USA - PixelFLEX has won its second consecutive Parnelli Award for Indispensable Video Technology. At LDI 2015, this year's award was presented to the Nashville-based LED video screen manufacturer during the 15th Annual Parnelli Awards Ceremony held at the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for their innovative FLEXCurtain HD LED Video Screen.

"What a tremendous honor for PixelFLEX to not only be nominated for two consecutive years, but to actually bring home the award once again, we are all very thankful to the voters and Timeless Communications," said David Venus, PixelFLEX director of marketing. "We strive every day to create the most technologically advanced LED video screens for the live event and entertainment production industry, and the 2015 Parnelli Award is a wonderful validation that we remain on the right path."

(Jim Evans)

UK - BGLX Production Services started life as Blue Giant Lighting just half a dozen years ago. Since then the company, under the guidance of director Francis White-Robinson, has grown and expanded enormously. Now a fully fledged production house, BGLX services the complete needs of an eclectic mix of clientele, supplying lights, sound, AV and crew for corporate events, touring acts and one-off shows.

"I was pretty much bought up on MA consoles; my very first professional job was at Cromer Pier Pavilion Theatre with a grandMA1 light which I believe is still in use," opens White-Robinson. "When I went to university, I purchased a 2-port node and that quickly became the standard control along with OnPC. Since then, I have used a grandMA2 on numerous occasions but the company has never been in the position to purchase one. Then I heard about the dot2."

White-Ro

UK - Cult US punk rock band Offspring recently played two major UK dates in Manchester and London whilst warming up for a festival run, with all their characteristic onstage rambunctiousness, further energised by a lightshow created by long term LD Lawrence Upton who is based in Chicago. The gigs were also part of on the ongoing Coming For You world tour ahead of the band's ninth studio album, which is expected in 2016.

Lawrence utilised Robe BMFL Spots for the first time, 16 of which were provided by Leeds based Zig Zag Lighting, together with another 52 Robe moving lights - 20 x Pointes, 22 x LEDWash 600s and 10 x 600E Spots. Zig Zag, was one of the first rental companies to invest in the fixtures.

Lawrence's show - he has worked with the band for some years - is full of big, bold, loud, hard-edged rock-out looks, for which BMFLs are absolutely bang-on to match the ba

Mexico - A crown jewel of Mexico City's club scene is Hyde. Decorated with LED panels and colour changing Swarovski candelabrums, the club makes a powerful visual impression. Recently that impression was ramped up even further by the installation of a new lighting system featuring 32 Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

Rodrigo Molina of Light Moxion created the new system, using a lighting design fashioned by Michael Meacham of iDesign Productions (Miami) to bring more movement and energy to the popular club, which regularly showcases big name DJs from Las Vegas, New York and Europe. Molina and Meacham's plan called for 16 Rogue RH1 Hybrid and 16 Rogue R2 Beam fixtures to be installed over the dance floor and performance area.

The new lighting design is built around two concentric circular structures in the middle of the ceiling, which were positioned around a huge cande

USA - The new season of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC) premiered on 29 July with lighting designer Victor Fable turning to a lighting rig from Elation Professional to light the recently revived dance reality show competition. Victor served as lighting designer for the first five seasons of the show, which had a seven season run that ended in 2012, so when the dance competition was resurrected this year for season eight, they knew exactly where to find an experienced television LD who also knew what the show was all about.

Season eight, titled America's Best Dance Crew All-Stars: Road to the VMAs pitted six all-star dance crews against each other - including five previous champions - with the stage at Warner Brothers Studio 19 in Los Angeles the site of weekly dance offs for the $100,000 grand prize.

"They didn't have a huge budget and I had little ti

USA - Pulse Stage Lighting of Union, NJ recently provided a range of Avolites consoles for The Rock Carnival at Oak Ridge Park in nearby Clark, lighting acts like Godsmack, Slash, Stone Temple Pilots, Anthrax, Sevendust and dozens of other hard rock bands on three stages over two days.

To best accommodate the festival's lighting needs, every stage was equipped with an Avolites desk: a Pearl Expert with Touch Wing on Stage A, Avo's flagship Sapphire Touch on Stage B, and a Tiger Touch on a third smaller stage featuring mostly rock tribute acts.

When Pulse Stage Lighting president Scott de Villers first took his company out of his basement and into a pickup truck in the early '90s, he worked with Avolites products. Today, Pulse has grown into a regional powerhouse supporting acts like Alicia Keys, Neil Diamond, Smashmouth, Salt-N-Pepa, Coolio and Adam Lambert, as well as events

USA - It is one of New York's chicest event venues. Commanding incredible views of the city's harbour from Brooklyn's trendy Red Hook neighbourhood, Liberty Warehouse has been the scene of parties for big name celebrities from every field. Jay Z and Beyoncé danced the night away at this Civil War-era waterfront warehouse to celebrate the release of Hov's Magna Carta Holy Grail. When Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy for the presidency, her first stop in Brooklyn was at a Liberty Warehouse fundraiser.

When New York A-listers tie the knot, they often choose to hold their weddings and ceremonies at this prestigious facility. This was the case recently when a prominent event planner got married. She called on Jeffrey Kwan of Canal Sound and Light to light the ceremony. Kwan delivered an elegant lighting package with mood-setting uplighting and stylish pin spotting

UAE - A team of Avolites S4 servers, Expert Pro console with Wing and TitanNet Processors were deployed to control more than 350 fixtures and 150sq.m of LED screens for an extraordinary party to open WHITE Club Dubai's new season.

Procom Middle East, the Dubai-based professional audio, lighting and video equipment supplier and Avolites official distributor delivered the venue at the request of Addmind, the venue's owner and manager.

They teamed up with club lighting designer Dave Parry of Most Technical, lighting programmers Ross Chapple and Tony Chidiac, and Immersive's John Munro and Martin Harvey to create the awesome event.

"The club's opening party set a new frontier in entertainment technology, giving a 'reality-altering' experience with impressive lighting shows, effects and a cutting edge video mapping show on a 3D video wall," says Procom's Rami Harfouch.<

Canada - October is a big month for Montreal-based crowd activation pioneers, PixMob. After illuminating crowds at a massive event for every day of the month they're finishing the month with their own North American tour.

Four NBA teams chose PixMob to light up their season openers, taking place over three days. From 28-30 October the Sacramento Kings, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indianapolis Pacers will transform their audiences into a human canvas made of light.

After illuminating the NBA All-Star weekend earlier this year, PixMob has become the go-to company in the sports world, known for transforming an arena of 20,000 people into a crowd united by technology.

NBA season openers aside, next week will be a busy one for PixMob. Its creative and production teams will be in the following places simultaneously: Dubaï for Sensation, an electronic

South Africa - This year's Rocking the Daisies - which coincided with the festival's tenth birthday - was the biggest and best year yet. It was the fifth time that Kilowatt AV saw involvement in the festival, this year being commissioned to conceptualise, design and fully execute four of the eight stages (where they incorporated Avolites Ai technology and Robe fixtures) as well as multiple activation areas.

Rocking the Daisies was held at the start of October at the Cloof Wine Estate in Darling, under an hour's drive from Cape Town, and included a line up of international and local musical acts, camping, relaxing and good food. In fact the owners never suspected that what started off, as a small festival on their tranquil grounds, would turn into one of the most popular annual music occasions on the South African calendar.

"We were commissioned by Seed Experiences to prov

Sweden - Hyrljudet is a fast-growing technical production and rental company based in Goteborg, founded in 2005 by Kristoffer Jansson.

Literally translated, the name means 'Sound Rental', but Hyrljudet supplies complete production packages - incorporating design, sound, lighting and video - to a variety of concert tours, music events and corporate clients, with a special interest in the creative and atmospheric engineering of clubs and parties through exciting and challenging visual elements.

The most recent equipment investment has been in 24 of Robe's Pointe multi-purpose fixtures, which have gone to work over the summer in the two largest of the three separate summer club venues that Hyrljudet is servicing with equipment and crew.

"The Pointe is a good lightweight, medium-sized fixture with great cross-rental potential," comments Kristoffer, "Looking at the

USA - In a ceremony at the Las Vegas Convention Centrelast week during the LDI 2015 tradeshow, Live Design recognised the new ProPlex EZ-LAN Unity 20 with an LDI 2015 Best Debuting Product of the Year Award.

ProPlex's EZ-LAN makes managing today's complex show networking easier and accessible for everyone. These simple to operate yet powerful managed Gigabit Ethernet switches distribute up to four discrete networks - e.g. lighting, audio, content, server, console, communications, etc. - quickly, effortlessly, and simultaneously. Users untrained in the complexities of managed networking can easily isolate networks and access and change VLAN assignments with one button.

"Managed Ethernet switches are very complicated to use," explains TMB product specialist, Ashley Simper. "The ability to distribute up to four discrete networks with a single button makes life easi

UK - dbn Lighting from Manchester recently designed and supplied lighting equipment to two innovative site-specific shows in Hull created by outdoor arts and performance specialists Walk The Plank, in their role as artistic directors of Hull Freedom festival - a diverse mix of arts, music and cultural events staged over three days in and around the city of Hull.

dbn is a regular collaborator with Walk The Plank, known for their 'out-of-the-box' approach and imaginative, eye-catching public art presentations which challenge, engage and appeal to wide and diverse audiences.

dbn's Stephen Page and Nick Walton lit the two one-off shows which formed two of the main spectacular set pieces for the festival.

Using the River Hull as the narrator, Voices of Freedom , the opening night spectacular took place along its banks in between the Scale Lane Swing Bridge and Myton A63 Ro

UK - HSL is supplying lighting equipment for the popular Bill Kenwright production of The Glenn Miller Story, currently touring the UK tour with veteran entertainer Tommy Steel in the lead role. The show features a lighting design by top theatre LD, Nick Richings.

HSL's John Slevin is project managing with Emma Nolan and comments: "We're really proud to be involved in this production, it looks and sounds great and is really engaging audiences old and young."

The action takes everyone back to the early days of Glenn Miller's career, his passion for music and the development of his distinctive and complex swing sound.

The lighting plot utilises seven over-stage LX bars and features a wide variety of lighting fixtures including over 60 moving lights. Forty of these are from Robe's DL LED series -luminaires especially built for theatre applications - which were

Australia - Melbourne hire company Resolution X is the first company in the world to purchase the new Martin RUSH MH 6 Wash, the moving head based on the popular RUSH PAR 2 RGBW Zoom, utilizing the same LED engine and zoom system.

"Res X has over 120 Martin MAC Aura yet however many we purchase, they are never in the factory as everyone wants them from theatre to TV to events," remarked Tim Hall, managing director of Resolution X. "For quite some time, we have realised that an Aura is actually too bright in a lot of the applications we have been using them. So as soon Show Technology and Martin told us about the Rush MH6 we knew we wanted them. It allows us to provide a more cost effective option for our clients without compromising on quality. Another bonus is that the optics match both the MAC Aura and the Rush PAR Zoom."

Designed for night venues and liv

UK - Theatre Projects has appointed theatre consultant and international auditorium acoustic designer Rob Harris as a key consultant.

The move marks a significant strengthening of Theatre Projects' acoustic and theatre design team, as the company embarks on a number of high profile design projects worldwide.

Harris's impressive 35-year career as an acoustics specialist has seen him amass a plethora of prestigious design credits for cherished performing arts buildings including: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester; City Recital Hall, Sydney; Kilden konsertsal, Kristiansand; Bord Gâis Energy Theatre, Dublin and Kings Place, London.

Specifically, Harris is renowned for his acoustic design for some of the world's most iconic opera houses. These include collaborations with TP on both Glyndebourne Opera House and Oslo Opera House. In addition he has led on the Copenhagen Opera House, t

USA - The 2015 edition of LDI revealed a lively market, and was yet another success for the Clay Paky. In addition to gaining the visitors' approval for its new products, Clay Paky also won two significant international awards.

Clay Paky's innovative new scanner the Spheriscan won the LDI Best Debuting Product award "for making the scanner fixture relevant again and moving the state of the art in reflected beam fixtures by several orders of magnitude". Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky's sales manager for the Americas, and Ben Saltzman, president & CEO of ACT Lighting, accepted the award from Marian Sandberg, content director of Live Design and LDI.

Pio Nahum, Clay Paky's CEO, commented: "We are truly satisfied the market has appreciated the effort we have made to re-invent the scanner using the latest technology. A moving mirror can still be very useful owing to i

USA - Impact Youth Camp in San Antonio is a two-week long church retreat that attracts high school and middle school students from churches from all over Texas. Over 1200 students attend, participating in group seminars, praise and worship.

The organisers of the event turned to DiTech AV of El Campo, TX to handle the lighting, audio and video design and production - and powerful fixtures from PR Lighting formed a major part of the lighting inventory.

The production has grown substantially since Paul Guthrie, owner of DiTech AV became involved with the event 10 years ago. This year they exceeded expectations and challenged themselves with a design that departed from anything they had done in the past.

Guthrie worked with his LD Dan Brunson to conceive the design. With the stage being so large, the biggest challenge was creating an intimate feel to the space, without losing it

USA - It was a capacity crowd at Rupp Arena 16 October, as the University of Kentucky's Wildcats took the court for their annual Big Blue Madness. The exhibition basketball game marks the first 'official' practice, and consists of grand spectacles, lasers, fireworks and stunning lighting provided by Bandit Lites. Bandit has provided the lighting for Big Blue Madness since 2011, and every year the team works to outdo the year before, with this year being no different.

Lighting designer Aaron Swetland worked to create a design that both filled the massive stadium and light the basketball court. The result was an enormous eight point star design with circle truss nestled in the middle covered in hundreds of moving lights.

"When you do a concert, you do 60 by 40 area, but Big Blue is huge, so we used a ton of wash fixtures like VL 3500 washes over the court to give a big fat

UK - Hawthorn has been awarded the contract to supply lighting and video equipment for the New Order European Tour, which kicks off in Paris on 4 November.

Hawthorn has strengthened its position in the concert tour sector this year after supplying equipment for a series of prestigious European wide arena and theatre shows for high-profile music artists including Mark Knopfler, Squeeze, The Charlatans, Steven Wilson and Status Quo.

For the New Order shows, the Concert Touring division in Hawthorn is drawing upon its extensive range of hire equipment, supplying lighting to specification, including Martin MAC Viper Profile and Wash DX, Clay Paky Sharpy, Clay Paky Stormy and Robe BMFL fixtures, as well as providing the video element, which includes Glux 10mm LED panels. Hawthorn is also supplying rigging and drapes.

Mick Freer, concert touring manager at Hawthorn, said, "Ne

USA - Spanning the Willamette River in the US state of Oregon, you'll find a confluence of nature, light, art, engineering and architecture. Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People, is the first new bridge in the Portland area in 40 years. Accessible only by pedestrians, cyclists and public transport, it's an eye-catching spectacle both day and night, designed and lit to emphasise the importance of the river to the city and its inhabitants.

"I've always made sure that a bridge evolves out of the community, the environment that it's in," says Donald McDonald, the San Francisco-based architect who designed the bridge. As a statement on the importance of the river to the Portland area, Tilikum Crossing was designed to integrate compelling architecture and dynamic river conditions with a thrilling display of light art that now accentuates the Portland skyline, keeping the 5

USA - Over the past 12 months, Elation dealer Fyxx Entertainment has outfitted several top entertainment venues in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Elation lighting and video systems - live music venue Livewire and The District bar and nightclub for example - a list that also includes Dakota, a full service restaurant and bar located in the heart of Scottsdale's thriving entertainment district.

A project of Triyar Entertainment Group, Dakota is a new build venue that fills a niche in owner Shawn Yari's string of Scottsdale properties that include Maya Day + Nightclub, The District and the W Scottsdale Hotel. "All of the properties have different niches," explains Adrian de Pamphilis, owner of Fyxx Entertainment. "Dakota caters to a bit older and more professional clientele than Maya and The District, which target more the younger 20-something crowd."

Dakota is loc

Poland - Meskie Granie is a festival tour that showcases the music of some of the best Polish alt rock and electronic artists 'of the moment'. This year, the six-date tour headlined by the 2015 M?skie Granie Orchestra and featuring a different supporting line-up in each city, culminated in Zywiec where it was enjoyed by over 10,000 live audience and streamed via the internet to a further 265,000 fans.

Pawel Pajak (AKA Spider) from Fish Eye was the tour's creative visual director - creating the lighting, video and set designs - in 2012 and 2013. This year, the organisers asked him to take on this same role again plus co-ordinate the budget and suppliers needed to realise the various stage concepts, so he became the project's creative producer. For the main moving lights, he specified over 100 Robe products.

The client wanted good looking visually stimulating shows with high pro

UK - The invigorating alternative line up was just one of several fresh elements to the 2015 MiNT Festival - the 10,000 capacity event expanded to two days for the first time, and also had a new location at Wetherby Racecourse near Leeds in the UK.

Colour Sound Experiment was asked to provide rigging, trussing, lighting and LED screens for the six main tented arenas which featured sets from Duke Dumont, The Martinez Brothers, Sigma, Sven Vath, Jamie Jones, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos and many more.

Fourteen top Colour Sound crew were led by Jon Rickets and worked closely with the production team from The Dark Horses and technical production manager James Brennan, who co-ordinated all the site production.

Colour Sound's Haydn Cruickshank, comments, "It's exciting to see a new festival growing and finding its identity, and also embracing 'small is beautiful' whilst invest

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