Curaçao – Singer Raynor ‘Raey’ Laufer recently performed a song entitled Kaminda tin Huma, Tin Kandela which translated from Papiamentu, the language of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao means Where There is Smoke There is Fire.
Many were warmed by the glow of the Curaçan artist’s own fire when he performed this number at the 51st annual Tumba Festival, a four-day event that drew over 40,000 fans from around the world and was broadcast on TV throughout the Caribbean and in Holland.
Even more people will be watching (and hearing) Raey song very soon. As the winner of the Tumba Festival’s competition, Kaminda tin Huma, Tin Kandela was named the official anthem of Curaçao’s internationally famous pre-Lent carnival.
Like all the other artists who entered songs in the Tumba Festival, Raey not only sounded great, he looked impressive too,

UK - TSL Lighting in has expanded their product offerings by adding Elation Professional’s KL Fresnel 6 FC to inventory.
According to TSL managing director Sam Tamplin, the company had been searching for an LED Fresnel light to add to their inventory for several years but they had not found one that met their high standards until now. “They were either too bulky, or the output wasn’t bright enough,” he said. “The KL Fresnel 6 FC gives us a unit which is compact, punchy and with a high-quality full colour engine, bright enough to satisfy even the most demanding lighting designers.”
Designed for any application requiring high output soft light with precise color reproduction and adjustable color temperature, the KL Fresnel 6 FC excels at projecting a uniform wash of soft field light while matching the white balance for camera. It houses a 220W RGBMA LED engin

Denmark - The lighting department of Danish rental and technical production specialist, European Touring Productions (ETP), based just outside Copenhagen, has started investing in Astera wireless LED lighting products.
The first purchase of 32 x Titan Tubes – four sets of eight – was recommend by project manager John Askwith, who came on board last summer and swiftly made a list of ‘must have’ products to service ETP clients, shows and events, especially in the corporate and television sectors. Titans were part of this list.
Previously, ETP had rented assorted Astera fixtures as and when needed. However, the increasingly frequent requests together with John joining the company energised the decision to start amassing their own stock of Astera fixtures.
“It was the way to go,” commented Emil Finsen who runs the lighting department with Sune Verdier. Ge

The Netherlands - Toverland theme park in Sevenum faced the challenge of opening its doors outside the standard theme park season for its immersive Winter Feelings experience and successfully turned to Antari snow machines supplied by Highlite International BV to add to the wintery ambiance.
From 26 November to 15 January, the Dutch theme park offered visitors a magical winter wonderland. For their immersive Winter Feelings concept, they aimed to transform the entire – normally tropical-themed – Port Laguna entrance area into a winter-themed world. To meet this challenge, they invested in 14 Antari S-500 L Snow Machines, acquired from Highlite. The Antari S-500 L is a professional, silent snow machine that delivers snow showers to medium and large venues and was therefore perfectly suited to the occasion.
The main activities centred around a large ice

Hungary - The worst band in Hungary! The popular quintet, Republic, has, on occasion, introduce themselves as such, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Anyone familiar with this group knows that this sort of self-deprecating humour, is in keeping with the freewheeling, let’s-not-take-things-(or ourselves)-too seriously attitude that has marked their career.
After 32 years and 30 top-selling albums, Republic remains as bold, adventurous, and irreverent as a newly formed garage band. As their lighting designer, András Praksch, knows the importance of keeping intense, contemporary looks front-and-centre in his shows supporting the band’s blend of traditional Hungarian folk music infused with new electro-rock sounds.
“Republic is legendary, and they’ve been around for over three decades, but they are definitely not ’old school,” he said. “Their sound is always e

USA - The sold-out co-headlining Trey Anastasio Band (TAB) and Goose winter 2022 tour played multiple arenas along the north-east coast and was a massive hit with fans, who, not only enjoyed some superlative music, but also witnessed a collaboration between the two artists’ respective lighting designers.
Marc Janowitz (TAB) and Andrew Goedde (Goose) plus their lighting directors / programmers and operators on the road, Patrick Hayes for TAB, and Tony Caporale for Goose, engaged in teamwork and creative synergy to make this happen while utilising Robe moving lights.
The mix of Robe Fortes, Tarrantulas, Spiiders, Spikies and Tetra2 fixtures was supplied by Gateway Studios & Production Services (GSPS), together with all the tour’s lighting equipment.
There was no playback video onstage, but all the shows were streamed, so both band sets were lit for a full

UAE - Over 400 of Elation Professional’s all-weather Proteus lights were used by lighting designer Bruno Poet on the UAE's 51st National Day celebration, a showcase of the nation’s past, present and future that took place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre in December.
A 108m cylindrical performance stage, lined with LED strips to form a tunnel and featuring portals at each end symbolizing the past and future, served as a dynamic platform for a parade of floats and massive cast of over 3,000 performers. A backstage staging area stretched nearly 2km before parading through the space and out the other end.
Es Devlin returned as co-creative director for the show, working with show producers People Creative. The organising committee of the 51st National Day Celebration was headed by creative executive producer Rawdha Al Qubasi and artistic director Ayesha Ha

UK - Lightware Visual Engineering has announced the opening of its new Experience Centre in the heart of London. This new facility will serve as a central hub for partners and customers across the UK and provide sales, customer, and technical support for all of Lightware's products.
Located in Lime Street, City of London, the Experience Centre is not only the new office of the Lightware UK team, but it also features a training room equipped with the company's latest signal management devices. Visitors will have the opportunity to get to know the Lightware team better and experience the company's products in live environments.
The centre showcases the full range of Lightware's solutions, Vinx, MX2M, TPX and LARA including award-winning technologies, Taurus UCX and UBEX. It provides customers with access to Lightware's products for testing, road map sessions and discussi

UK - CP Wave is the newly formed UK & Ireland official partner for Claypaky, with on the ground sales, service, and support as standard. The aim is to structure a dedicated Claypaky team, by having skilled local personnel.
Claypaky reports that with effect from 1 February 2023, A.C. Entertainment Technologies is no longer the distributor of Claypaky products for the UK and Ireland.
Alessandro Colangelo, Claypaky business development manager and sales manager for the UK & Ireland states: “Our focus is to meet the high expectations of our customers in such a respected and important market. Claypaky will proactively support CP Wave team, thanks also to our renewed structure and corporate strategy. We have foreseen a challenging business plan in the mid-term as we strongly believe in CP Wave project, but most of all in CP Wave people, whom I’m confident will de

UK - Recently, White Light was approached by BATS (Brantham Amateur Theatrical Society) who wanted to invest in a series lighting fixtures; both for their upcoming production of Guys and Dolls as well as all future productions.
The history of BATS dates back to 1972 when a drama subcommittee of the Community Council known as the Brantham Community Council Drama Group staged their first production. Ever since, it has regularly put on shows; all of them taking place at the Brantham Village Community Hall. The first show to be staged this year was Guys and Dolls, on which John Hoskyns was the musical director.
He comments: “Alongside my role as MD, whenever I’m working on a show, I always find myself becoming involved with the technical elements. Initially, this was just sound (alongside being a local GP, I also used to run a sound hire and sales compan

USA - Special Event Services (SES) has significantly expanded its Ayrton lighting inventory with additional purchases of Domino LT, Bora S, and Khamsin fixtures and further committed to the product line with large first-time investments in Perseo Beam, Diablo, and Zonda 9 FX lights. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton products in North America.
Headquartered in Mocksville, North Carolina, SES offers audio, lighting, design, video, staging, and live event production to a wide array of clients. The company has closely watched the growth of LED technology and set a goal of getting its lighting inventory as close to 100 percent LED as possible. While SES offers LED fixtures from several different manufacturers it has kept an eye on Ayrton and its new LED offerings.
“Ayrton became very attractive to us because, within one company, small to large size

USA - For the 2023 broadcast of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, lighting designer Lee Rose with supplier PRG selected and deployed a comprehensive range of Martin lighting solutions.
A network television staple since 1972, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve annually rings in the New Year with a varied roster of performers and guests alongside coverage of the festivities in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities throughout the globe.
The Los Angeles portions of this year’s special were filmed at two locations in Disneyland - Flo’s Diner in California Adventure and the Sleeping Beauty Castle -alongside the usual studio location, this year from Radford Studio Centre. Each location also featured performances by a wide variety of artists including singer Ciara, Halle Bailey of pop duo Chloe x Halle and K-Pop group Tomorrow X Together am

UK - For the 25th annual MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards at Wembley, SJ Grevett had to incorporate a distinctive M-shaped trussing into his design. This trussing was configured in two levels, a softer, less pronounced M in the upper section that ran horizontally, and a sharper, more dramatic, and vertically oriented rendition of the letter below it.
Working with this M-and-M configuration, SJ turned the MOBO stage into a vibrant canvas that lent itself to limitless design possibilities for the award ceremony. “Having the M on the top horizontal was very good, and easy to work with,” he said “However, the lower truss rigging was interesting due to its M shape.”
These challenges were complicated further by a tight production schedule. SJ and his team had only three weeks to pull the design together, yet still managed to keep the M-shaped trussing over and on

Germany - The cabaret-style Cologne Stunksitzung is the original father of the ‘alternative carnival session’ and the largest format of its kind. From 7 December 2022 to 21 February 2023, 46 Stunksitzungen took place at the E-Werk venue, including a TV broadcast on the WDR channel.
The lighting technology for the Stunksitzungen was once again provided by the Cologne-based event and media technology service provider al-media. Together with lighting designer Jojo Tillmann, the team relied almost exclusively on Cameo spotlights.
The al-media firm has been active as a technical service provider for the Stunksitzungen for many years and is located in the immediate vicinity of the famous E-Werk and Palladium venues. In 2021 and 2022, al-media owner André Lyrmann invested in a broad Cameo portfolio ranging from Zenit W600 washlights to Opus SP-5 profile moving heads and

Denmark - ETP is a large full technical production – lighting audio, rigging, staging and roofing systems, seating and grandstands– rental company based in greater Copenhagen, which started its lighting department in 2010 with 20 moving light fixtures.
There are now over 230 x Robe fixtures alone in the rental fleet, plus numerous other lights, with the most recent purchase being 34 x Fortes, acquired for the busy record-breaking 2022 summer touring and festival season.
The lighting department is headed by Emil Finsen and Sune Verdier. Emil joined as a student in 2010, and Sune, a well-known lighting designer in his own right, joined the ETP team full time in 2019. In addition to designing most of ETP’s in-house lighting projects, he continues to work on design projects for other clients.
“We wanted a large, bright LED moving light that could also be us

UK - Elation Professional and Obsidian Control Systems are partnering with Backstage Academy. Both Elation and Obsidian are providing the latest in cutting-edge products to Backstage Academy for use in educational courses and training purposes.
Backstage Academy is located in the heart of Production Park, a live events and entertainment technology campus near Leeds that combines industry, education and innovation. It features production studios, businesses and educational facilities, where creatives, technicians, designers, and engineers collaborate to advance the live events industry.
Backstage Academy offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, short courses and bespoke training programs that involve getting hands on with cutting-edge equipment and technology used by the entertainment industry. 4Wall Entertainment, TAIT and ROE Visual are onsite and entrenched in

UAE - A zactrack real-time tracking system was specified and used to control over 400 moving lights for the 51st United Arab Emirates National Day ceremony which featured creative direction and design by Es Devlin and was produced by People Creative.
The show was directed by Francisco Negrin, Gavin Robins & Bryn Walters, with lighting for this high-profile production designed by Bruno Poet, with associate designers Max Narula & Johanne Jensen.
A special tunnel shaped auditorium was designed by Es Devlin specially curated for the location at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi. The epic 45-minute show featured a full-scale parade and a stylishly choreographed cast of over 3000, including 1000 military personnel and 1000 children, which highlighted the history, values, achievements, and future visions of the UAE.
This fusion of colour, movement and drama was broadcast and

USA - Chase M. Strickland has worked in and around Bandit since a very young age. Armed now with a degree in business management from the University of Tennessee, Strickland has assumed the role of business manager at Bandit’s headquarters in Knoxville. He is tasked with a wide variety of business functions as he expands his role, working closely with VP of operations Roth Edwards, CFO Sharon Draper, media relations coordinator Sharon Gross, VP of business and innovation Jake Tickle and chair Michael T. Strickland.
“I am incredibly excited to begin my full-time career at Bandit Lites,” said Chase M. Strickland. “I hope to build on past successes that have played a role in solidifying Bandit’s position as an industry leader, as well as provide a fresh outlook on opportunities going forward. I have grown up around this business and I am eager to see what lies ahead.

Belgium - October 2022 saw the release of the film Zillion, an account of the notoriously decadent club in Antwerp, Belgium that became ‘the’ place to be in the late ’90’s.
Created by Frank Verstraeten, Zillion included all the things Verstraeten felt other clubs lacked, particularly in the visual element. Using the most technologically advanced fixtures of the time, his club boasted moving lights, atmospheric lighting FX and elements of a budding AV phenomena. The ingenuity and innovation of the original driving concept at Zillion has found a soulmate in the creativity at the heart of Ayrton lighting products.
As the owner of the rental company Pixelbeam, Verstraeten now has a big fleet of Ayrton fixtures from which he supplied 250 fixtures to The Creative Factory (T.C.F.) to get creative with on a series of parties that accompanied the film’s

The Netherlands - Popular Dutch TV quiz show De Grote Gezondheidsquiz saw celebrities go head-to-head in a battle of health-related knowledge, playing in a specially designed set lit by warm, rich colours and sharp white contestant spotlights.
Production and lighting design company DETS Creative were tasked with delivering the studio set and lighting solution, choosing to use Vari-Lite VL5LED Wash, VL800 EventWash and VL2600 Series luminaires from Signify.
The show was recorded in Studio Baarn, in the Dutch town of the same name, produced by Medialane and broadcast live on the SBS6 channel. DETS Creative has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the TV studio, and they were asked to deliver full set design and development, including lighting, video and décor as well as all technical drawings and technical preparations. DETS Creative collaborated with Studio

UK - JLLighting and JLLive are joining together under one single brand identity and comprehensive offering. JLL will be a ‘one stop shop’ full-service technical production partner.
JLLighting was founded in 2009, adding JLLive as a second arm to the business in order to expand the services the team could offer event agencies, in-house corporates and exhibition clients in 2020.
JLL has built long-standing relationships with a list of brands, including most of the major television production companies in the UK, as well as event agencies and corporates to execute live events to and support their corporate film needs. These have included BBC, ITV, Pico+, Amazon Prime Video, MCI, The Walt Disney Company, Netflix, 2Heads, Toucan, YouTube, RenewableUK, Financial Times, GES and Spiro and countless more. This has allowed JLL to complete projects across the length and bre

UK - Long serving director of operations at the Birmingham Hippodrome, Mike Bradford, has joined Push The Button (PTB) as chief operating officer. Mike has been at the Birmingham Hippodrome for 21 Years and before that worked at Alton Towers as technical manager.
PTB managing director, Nick Ewins, says, “Looking ahead into 2023 and beyond, I am keen to ensure that we have the best possible standards in our business systems and operations which Mike will deliver. Mike’s arrival will also allow me to continue working with our customers, designing and delivering projects as PTB continues to grow.”
Mike adds, “I’ve worked with Nick and the team at PTB for more than two decades now, so I understand the business and I am delighted to be able to bring my experience to the company.”

Europe - MDG has announced the appointment of RM Multimedia as its new, exclusive distributor for Italy. The new arrangement takes effect from 20 February 2023.
RM Multimedia was founded in 2007 by Marco Bartolini, Ermanno Tontini and Paula Poroliseanu all of whom brought many years of industry experience to the company. Based in Cattolica (Rimini), RM Multimedia exclusively distributes many top brands of entertainment technology across the Italian market. Its 20-strong team is united by the same desire and ability to enhance the company's philosophy of providing the best quality service to each and every client.
RM Multimedia is present throughout the country with the support of a network of 10 trained commercial agents who support local customers at every stage of the sales process. Added to this is the undisputed quality of the brands, making RM Multimedia a point o

The Netherlands - Today, the clang of hammers and buzz of milling machines can no longer be heard at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM Grounds), but the site still resonates with powerful, soul-shaking sounds as the home of the Rotterdam Rave festivals.
The same characteristics that shipbuilders prized in the RDM Grounds, make them ideal for reflecting the raw, industrial power of rave music. At the recent Rotterdam Rave festival, Berend Janssen of Powerproductions drew on this heritage to transform the entire building into one immersive and very intense panorama. Helping him to do this, RF Shows supplied Berend with 42 Chauvet Professional fixtures, along with six Vesuvio foggers.
Jeroen Kwakernaak, who has designed Rotterdam Rave events in the past, knows the technical producer and lightning designer, Berend Janssen, very well. They've been working togethe

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