South Africa - DWR Distribution is hosting its first Fall Arrest and Basic Training, presented by Jacobus Myburgh from Gravity Training in Johannesburg. The three day training kicks off today and ends on 20 February.

With a background in the hospitality industry, having managed hotels and venues both locally and internationally, Myburgh can relate to the events and entertainment market. When a new door opened for him to join Gravity Training, he received extensive training on rope access, rigging, climbing with a harness and safety.

The aim is to train technicians, riggers and all those who work on elevated platforms with the tools required to conduct a possible rescue. Subjects covered include falls and fall factors, shock absorbing lanyards, connectors, helmets, anchors, slings and wire strops, work positioning lanyards, rescue and practical training.

The three day course,

UK - Lighting designer, Ben Inskip selected Jands' flagship Vista L5 console to control his technically ambitious design for British metalcore band, Bring Me the Horizon, who recently played London's SSE Arena, Wembley.

Ben has had success for some time touring on Bring Me the Horizon's (BMTH) shows with a portable Vista setup consisting of S1 & M1 wings, combined with a Macbook Air, but selected the Jands Vista L5 for this particular arena performance, which was the band's biggest show to date.

In addition to having plenty of computing power to deal with the demands of today's largest shows, the Vista L5's sleek design is dominated by a stunning 21 inch High Definition Wacom tablet that provides a crisp, detailed image of the same Vista v2 software that is used across the entire Vista console family.

"Having used an L5 on some previous Australian shows, I really got to

USA - Once again suburban Chicago was aglow with the holiday spirit as Illumination: The Lights at The Morton Arboretum opened for its annual run, 21 November to 3 January. Visitors to The Arboretum followed a magical one-mile paved path lined by trees that shone with LEDs and responded to touch and sound. Clay Paky Sharpys and new Clay Paky Mythos fixtures - the first in the U.S. - housed in Igloo domes provided innovative lighting effects for the one-of-a-kind holiday display.

The Morton Arboretum was founded in 1922 by Morton Salt magnate Joy Morton whose father inaugurated Arbor Day in the U.S. The annual Illumination event features stunning lighting effects along a one-mile outdoor path through the trees and offers opportunities for visitors to interact with the trees to change the colour and intensity of the lights.

Intelligent Lighting Creations (ILC) in C

USA - Usher kicked off his current The UR Experience tour in November with Elation Professional's award-winning Sniper multi-effect light used extensively throughout the show as a key accent element including laser simulation. The Sniper, Elation's new beam, scanner and laser simulator in one, and a PLASA Innovation Award winner, has been used on a growing number of shows and special events since its launch last October, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Working from upstage automated ladders, one of the reasons lighting designer and show director Eric Wade says he turned to the high-energy hybrid effect was for its intensity and brightness when compared to the overall rig. Powered by the new 132W Philips MSD Platinum 2R lamp, the Sniper delivers 45,010 lux @ 16.4' (5m), enough to hold its weight among bigger lights.

Associate LD Eric Marchwinski and assistant LD Jason Winfree both

The Netherlands - King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands has opened a prestigious new cultural and historical institution at The Netherlands' former Soesterberg air base. The National Military Museum (NMM) is the largest of its kind in Europe and displays the significance of The Netherlands' armed forces in the past, present and future, with an array of Philips Selecon luminaires lighting the majority of the exhibits.

Amsterdam-based agency Rapenburg Plaza was in charge of the lighting design, AV and control systems for the entire Museum, choosing 42 x Philips Selecon PLcyc1, 12 x PLprofile1 RGBW and 269 x PLfresnel1 RGBW luminaires for key lighting in six of the museum's themed halls.

"The concept for the space is that each of the halls are interactive and follow a storyline," says lighting designer and Rapenburg Plaza partner Pelle Herfst. "We selected Selec

USA - The Fred Bramlage Coliseum, commonly referred to as 'The Octagon of Doom', is a 12,528-seat multi-purpose arena that is home to the men's and women's basketball teams for Kansas State University.

University officials recently decided it was time to upgrade the eight-sided building with new sound and video systems that are in line with state of the art technology. System design company Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams (WJHW) specified a new sound reinforcement system that features EAW QX Series loudspeakers. Promedia UltraSound, located in Martinez, California handled the installation.

"The existing system was an old, large-format, horn-based, scoreboard cluster that had long outlived its usefulness," explains Mark Graham, WJHW. "The goal was to increase the fan experience with higher quality audio and an upgraded center-hung scoreboard and video prese

UK - Illuminate Design worked with the E-luminate festival and Great St Mary's Church in Cambridge to provide lighting for the church as part of the week-long festival.

Lighting designer Malgosia Rozycka put together a complementary plan to light the 500-year-old church using a mix of warm and cold tones with the aim to bring out the different architectural features of the building. Ben Payne from Illuminate Design took Malgosia's design concepts for the festival and worked them into a scheme that was achievable for the week long period of the festival.

As one of the festival's key points was sustainability and energy efficiency, Payne chose 16 RGBW led fixtures as the main form of lighting - with a number of small GU10 and LED Tape fixtures to highlight the various building features. The total running power for the whole lighting project was no more than 75 watts.

The festi

UK - Series 2 of the Endemol UK/Remarkable TV show Two Tribes, hosted by Richard Osman, is using projection from XL Video.

Working with production designer, Dominic Tolfts, and production manager, Jessica Enderby, XL Video's film & TV manager, Jeff Bailey specified one of XL's high brightness Barco HD20 projectors along with a Repro H projection screen to create the main question screen for the centre of the Two Tribes set.

The Barco unit provides sufficient output to ensure good visual clarity amongst the studio lighting, and Bailey once again selected a Repro H screen surface to avoid hotspots which can be picked up by broadcast cameras.

The question screen is central to Two Tribes, displaying questions asked by the presenter, Richard Osman, which discover what players have in common, and determine the teams for the game.

Jeff Bailey comments: "It's gr

USA - Electrosonic has opened a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area, which will support Electrosonic clients in the region and serve as a resource for new business development. The Bay Area office is located in Livermore and features 3,000sq.ft of office and warehouse space.

"We are very excited to announce the opening of our new San Francisco Bay Area location," says Jim Bowie, president of the Electrosonic Group. "Over the last few years, Electrosonic has steadily increased the number of our Bay Area clients. This office will support them, keep pace with their evolving needs and help us grow in the region."

The Livermore location is a full-service office providing Bay Area businesses with complete solutions, including audio-visual design consulting, systems integration and operational support.

"Opening our office in the Bay Area allows us to k

USA - CMT's live Ultimate Kickoff Party launched the first College Football Playoffs with a glittering show, which also marked the US TV debut of Clay Paky's new Mythos fixtures, a highly-advanced hybrid light which serves as a 470-watt spotlight and an extraordinary beam light.

Production designer/lighting designer Mike Swinford obtained 146 Mythos fixtures from Nashville-based Morris Light & Sound, which offers a large inventory of the new lights. As a spot, Mythos has an outstanding large beam and zoom optimized for focusing; as a beam light it remains parallel for its entire length even at great distances. Mythos is smooth, fast and very quiet with a completely redesigned indexed visual effects disc.

Swinford and Morris Light & Sound president and CEO David Haskell were introduced to Mythos when A.C.T Lighting vice president of sales and marketing Brian Dowd invited them t

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd.'s Video division has supplied the first Green Hippo AViary magpi video playback solution in the UK to Alton Towers Resort, to drive the visual and interactive displays in their popular CBeebies Land - one of the theme park's newest attractions.

Home to a range of themed rides and live entertainment, CBeebies Land is an immersive experience for children and young families. The five-acre site within Alton Towers Resort offers opportunities for kids to interact with some of their favourite characters and TV shows. In addition to rides, CBeebies Land includes play areas, live experiences and character appearances designed to inspire and educate.

Green Hippo's AViary Video Tools range was launched to much acclaim last year, and represents a new approach to realtime high-resolution video playback and control. Drawing upon the manufac

USA - The Krewe of Endymion Parade, started at City Park and Orleans Avenues in New Orleans, and from there took visitors on a journey that figuratively at least reached far beyond the confines of the Crescent City. Built around the theme Fantastic Voyages, the largest and most legendary of New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades, featured floats depicting 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Gulliver's Travels and other tales of transcendent journeys. Accenting it all, along with 2,650 masked revellers tossing beads to the crowds are video Panels from Chauvet Professional and Geyser RGB Foggers from its sister company Chauvet DJ.

"Chauvet products are a key part of our design," said Ray Ziegler of RZI Lighting (New Orleans), which does most of the lighting and special effects lighting for Endymion. "Being in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, the Endymion floats ha

UK - HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the current UK tour by X-Factor winner Sam Bailey, who followed up her 2013 win and subsequent Christmas number one with her chart topping Power of Love debut album in spring last year.

This was her first headline tour and it visited a selection of venues including theatres and concert halls, with an eye-catching lighting and set design by Andy Hurst.

Andy's aesthetic for the stage was based on classical theatrical / cabaret club looks with a contemporary twist.

A sumptuous red Austrian drape upstage was paired with matching truss borders and riser skirts, which provided a great setting for Bailey's lively stage presentation which blends pop, soul, cabaret and a bit of rock in an entertaining set full of crowd pleasers for her fans.

The lighting rig needed to be flexible and adaptable to fit into the variety of differ

USA / UK - Ashly Audio has announced the appointment of Sound Directions as its exclusive distributor in the United Kingdom. The Chessington, Surrey-based company will distribute Ashly's entire line of products, including Ashly's networked multi-channel amplifiers, Protea DSP-equipped amplifiers, and customizable user interfaces, such as Ashly's iPad app.

Stanislas Boivin-Champeaux founded Sound Directions in 1998. "From the very start, we've worked closely with our customers to demystify the vast array of technologies that are available in the installed A/V market," he said. "When it benefits our clients, we happily design and programme systems that work flawlessly under the pressures and challenges of the real world. We've seen countless systems designed by others that left end-users with a system that they did not understand and could not operate. We go the ext

Argentina - BALS - Buenos Aires Live Show - one of the best known rental and production companies in Argentina, specializing in sound and lighting for large shows, concerts, festivals and tours, recently purchased their first Robe Pointes.

The company was founded in 1992 and occupies a large warehouse space in the Caseros area of Buenos Aires city, with around 17 full time employees and around 40 regular freelance technicians and engineers.

BALS also works in other parts of Latin America, most notably Paraguay and Uruguay, and they service the technical requirements worldwide for acclaimed live art / performance troupe Fuerza Bruta. They supply around 200 shows / tours / projects a year and also look after some high profile installations including the busy Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires.

The fixtures were delivered by Robe's Argentinian distributor, TSD Group. The fact that

The Netherlands - Shure Distribution UK (SDUK) used ISE 2015 to focus on awareness of the importance of RF spectrum availability for all users of wireless microphones. Under the slogan 'Losing Your Voice', SDUK are aiming at the growing market of professional and semi-professional users of RF technology, from the conference audio and systems integrators at ISE to live performers and organisers of commercial and non-commercial events.

The goal is to better inform this wide range of users about the growing challenges to the unhindered use of wireless microphone systems as a result of continued UHF spectrum allocation to the mobile communications and data industries.

"Over the past few years, the user base for wireless microphone technology has expanded far beyond the professional touring, broadcast and theatrical industries, the programme making and special events sector, o

Hungary - The end of January saw Chromasound, DiGiCo's Hungarian distributor, invited to demonstrate the advantages of DiGiCo consoles at the MPRT - the Hungarian Professional Technical Event Company.

Founded at the beginning of 2014 and based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the MPRT was set up to help train and educate those working in the theatre, cinema, television, radio and concert touring industries.

Chromasound was invited to introduce DiGiCo consoles to its members during an eight week series of events, where it worked alongside eight different brands.

"We were delighted to accept the invitation," says Chromasound managing director Imre Makkay. "We took three DiGiCo consoles - an SD8, SD9 and SD11 - to the Fono Budai Zenehaz, a cultural centre in the heart of Budapest."

Imre, along with three of Chromasound's sound engineers, Barna Hidasi,

France - New Year's Eve 2014 saw the city of Paris put on a spectacle at the midnight countdown for the first time. Lighting designer Jeff Freeman employed Clay Paky SuperSharpys to illuminate the Arc de Triomphe for the festivities, as hundreds of thousands of revellers congregated in front of it or watched at home on television.

The Comité des Champs-Elysées commissioned the project as, according to culture official Bruno Juillard, the city's authorities are aware it doesn't usually join in with the likes of London's fireworks or New York's ball drop in Times Square. The display saw the monument spectacularly video-mapped, with Freeman using 18 of the super powerful Clay Paky fixtures, supplied by rental company Magnum, to complement the visuals.

"Our creative brief was clear - we had to support the video projection," explains Freeman. "The head

USA - Artistic Licence has confirmed TMB as its exclusive distributor in the USA for nanoScope, the pocket-sized tester for DMX512 and RDM.

Lightweight and battery powered with a translucent plastic casing, nanoScope features a built-in 5-pin XLR connector that enables it to be attached directly to the DMX512 cable. The device lights up in different colours to indicate its findings - this provides rapid, intuitive feedback that is hands-free and visible at a distance (handy for awkward positions such as plenum spaces or hanging off a truss).

Two modes of operation exist, selected by a recessed slide switch that also controls power on/off.

In Pixel Mode, nanoScope displays the first three DMX512 channels as an RGB mix, to provide confidence that the expected data is on the cable. This is particularly useful for commissioning DMX installations, as it can be used to track down

USA - Production Resource Group LLC, (PRG) one of the world's leading providers of entertainment and event technology solutions, has announced that it is combining several business units to create the PRG Music Group. This new division will be under the leadership of Mickey Curbishley, CEO PRG Music, and will focus on providing integrated video and lighting solutions for tours, festivals, and concert events around the world.

"We are bringing together leading industry veterans, technology experts, and the operational know-how of PRG Concert Touring, PRG Nocturne, and Chaos Visual Productions into a single integrated organisation," says Curbishley. "The PRG Music Group is and will be the 'go-to' production resource for our clients. The goal is simple-we want to make it as easy as possible to do business with PRG."

In addition to integrating the three teams, P

USA - One hundred and eight of Solaris LED's new Mozart lighting fixtures are featured in the spectacular show designed by Eric Wade of FOHShow LLC for the 2014-15 Usher UR Experience World Tour.

Commenting on the diminutive RGB fixtures' versatility and impressive intensity for their size, Wade says, "Mozarts absolutely rock. We're using them for internal set lighting, behind panels on ladders and straight forward open as an effect type instrument. They're extremely versatile, giving many different types of looks, and they're extremely cost effective. I can have several hundred of these on a tour for the price of a handful of movers, so I really don't sacrifice much to get a large amount of them into my show. It's the only light I spec by the hundreds. It's the perfect light."

Mozart fixtures, weighing just over one pound, are suitable for use as direct eye candy or

UK - Battery powered wireless LED manufacturer Core Lighting has recently seen the power and versatility of its FLOOD30 products applied in a slightly different arena - the highly popular world of equine sport / leisure.

Two recent sales have resulted in the provision of practical solutions for two different equestrians, Andrea Brown based in Liphook, who runs the Hampshire Young Riders riding school, and Lindsey Nash, a Devon based horsewoman who is currently training up her young dapple grey purebred Arab, HS Casimir, for the world of endurance riding.

Andrea needed a bright, robust and user friendly floodlighting system that would allow her to offer longer and more flexible hours for instruction in her outdoor manège throughout the winter.

With many of her clients being young, it is essential for her boutique styled business to have after-school options all year round, a

Singapore - Illumi Run is the first event of its kind in Asia. Taking place in Singapore, participants are splashed with Illumi glow water as they set out on their race route, passing through different colourful glowing zones before ending up at the finish line. An after-party dance area then features a massive assembly of DJs.

For the recently held second consecutive run, event production house Showmakers Pte. Ltd. supplied P-5 wash lights from SGM, adding brightness and intensity to the party zone. Technical director from Showmakers, Louis Wong informs, "These lightweight, versatile and waterproof luminaires make working in the outdoors a breeze."

The P-5 wash lights were placed all around the main stage in the crowded dance area, which accommodated 18,000 people over the two nights, and Louis Wong reported positive feedback from an exhilarating outdoor party exper

USA - Known for its professional productions throughout Northwest Missouri, the Robidoux Resident Theatre recently produced the musical comedy Spamalot. Brought on by the director of the show, Jeff Stover, assistant professor/technical director at Missouri Western State University, was asked to create a lighting design that could match and enhance the whimsical satire of the show itself. To accomplish this, he wanted to be able to take the design to an extraordinary level, so he brought on the additional support of VL440 Spot Luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.

"With Spamalot being so over-the-top in style, it gave me opportunities to take the lighting over-the-top as well," began Stover. "This was definitely one of the shows where you could do the bump and flash with colour mixing and have it fit perfect with the story. The Vari-Lite colour mixing sy

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