South Africa - The Ultimate X festival was staged for the first time this year at the Grand Arena in Cape Town, South Africa's GrandWest Casino, two days of adrenaline-fuelled, gravity-challenging, hi-energy stunts encompassing three breath-taking xtreme sport disciplines - FMX (freestyle motocross), BMX (bicycle motocross) and skateboarding - featuring the best athletes from around the globe.

The event, produced by Old School Productions, was staged in the round and lit by Sean Caie, the venue's head of lighting, using an all Robe moving light rig including BMFL Spots.

It was the first time that organisers had moved the event indoors and the first time it was extended to two days due to massive public demand.

The floor layout comprised a complete skate / BMX Park, with vert ramps and all the death-defying obstacles you'd expect in this raw and uncompromising environment.

UK - XL Video's UK operation has expanded the warehousing and distribution for its LED department, with the opening of a new 20,000sq.ft warehouse near to the company's existing Hemel Hempstead location.

The 50% increase in total warehouse space enables XL Video to create a dedicated space for preparation and dispatch of the company's wide and varied range of indoor and outdoor rental LED screens, and other creative LED products.

This expansion into the new LED facility also creates additional much-needed space in the main XL Video warehouse to allow for the growth in inventory of XL's projection and media server/control departments, both of which announced major technology investments earlier this year with the likes of d3, Barco, and Lightware.

XL Video's UK director of operations, John Hooker commented, "We are pleased to be able to expand our operations into this ne

UK - Bookings have opened for The Theatres Trust's annual Conference, taking place this year on Tuesday 23 June 2015 at Milton Court Theatre in London, part of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

What value do theatres bring to regeneration, commercial development and mixed use schemes?

Conference 15: Valuing Theatres considers ways in which we can work with the property sector to achieve shared cultural, social and economic returns and create new partnerships with developers to build and protect the theatres of the future.

How do we engage with developers who are playing an increasingly important role as theatre builders and capital investors?

Valuing Theatres is chaired by Jim Beirne MBE, chief executive of Live Theatre who is leading Live Works, a new £10m capital scheme in Newcastle to purchase and develop Quayside frontage and land and buildings adjacent to t

USA - In six weeks, the highly regarded PLASA Focus events series will open at the Kansas City Convention Centre, 20-21 May. Once again, over two days, PLASA Focus will offer hands-on, up close views of products and services from over 35 leading manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and industry leaders and offer over 15 top seminars, including hands-on training, all completely free to attend.

Says PLASA Events show manager Laura Hoepker, "As a trade organization by the industry and for the industry, PLASA looks forward to another successful Focus show in Kansas City and providing another targeted business and networking opportunity to both PLASA members and to regional buyers. Between the show floor and educational seminars, we are providing access to the best in the industry to everyone who attends."

New additions to the top-notch seminar line up, include:

A L

Belgium - The most recent tour by Belgian girlband K3 featured a lighting and video design by Painting With Light's Luc Peumans which was based on the bold, bright, poppy and positive vibe that has characterised the band's remarkable 16 year career.

K3's impressive longevity - achieved without airplay on MTV and other standard music channels - was led by proactive direct marketing through youth and children's TV channels.

Luc has been involved with K3's live performance visuals for 12 years. His team from Painting With Light on this tour included programmer and lighting operator on the road Paco Mispelters and media server programmer and operator Katleen Selleslagh, and the design's starting point came from the band's hit TV show K3 Can Do It which is based on helping children achieve their dreams. The idea was to align the live show with the whole current K3 brand conc

UK - Aurora Lighting is supporting lighting director Oli Richards on the new ITV Saturday sporting comedy panel show Play to the Whistle.

Played out in front of a studio audience at Fountain Studios, Play to the Whistle features host Holly Whillouby presiding over team captains, Bradley Walsh and Frank Lampard.

Produced by Hungry Bear Media for ITV, the show pits two celebrity teams against each other with the aim of working out who sports the best knowledge of all things sporting. Helping to keep order, comedian Sean Walsh also joins the show in the guise of comic umpire for the series.

To assist in creating the show's polished, sporty look, Aurora supplied LD Oli with razor sharp Clay Paky Sharpys, which have been integrated into the set to create 'bars' of light that tower above the guests.

Elsewhere, Oli specified the innovative Doughty H Bar ladder syste

UK - OneBigStar supplied full technical production across eight sites at Aintree Racecourse for the 2015 Crabbie's Grand National Festival. Working directly with Accept Management who were appointed by Jockey Club Racecourses to provide an impressive programme of entertainment and production management for the prestigious sporting event.

Music acts performed in the Aintree International Equestrian Centre throughout the three days of the Festival. The line-up included local legends, The Christians on the Grand Opening Day, followed by X Factor and I'm A Celebrity star Jake Quickenden on Ladies' Day and The Stars from the Commitments on the day of the Grand National itself.

With many of the race goers staying on to enjoy the entertainment, it was vital that OneBigStar delivered the highest standards of production at this hugely popular event. They brought along a full festival s

UK - PSCo has officially partnered with VuWall Technology as its exclusive UK distributor. VuWall Technology develops collaborative visualisation software for video wall controllers. In line with the increasing availability of video wall hardware now available on the market, VuWall Technology develops software products that make it easy for system integrators to deploy video wall projects within mission critical environments such as control rooms.

"This collaboration with VuWall demonstrates the vast range of applications we can service with solutions as well as expert technical advice," comments Stuart Holmes, CEO of PSCo. "We are pleased to be able to offer our customers this software as part of the PSCo portfolio, creating a tailored solution for their requirements."

The collaborative visualisation software from VuWall Technology complements existing PSC

UK - HD Pro Audio has been appointed as a UK main dealer for the new Avid Venue S6L console.

Andy Huffer of HD Pro Audio commented, "It's been a while coming, but we're pleased to say it has proved to be well worth the wait as the S6L looks set to repeat the success of the original Venue platform. Having been with Venue since its inception over 10 years ago, we're primed and ready to go for supply and support of this superb new console. It uses the same workflow and accepts original Venue show files, making it immediately familiar to engineers who know Venue already."

Huffer continued, "HD Pro Audio is also an appointed dealer for Sonnox and the new S6L will bring renewed focus on AAX DSP plug-ins. Our decade with Avid combined together with our experience with Sonnox uniquely places us to provide first class support and delivery for engineers."

HD Pro Au

USA - As part of the company's overall expansion of video touring production services, Production Resource Group (PRG) recently purchased 58 additional Fujinon lenses for use on its newly acquired Grass Valley LDX80 Première cameras.

As part of PRG's recent acquisition of over $50m in new equipment for PRG Nocturne, part of its recently rebranded PRG Music Group, the company placed orders for 21 Fujinon XA99X8.4BESM ultra-wide field production lenses, 27 ZA17x7.6 BERM ENG-Style lenses, and 10 ZA12x4.5BERM wide-angle remote control lenses to service its continually expanding touring production business. PRG Music Group focuses on providing integrated video and lighting solutions for worldwide tours, festivals, concerts, and corporate events.

Mickey Curbishley, CEO of the PRG Music Group, stated, "We're making this initial investment of over $50m in new, state-of-the-art v

Germany - Laserworld has a major presence at this year's Prolight+Sound, not only on their own boot, but also in the Festhalle on the PRG stage, where 22 RTI laser systems are playing for the duration of the exhibition.:

The PRG LEA Awards marked their 10th anniversary on 14 April 2015. This anniversary was celebrated in spectacular style in Frankfurt. An impressive laser setup accompanied the celebration of the awards with more than 22 show laser light systems from Ray Technologies (RTI) - the high end laser manufacturer from Germany - placed all around the huge stage, the balcony and, in conjunction with video projection systems, for special mapping effects.

Overall, laser power of more than 300W emphasized the size of the lighting rig that PRG built for the LEA Awards. Laserfabrik was responsible for the laser show design and control.

There were many famous nominees for t

Germany - Martin Professional has announced Jorge Espinoza as the first prize winner of the 2015 Young Lighting Designer Contest. As part of his prize, Espinoza has been awarded a trip to the Prolight+Sound 2015 show in Frankfurt, Germany where he will be formally presented as the winner at the Martin Professional stand (A93, Hall 9.0) today.

In addition to his all-inclusive trip to PL+S 2015, Espinoza has been awarded a new Martin M-Touch controller and an M-PC kit. Commenting on his win, the 25-year-old from Mexico said, "I really enjoy working with the M-series as it offers the right tools to translate my ideas into real-life shows. I'm pleased and very humbled to be announced as the winner among so much talent. I wanted to share my show and my message, but I never expected to be announced as the winner. Thank you to the judges and everyone who voted for me."

Thro

UK - Star Events has published CDM Ready! the first event industry specific interpretation of the updated Construction (Design & Management) Regulations, written to complement the recently released Code of Practice document.

Introduced on 6 April, the revised regulations mean all events with structures must have a client who in turn appoints both a principal designer (PD) and a principal contractor (PC). The PD's primary role it is to ensure that health and safety is planned into a project from the design stage through to the start on site, while the PC takes charge of, and manages, health and safety on site.

Available for free download at http://www.stareventsltd.com, Star's 20-page CDM Ready! document draws from the HSE's latest draft to explain the impact on the event industry and how to comply.

It goes on to detail the company's own response, from designing

Germany - Leading into Musikmesse on Tuesday evening was the opening reception for the exhibition of the Lightpower Collection of Neal Preston's extraordinary photography In the Eye of the Rock'n'Roll Hurricane.

One of the highlights of the evening, attended by over 350 people, was the presentation by Ralph-Jörg Wezorke, owner of Lightpower, of the Lightpower Neal Preston donation of $50,000 to the Behind the Scenes charity. The donation, which represents proceeds from three previous exhibitions over the last year, will be split between BTS in North America and the newly launched BTS UK. Future showings of the exhibition are currently in the planning stages.

Neal Preston has spent more than 40 years capturing rock and roll, with unprecedented access to musicians ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Led Zeppelin, Mick Jagger to Queen, both on and off the stage.

Takin

USA - ETC's CUE (Create. Understand. Experience.) professional development conference can help lighting professionals improve their skills and become more confident in their work. CUE - to be held 26-28 June, in Madison, Wisconsin - will have something for designers and programmers of all skill levels, whether they have years of experience in the most well known venues, are just getting started in their careers, or consider lighting to be their hobby or side job, say the organisers.

The conference is beneficial for professionals who work with all different kinds of lighting, including for theatre, houses of worship, broadcast, dance, academic institutions, architecture, live events, and more.

This summer's CUE conference will be the third end-user event that ETC has held. Attendees to previous CUEs have been able to apply what they've learned to their everyday work. "The

UK - Working with the Society of London Theatre, XL Video supported the Olivier Awards 2015 with MasterCard with the supply of video screens, media servers and control systems in two London locations, and once again sponsored the award for Best Set Design.

This is the fifth consecutive year XL Video has been involved in the video production for the awards.

The red carpet event took place on Sunday 12 April at the Royal Opera House and was followed by a televised highlights show on ITV later the same night. The full highlights package is available on ITV Player - www.itv.com/itvplayer/

XL Video's head of UK theatre, Ed Cooper, worked with the Awards team of executive producer Julian Bird, associate producer Julian Stoneman, head of production Lee Batty and general manager Katie Harper to specify the video requirements for both the Royal Opera House and the outdoor stage in Co

South Africa - Wild & Marr will be hosting a Shure product seminar at the APSO Training Facility in Isando, Johannesburg in May. Various sessions will take place over four days between 5-8 May 2015 and be conducted by staff from the Shure MEA office in Dubai.

"We are excited to host this event that will cater for various vertical markets for System Integrators, Retail and the Professional Audio markets," says Andrew Sorrill who is sales and marketing manager for Shure distributors Wild & Marr.

"Shure continuously strives for perfection in our product offering to the market. We would like to introduce some new products and highlight how versatile they are with system integration," adds Chicco Hiranandani, senior manager at Shure MEA. "The team and I are looking forward to being in South Africa."

The first workshop will focus on systems integratio

UK - An illuminated sculpture which features two up-cycled Star Wars craft is now on display in an exclusive public exhibition in Manchester's Spinningfields district.

Designed as a collaboration between lighting specialist, Andrew Gibson of Tyson Lighting and Vinny Smith of Northern Backdrop Interior Design, Heavy Petal has been fashioned from retro Raleigh bicycles which have been used to create the X Wing Fighter and TIE Interceptor from the iconic movies.

This innovative design installation, recently showcased in science, culture and technology magazine, Wired, has been moved from an exhibition at Tobacco Dock in London where it attracted high profile attention from the media.

Andrew commented: "I decided to use neon-effect Encapsulite fluorescent tubes to bring the ships to life. The ice blue gun tube offers reflections off the ships' chromed b

USA Lighting designer Justin Kitchenman of FadeUp Design Group and the team at Elite Multimedia were impressed with rising country music artist Cole Swindell when he opened for superstar Luke Bryan last year. They were in a good position to appreciate this emerging talent, since Kitchenman was the LD on the tour and Elite provided its lighting and video package. So when Swindell announced his current Ain't Worth The Whisky tour, they were eager to put together a lighting package, which is precisely what they wound up doing in colourful fashion with some help from 44 ÉPIX Strip 2.0 units from Chauvet Professional.

"We've had a great relationship with Justin and production manager James 'Mo' Butts, who works with Luke Bryan and Cole Swindell," said David Venus of Elite Multimedia. "Justin has used the ÉPIX strips in various rigs over the past few years

Spain - Equipson has agreed to acquire the fabrication business developed by Fantek, the Spanish manufacturer that specialises in truss structures and lifting towers. Says Equipson, "This acquisition results in an implementation of the know-how of Fantek, aligned with the corporate strategy of Equipson, as the company has been making big efforts to differentiate its divisions in clearly separated areas: audio, lighting and lifters. The addition of the industrial activity of Fantek will reinforce the lifting solutions division."

With this operation, Equipson incorporates a new manufacturing plant and facilities which promises greater production and commercial capabilities.

"Our purpose is to strengthen the specialisation of our different brands, expand possibilities and offer a wider range of lifting and structure solutions to the professionals of the audio and l

UK - XL Video once again contributed video production to The X Factor Live 2015 tour - six weeks around UK arenas showcasing the considerable talents of the 2014 X Factor TV series finalists - including popular runner up Fleur East and winner Ben Haenow.

XL supplied ROE MC-7T and MC-18T Hybrid LED screens in XL's custom touring frames, cameras / PPU, Catalyst media server playback, a large Barco Mi-Strip scenic feature, projection and crew for the colourful, animated megamash of 30 major musical numbers, which was performed by eight artists and 11 dancers to sell out audiences. The live tour show was produced by Beth Honan for Syco Entertainment under the technical direction of Production North.

The Hybrid MC-18T screen - seen on many recent XL tours including Ellie Goulding and the Kings of Leon - was used on tour and features a standard medium 18 mm pitch compr

UK - With entries for the 2015 Event Technology Awards now open, organisers have announced an opportunity for innovative businesses to impress the industry with the launch of a new People's Choice Award.

The Favourite Event Technology Supplier award, for companies that have developed an innovative technological solution which can be used to deliver, monitor, analyse or improve events, will face a public vote before gold, silver and bronze winners are revealed. Potential applicants need to demonstrate how their solution benefits the sector and why the industry should vote for them.

"Whilst the judging panel represents a broad cross-section of the industry, and impressing them is no mean feat, we thought it was equally as important to give a voice to the industry, and enable those that use these technologies on a daily basis to show their support," explains organiser A

China - Continuing from the success of last October's show, Prolight + Sound Shanghai will return to the Shanghai New International Expo Centre from 14-17 October 2015. In 2014, the fair provided a business platform for 500 exhibitors and 24,017 visitors from 88 countries and regions.

Fiona Chiew, deputy general manager for Messe Frankfurt Shanghai Co, comments: "We conducted an industry survey last December and the result reviews that the participants expect and recognise the show as an effective means to reach international markets such as Brazil, Germany, India, Korea, Russia and USA, as well as the distributors in China. To strengthen the connection between suppliers and buyers from these markets, we will work closely with key international and local associations to bring together top buyers from these regions."

One of the co-organisers of Prolight+Sound Shang

Germany - Robe enjoyed another mega busy and successful Prolight+Sound expo in Frankfurt, with the launch of 10 new products and four hyperactive days on the booth in Hall 11 at the Messe exhibition centre.

This was preceded by Robe's sixth biennial International Distributor Conference, staged a day ahead of the exhibition at the Dorint Hotel Frankfurt Niederrad, and attended by over 150 Robe distributors from around the world. The conference detailed the company's growth trajectory over the last two years, highlighting the trends and outlining strategies for the next five years and beyond.

The hard work, creativity and productivity of the top performing distributors were recognized in a series of awards, and the event proved an ideal precursor and motivator for the exhibition where Robe' colourful booth featured multi-lingual staff communicating in over 20 different languages

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