LED PARs, Philips Selecon Pacific Followspot, six Philips Selecon SPX Profiles. Th

Ghana - Lincoln Community School in the Ghanaian capital of Accra has taken delivery of a new dot2 core console, which will be used to control LED lighting in their multi-purpose hall, which is utilised for various sporting activities as well as to stage productions and general events.

Lincoln's high school drama and film studies teacher Iain Cowieson was searching for a company to deliver and install a new lighting system for the hall, and discovered DWR Distribution, MA Lighting's South African distributor, based in Johannesburg, on the internet. DWR technical African sales representative Johnny Scholtz just happened to be in Accra working on another project when the office received the call, so was able to visit immediately and access the situation.

He met Iain and the school's chief procurement officer Anthony Quainoo, who discussed their needs and invited him to propose a

USA - Elation Professional's new Platinum FLX multi-functional moving head luminaire is now shipping. The Platinum FLX houses a patent-pending dual optical system that gives it clear advantages over traditional "hybrid" systems, says the company.

With zoom control in spot, beam and wash modes, this 3-in-1 hybrid luminaire allows for a narrower beam angle and brighter central point in beam mode (1.8° - 18°), a more uniform, clearer and brighter spot field (2.9° to 25°), and a higher-quality, flat field wash effect that can zoom as well (6.0° to 42°). The dual optics work independently and switching between beam and spot modes is both quick and accurate. Designed for a wide variety of professional stage and special event applications, its 470W Philips™ MSD Platinum 20R lamp delivers the power users need while still providing an energy efficie

UK - Bristol-based technical solutions company Fineline provided lighting for four main music performance areas at the 2015 Somersault festival, a five day extravaganza of music, fun, food, discussion, debate and outdoor adventure located amidst the heart of South West England, in the picturesque environs of Castle Hill country estate near the north Devon coastline.

It was the second year that Fineline has been involved as a production supplier, following their very successful introduction to the event last year via Andy Cotton of TAO Productions. This year, the scope of their work was lighting the Main Stage, The Communion Stage, the Forrest Party non-stop dance experience and the Bandstand.

The Main Stage was 15m wide and housed in a tensile structure with no room to build a ground support system, so a grid had to be constructed between a triangular structure upstage and a b

Albania - After an extensive refurbishment, Folie Terrace, the largest nightclub in Albania by capacity, has reopened with several new features including a retractable roof and a new lighting, video and audio solution provided by Harman Professional. Developed and Installed by Albanian Harman distributor, Prosound, the refurbishment comprises of a brand new interior, including over 5,150 lighting and video components from Martin Professional and a complete sound system from JBL Professional.

With a capacity of 1,500 people, Folie Terrace is one of the largest and most popular nightclub/live music venues in the Albanian capital city of Tirana. One of the club's special features is a retractable roof, which can convert the club into an open space or close it off to contain the noise levels to adhere to downtown Tirana's strict noise ordinances. In early 2015, Prosound was contacte

South Africa - Wired Media is a Durban, South Africa based AV rental and production company focussed on bringing the very best production values to a range of corporate events and presentations.

The company was founded 10 years ago by Clint Stevenson, who originally concentrated on audio and AV. As it became successful and busy, Clint realised that a key to maintaining this was to offer his clients a full package including lighting, and so started looking at purchasing some specific elements of lighting.

Wired Media has most recently invested in Robe's Pointes, miniPointes and MiniMe fixtures - all supplied by SA distributor DWR.

The four Pointes were the first Robe purchase, shortly after the unit was launched in 2013. These proved a great hit with everyone, so he followed up buying the four miniPointes and two MiniMes this year.

The miniPointe is a favourite already. 'It

UK - The London Club and Bar Awards, an event celebrating the city's nightlife industry, featured an array of fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

Now in its twenty-second year, the awards recognise the biggest achievements by members of the club and nightlife industry within the past twelve months, awarding gongs in 13 categories, including Best Club, Best Bar and Best Party. Having supplied the event for several years previously, London-based Halo was once again tasked with supplying this year's event, which took place at the Intercontinental Hotel. Halo called upon their extensive roster of Chauvet fixtures to create a show worthy of its legacy.

In order to create that classic showbiz look for the event, Halo owner and LD for the awards Yann Guenancia embraced an assortment of Chauvet Professional fixtures, including 10 Legend 330SR Spots, eight Legend 412 moving washes, nin

USA - Syncrolite LLC has announced that Jerry Trojan, current executive vice president, will assume the role of chief executive officer and that Steve Washington, current vice president of operations, will assume the role of chief product officer.

Trojan joined Syncrolite full-time in June 2013. Before becoming CFO and EVP Trojan had been part of the Syncrolite team as a valued consultant since 2004.

Prior to joining Syncrolite, Trojan had served as the CFO for several public and private commercial companies outside the entertainment lighting industry and worked at VLPS Lighting Services International Inc. (formerly known as Vari-Lite International Inc. and Showco Inc.), beginning in May 1995, ultimately serving as Vice President of Finance and CFO until the sale of the company to Production Resource Group (PRG) in 2004. He is a Certified Public Accountant and MBA.

Washingto

UK - Elation Professional has added new innovative products to its list of world premiere product launches scheduled for the upcoming PLASA show 4-6 October London at Stand A40.

Joining the world premiere of the Satura Profile LED-based colour-changing moving head will be the world premiere of the ACL 360 Roller, a unique moving head luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of high-output narrow-beam LED effects; and the world premiere of the Platinum HFX, a new mid-sized addition to Elation's hybrid family of beam, spot and wash luminaires.

Also showing at the ExCel exhibition center will be the European debut of the Emotion moving head digital luminaire; Elation's powerful Platinum FLX hybrid moving head; and the high-output ACL Series of narrow-beam LED effect lights.

The new ACL 360 Roller is a unique moving head luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of high-output narrow-beam LED

UK - Lighting and video control specialist Avolites is going all out for PLASA London this year with a brand new stand designed to echo the coherence of the current Titan and Ai product ranges.

This will feature two specific areas, focusing on Network functionality and Lighting and Video integration. Avolites' stand D10 will promote a compatible family of products which all work intuitively together.

Highlights of on-stand products include the new Arena console with Optical Titan Net Switch, both of which are shipping on the date of the show. In addition, new software in Titan version 9.1, featuring enhanced pixel mapping functionality, fully custom Key Frame Shape engine and fully featured theatre functionality.

"There is much talk about the future of the PLASA London show, but this year Avolites is investing more than ever before," says Avolites sales manager Stephen Ba

USA - The summer of festivals continues for Bandit Lites with LouFest, St. Louis's two day music festival. With record breaking attendance of 25,000 both days, and a line-up that included Hozier, The Avett Brothers, Ludacris, Young the Giant, Umphrey's McGee and Billy Idol, LouFest continued its rise as one of the can't miss weekends in live music.

Bandit Lites worked with design firm 3SRcreative to provide the festival lighting for all four stages including the main stage which consisted of a Tyler Truss rig containing VL 3000 Spots, VL 3500 Spots, VL 3500 Washes, Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, Thomas 8 Lite Moles and Clay Paky Sharpys in groups of four.

"The Clay Paky Sharpy groups served as intelligent ACL bars in a way, but provided great eyecandy with their tight beam and high illumination output," said Carter Harris, one of Bandit's crew chiefs at LouFest.

For t

UK - Arcadia's awesome new immersive spectacular Metamorphosis came alive in a city centre setting for the first time last weekend in Queen Square Bristol, where together with the Lords of Lightening and an array of breath-taking aerial stunts the 30 minute mixed-media show united the energies and experimental spirit of rave and physical theatre with some impressive technical wizardry.

London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment renewed their excellent working relationship with Arcadia, providing lighting for the 12m high three-legged spider built out of industrial scrap metal. This invigorating project was co-ordinated for Colour Sound by Haydn Cruickshank (H) and Arcadia's technical production manager, Tim Smith, with Stu Barr looking after all the Colour Sound elements on site, working alongside four Arcadia technicians.

Says H: "We

USA - They say you can find anything you want in Las Vegas. Adventure Combat Ops, one of the city's newest attractions, falls into that category. Located in a 77,000sq.ft former warehouse just off the famed Strip, this venue serves up a two-hour adrenaline rush of non-stop action by enlisting customers to battle an invading army of zombies in a realistic urban warfare setting.

The experience is, as its promotional literature proclaims, a "full sensory immersion". A big part of that immersive sensation is created by an army of LED fixtures from Chauvet Professional, deftly deployed by Steve Hansel of XS Entertainment LLC.

Hansel has installed eight Strike 882 high-output blinders, three Amhaze II water-based haze machines, four Atmos voluminous fog machines and eight Vesuvio RGBA water based foggers with LED lights throughout the sprawling urban battle zone that makes

South Korea - The economy in South Korea is growing and so is the demand for entertainment technologies. In response, The Laserworld Group has opened an office there. Based in Daejeon in the centre of South Korea, Laserworld Korea handles sales in the area as well as providing local show laser light services.

"Especially high quality, high power show laser light systems of European manufacturing are in demand" says Peter Jeong, managing director of Laserworld Korea. "We definitely know of the demand for quality products in our country and thus see great potential for products of the Laserworld Group of any product series."

(Jim Evan)

UK - Singer songwriter Charli XCX has publically stated that she experiences sound-to-colour synaesthesia and 'sees' music in colours - so it was not a complete surprise to show designer Rob Sinclair and lighting designer Greg Hill when she requested coloured smoke for her current tour. Prominent smoke is also in tune with the 'horror prom' theme of the current live show.

Rob immediately knew the solution - Robe Cyclones - having used them very successfully on the Kaiser Chiefs' tour last year.

Greg, who is out on the road LD'ing the tour, has been working with the innovative and interesting Charli XCX since 2014, and Rob came on board in early 2015 as show designer. Some elements of the show look were already in place, including a set of false scenic Orange amps which are up-lit very effectively with LEDs, so Rob then chose lighting fixtures and positions to evolve the aesthe

UK - PLASA has announced the first of its nominees for the 2015 Awards for Innovation, which recognise and reward new product ideas. Nominated products should meet at least one of the Awards' criteria for 'Innovation' - to offer a new style of thinking, an improvement in existing technical practice, a new or improved aid to safety, a new commercial advantage, use new patents or unique intellectual property, or introduce new technology, materials or manufacturing techniques.

The final assessment of those claims will take place at the PLASA Show, where an independent panel of industry experts will judge the entries, based on the strength of their innovation alone. Respected for their impartiality, the panel will hear a five-minute presentation from each of the nominees, and have the opportunity for questions and answers, before making their final selections.

There are no product

UK - Last week, Photograph 51 opened at the Noël Coward Theatre in the West End to rave reviews. Marking Nicole Kidman's first appearance on the London stage for more than 17 years, Photograph 51 tells the extraordinary story of Rosalind Franklin, the woman who cracked DNA and the sacrifices she made in the pursuit of her place within scientific history.

The play is being produced by the Michael Grandage Company and this current run marks its UK premiere. White Light was called upon to provide the lighting equipment for this much-anticipated production.

The show was lit by Tony and Olivier award-winning lighting designer Neil Austin, who has an extensive history of working with WL. He comments: "Photograph 51 is an interesting show as it is told as a posthumous memory by the other scientists around Rosalind. It flicks between character dialogue to di

USA - With seven generations of Skywriter models before it, the all-new Skywriter HPX from X-Laser USA takes its place in the middle of X-Laser's diverse lineup. X-Laser engineered the Skywriter HPX to seamlessly transition from creating high-impact aerial beams at one event to projecting crisp, vivid graphics at the next.

"The HPX impresses because it's versatile and powerful, but also has a raw power about 60 percent greater than its "high-power" predecessor, the Skywriter Chroma Mini HP," said X-Laser president Dan Goldsmith. "This is our take on the laser equivalent of a multitool, and the HPX has the perfect pedigree for rentals, installations and even light touring."

New for the Skywriter HPX is a completely sealed optical deck that dramatically reduces maintenance intervals to help save users time and money on laser maintenance. The HPX's s

UK - Rambert is Britain's national dance company and has built a reputation of commissioning leading dancemakers, composers and designers from across the globe. It presents new and historic dance works to audiences in all parts of the country, performed by world-class dancers and accompanied by live music. The company recently decided to install a new lighting set-up in its London base, with this being used more and more frequently as a performance space. For both the purchase and installation of its new equipment, Rambert turned to White Light to draw on the company's extensive stock range and expertise.

Rambert is based on London's Southbank in an award-winning building which was officially opened by HM The Queen in March 2014. The move to the new location not only reflected the prominence of the company within British dance but also sought to provide the public with greater a

USA - Elation Professional Cuepix Panel LED matrices and Elation Colour Chorus LED batten wash lights were used by lighting designer Bobby Grey to light the Tripolee Stage at the multi-genre Electric Forest Festival 25-28 June in Rothbury, Michigan.

Stage design for this year's Tripolee Stage was by Heather Shaw and her team at multi-disciplinary design firm Vita Motus Design Studio, who has created innumerable touring stages in the past and did it again at this year's Electric Forest.

Event co-producers Madison House and Insomniac decided to make something more out of this year's Tripolee Stage and asked Vita Motus to bring it into a more music appropriate space while maintaining the overall look and feel of the beautiful Electric Forest setting. Vita Motus's Future Present stage concept imagined an ancient relic built on earth by future generations erected 1000s of years in

UK - Building on the great success of the 'Robe Arena' at PLASA 2014 to mark the company's 20th anniversary, this year Robe takes another large space at PLASA 2015 in the ExCeL Centre, and will make a major impact with its newest products and technology, focusing on innovations specifically aimed at theatre and television lighting applications.

The powerful features of the new DL7S LED profile fixtures will take centre stage, highlighting its quality of light, subtle and intricate full spectrum colour mixing and high colour rendering index - all suitable characteristics for theatre and TV environments.

Also new will be The Square, bringing the possibility of combining video projection, pixel animation, beam effects and LED wash lighting in one fixture with continuous pan/tilt rotation movement; the ColorStrobe from Robe, an RGB version of the potent new LED Strobe from Robe; T

Europe - Hawthorn, one of London Stock Exchange's '1000 Companies to Inspire Britain 2015', has continued its reach into Europe with two significant events for September 2015.

The creative production company was commissioned by event management experts Taylor Bennett to design and produce all things technical for business events in Cologne and Barcelona.

Hawthorn delivered Taylor Bennett's creative exhibition stands for Adobe and Channel Advisor at dmexco, 16 - 17 September. The Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference 2015 is recognised as the premier global digital marketing event, drawing over 31,000 visitors to Koelnmesse, Cologne.

Last week, Hawthorn's technical team moved south to Barcelona to help realise Taylor Bennett's content rich party for Herbalife. Taking place at Poble Espanyol, over 3,000 guests were treated to a lively festival style reward and recognition

Italy - More than 100 Raptor moving heads from D.T.S. installed by rental company AMG International, highlighted the finals of Miss Italia 2015, hosted by Simona Ventura and broadcast live on La7 television on 20 September.

The beauty contest that crowned Alice Sabatini - chosen from 33 final candidates - was held for the second time at the Pala Arrex of Jesolo, a large modern multi-functional centre dedicated to concerts, congresses, fairs and sporting events.

(Jim Evans)

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