The Netherlands/Switzerland - ELC Lighting has announced the appointment of a new exclusive distributor for its award-winning ELC brand of DMX control and networking tools in Switzerland - Electric Claudio Merlo Lighting Equipment S.A. (ECM S.A.). Founded in 1971 by Claudio Merlo, and based in the southern Canton of Ticino, ECM S.A. found success as a supplier of popular lighting brands, such as Coemar and Optikinetics, to the booming discotheque market. At the end of the 1970s, the business base expanded to include Swiss theatres. From its beginnings in rented garage spaces, the company has grown to employ 14 people and now serves the whole country from a modern headquarters and centralised warehouse, with branches in German and French-speaking Switzerland. Welcoming the ELC brand to the ECM S.A. portfolio, managing director Lorenzo Merlo comments: “As a pioneer
The Netherlands - For Live is a production design and rental company covering technical and scenic aspects for a diversity of live events - sound, lighting, video, rigging, décor and scenic - based in Amersfoort in the province of Utrecht, with over 200 Robe moving lights in rental stock. The company was founded in 2014 by Ruud Van Den Berg, who has been passionate about the industry since he started DJ’ing seriously aged 12. For Live has become renowned for delivering dynamic multi-site sporting events and broadcasts and servicing a range of corporate and B2B clients and brand activations plus live televised and streamed events. Starting with building up a ‘dream team’, For Live first invested in the human capital needed to work creatively and constantly, then started purchasing specialist technical equipment, a process that accompanied quick and steady growth
Germany - Founded in 1982, schoko pro GmbH has developed into one of the largest event technology service providers in Germany in more than 40 years. With its three units (Original Stars: event and media technology incl. streaming & conferencing, Mechanical Artists: stage technology, kinetics and special constructions, Digital Performers: software, media & digital networking), the owner-managed company covers all areas of expertise and proves that technology can be creative, and creative ideas work perfectly in technical terms. In search of spotlights that can be used for the most diverse requirements due to their versatility, schoko pro recently opted for products from the Cameo portfolio. The investment included Opus SP5 Profile Moving Heads, Zenit B200 Battery LED Outdoor Wash Lights and Zenit B60 B Battery IP65 LED PAR Fixtures. "We had already
USA - Snoop Dogg’s current High School Reunion tour with Wiz Khalifa takes its name from the duo’s 2012 film Mac & Devlin Go To High School. The 33-city North American tour began 7 July at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena and features plenty of classic hits, including a duet of We Dem Boys plus newer material. The stage production supporting the tour also celebrates the past, present and future, combining some retro video looks with sleek contemporary geometric patterns and blazingly bright, colourful effects from 48 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M fixtures. Production designer Justin Casey of HELM Projects, which supplied all the gear for the tour, approached this project with a narrative perspective that could reflect different phases of the two artists’ careers. “I designed the rig around the concept of having a story board scree
South Africa - DWR Distribution has announced that Neutrik and Rean stock is now available in its stores. “Kyle Robson has been appointed the Neutrik product manager at DWR and it will be his mission to get the brand to as many users in the country as possible,” comments Robert Izzett, sales director at DWR. “In addition, DWR will appoint Neutrik distributors throughout South Africa to make accessibility that much easier for musicians and professionals alike. Our goal is to make Neutrik the connector of choice and we will strive to be as competitive as possible. “When investing in expensive gear, a reliable connector and the right infrastructure should be a priority,” adds Robert. “One bad connector can bring your gig down. With well over 40 years of experience, Neutrik offers a wide range of connectors that are easy to assemble, simple to use, reliable a
USA - Harvest Church held its annual Harvest Crusade evangelistic outreach on 1-2 July at a packed Honda Centre in Anaheim, California, and Elation Artiste series lights played a key role in creating a revival-like atmosphere for the 32,000 live attendees while helping to captivate over 200,000 who tuned in online. This was Harvest’s first-ever crusade at the Honda Center, where attendees also enjoyed two nights of performances from award-winning Christian artists. Chris Eguizabal, a seasoned Harvest veteran with 12 years of experience overseeing production elements for Harvest events, served as the production manager for the two-day worship experience. Throughout the years, they have frequently utilised Elation lighting on Harvest Crusade events, specifically the IP65 Proteus line as the event is typically held outdoors at Angel Stadium. However, for this year's in
Turkey - Prolights fixtures illuminated the Fatih Kiosk located within the Topkapi Palace complex. The Türkiye National Palaces Directorate requested a new lighting system to enhance the visitor experience and showcase the treasures found within the palace, immersing visitors in the rich history and opulence of the Ottoman Empire. The overall design of the project was crafted by Boris Micka (BMA) with whom Ada Bonadei (Studio VanCram) usually collaborates as a light designer. The lighting design follows the general directives of the exhibition project, which, apart from displaying the Topkapi Treasure, wants to encourage the contemplation of the singular architectural volumes in a space which, due to its shape and characteristics, has difficult general points of view. The display windows, covered with gilded mirrors, are transformed into kaleidoscopes that allow the vision
Poland - National broadcasting organisation Polish National Television (TVP) S.A. broadcasts across 24 TV channels with creative production and programming covering every genre of broadcasting from news and sports to drama, soaps, talk shows and documentaries. It also produces its own series and movies together with an array of festivals. The organisation has enthusiastically invested in Robe moving lights over the years with over 600 now in the inventory. The first Robes to come onboard were 24 x Colour Spot 170s in 2005 - which are still working although not in daily use - and the latest were 32 x Esprites, delivered during the pandemic in 2021 by Robe’s proactive long-term distributor, Prolight. At the time, these were the first Esprites in Poland. Telewizja Polski’s HQ is in Warsaw, with six studios and three spaces for films on a site that is currently
Germany - In the early summer of 2023 Herbert Grönemeyer was persuaded to return to Germany’s arenas, having released his latest (and 17th) album Das ist los back in March. At 67 years old, Herbert Grönemeyer hops and prances about the stage and gives tens of thousands of fans two hours of entertainment, night after night. For his latest tour, creatives Gunther Hecker and Rob Sinclair (Peter Gabriel, Madonna, etc.) designed an impressive stage, including a footbridge and B stage. Hecker, who has been part of Grönemeyer’s design team for years, staged this with a lighting rig that included over 220 fixtures from GLP, including impression X5 and X5 IP Bars. The general technical service provider for the tour was satis&fy AG, while airformance design created the decorative elements that characterised the stage design in lightweight construction. T
Italy - Claypaky's Skylos comes with a long list of features and performance specs that make it much more than just a simple searchlight. The Skylos is a versatile fixture aimed at the touring sector, where LDs are constantly on the look-out for dense, solid beams of light and ever-greater light output. The Skylos fits a custom 300W white light laser source, which provides a parallel, uniform beam, while attenuating the well-known temperature and safety issues found with units that use Xenon lamps. With a power consumption of only 600W, the Skylos has the same light output as a 4000-watt Xenon lamp. The beam pours out from a large 300mm front lens, specifically designed in Claypaky’s R&D department. In combination with the light source, it produces a dense, full-bodied column of light, which is highly visible even from afar. The beam is perfectly uniform an
USA - Everything looks better in colourful light, even something as remarkably beautiful as a world-famous tourist attraction that draws some 34m visitors a year. LD Systems demonstrated that recently when it transformed the city of San Antonio into a glittering field of brightness and colour for the US Travel Association’s IPW 23 Visit San Antonio event. Using large format video and lighting systems, the company worked its magic at 12 different locations throughout San Antonio from the Alamo Plaza to the city’s famed River Walk, which was recently named one of the five most beautiful sites in the USA. From the diverse array of imaginative gobos that brought depth and life to familiar sites and walkways, to bold aerials that animated the sky overhead, to uplighting that colorised the sides of tall buildings, the LD Systems design added extra sparkle to the city fo
UK - Pearce Hire has announced the opening of its new warehouse in Peterborough. The new facility aims to streamline workflows and enhance the quality of services provided. Located in the heart of Peterborough, the expansion from 17,000 to around 27,000sq.ft of floor space will not only help the business to grow upon its already extensive inventory of lighting, sound, video and rigging equipment, as well as its staging and power distribution systems but also offer more space to prepare and process equipment for different departments. As projects started to increase after the COVID pandemic, it became evident that Pearce Hire began to run out of space. From storing, to manoeuvring and maintaining equipment, more space was needed to prevent staff from working longer hours, which in time, could have increased the risk of mistakes. Designed from the ground up, this
Albania - Prolights fixtures created an enchanting atmosphere during the grand finale of Muza competition 2023. The project, conceived by the Union of Albanian Municipalities, aims to inspire young enthusiasts and professionals to ‘revive ethnographic elements in the world of fashion design’. The grand finale, held in Tirana, brought together the different Albanian-speaking sectors, who showcased their extraordinary collections in a show that mesmerised the attendees. The event not only celebrated Albania's rich cultural heritage but also recognised the exceptional talent of its up-and-coming fashion designers. ASLV Albania designed and created the lighting for this event and relied on ASLV, Prolights distributor in the area in an event organized by Kuadr Events. The lighting system used for the grand finale featured the following range of Prolights fixtures
USA - American rockers Fall Out Boy released their first new album in five years in March, So Much (For) Stardust, and then kicked off their So Much For (Tour) Dust tour in style on 21 June, playing a 27-song set at a packed Wrigley Field. Lighting design is by Connor Sullivan of So Midwest, who is using Elation’s new Fuze Wash 500 on his tour design, along with Prisma Wash 100 lights from Magmatic effects. Lighting supply is by Upstaging. The new album has been described as 'cinematic' and the tour’s creative directors Amber Rimell & Bronski of Tawbox, along with Connor, talked about doing something for the tour that was more storytelling and theatrical. The entire point, says Connor, just like the new album, “was to show separation and difference while also showing balance. We have our outward sides that we show the world and our inside that we keep
USA - Chauvet has introduced Maverick Force 2 BeamWash and Force 3 Profile. The latest additions to the popular Force series, the two fixtures have the power ‘to transform any stage individually’. Their impact becomes even greater when they are used in tandem, says the company. The Maverick Force 3 Profile’s precision optics and variable CMY + CTO colour mixing system produce very realistic palettes. Colour calibration and gobo selection in the Maverick Force 3 Profile match those of other Maverick Force fixtures in the rig. This, along with the advanced four-blade, rotating shutter frame system, delivers the static, rotating, and animation effects that have made the Force series so successful. Featuring a 915W LED engine, the Maverick Force 3 Profile delivers an intense 40,906 lumens of output. The new profile unit is ultra-fast for its powerhouse output,
Europe - It’s been a busy year so far for lighting designer Tim Routledge, including crafting the production lighting design for Helene Fischer’s new LIVE 2023 arena tour collaboration with Cirque du Soleil, which is playing to sold out audiences across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland until the autumn, presenting an energetic collage of a 360° production, seat-edge acrobatics, and musical performance. Cirque’s creative team led by Marie-Helen Delage approached Tim to work alongside show director Genevieve Dorion-Coupal and set designer Bruce Rodgers on this ambitious production. The lighting rig utilises 56 x Robe iFortes, nine running on RoboSpot systems plus 116 x Robe Spiider LED wash beam moving lights, together with many other luminaires, all supplied by Solotech out of the UK. Lighting director on the road for this fusion of circus, theatre
Turkey - Prolights Air 5Fans impressed the audience of the Hep Yeni Kal music festival with the performance of Mabel Matiz, a songwriter and pop musician who has quickly established herself as a major player in the Turkish and international music scene. The festival took place at of Küçükçiftlik Park in Istanbul where Imagine Dragons, Elton John, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Lana Del Rey have played. Prolights Turkish distributor, Modern Elektronik, supplied Prolights devices to rental company SOLID Technical, the system integrator at Küçükçiftlik Park. In collaboration with the event planning agency Epifoni Events and the lighting designer Sinan Akbaş, a customised lighting system was designed and installed for the event. For the stage lighting during the Mabel Matiz concert, a total of 48 Prolights Air 5Fan were used: half of the projectors were positi
USA - Chart-topping country singer Morgan Wallen has set off on a tour of arenas, stadiums, and amphitheatres across North America. At the heart of the design for the shows are an army of VL3600 Profile IP fixtures from Vari-Lite, which are rigged centre stage and creating an array of high intensity effects and rich colours. Raw Cereal served as the Creative Production House for the tour, with founders Anders Rahm and Cort Lawrence as creative director and show director respectively. Keen to find a feature-laden fixture that would be “capable of transforming the stage into a canvas of endless possibilities”, they sourced 130 VL3600 fixtures from PGP to play a crucial role in the look and feel of the show. “The VL3600 emerged as our literal beacon of light, surpassing our expectations with its remarkable versatility,” says Lawrence. “As we curated a production
South Africa - Murangi Productions started as a family-based technical production and rental company way back in the year 2000. The company is now based in Edenvale, Johannesburg, South Africa and run by Hendrick Nemalili and his wife Rose. Murangi Productions supplies full-production and crew to corporates, awards ceremonies, live shows, music festivals and a lot of church-based events including gospel shows and has recently expanded its inventory of Robe moving lights, with the purchase of 12 x LEDBeam 150s and 12 x 350s with 12 x Paintes on order. Like many businesses in South Africa, Murangi Productions scaled back during the pandemic but was robust enough to survive, and they are now steadily gaining momentum again, with the assistance of their 12 full-time staff. At the end of 2022 Hendrick and Rose were confident enough about the industry bounce back to
India - The first Lollapalooza edition in Asia was staged at Mahalaxmi Racecourse, Mumbai. With over 60,000 people in attendance, the festival witnessed both local and international headliners with state-of-the-art stage designs and experience zones across the festival. Imagine Dragons, Great Van Fleet, The Strokes, Cigarettes After Sex, AP Dhillon, Diplo, Jackson Wang, and Prateek Kuhad among many other famed artists were among the performers. grandMA3 consoles were the preferred choice to design and control the on-stage lighting. Four grandMA3 full-size were used in total with four more grandMA3 full-size held in backup during the two-day festival. Award-winning lighting designer Naveen Deshpande (founder) and Satvinder Singh - senior designer of ground control were the lighting consultants for Lollapalooza India. Naveen Deshpande comments: “We wanted to st
USA - German lighting manufacturer ROXX has announced its exclusive partnership with Inner Circle Distribution (ICD). As the exclusive distributor for ROXX for the USA, ICD assumes the responsibility of sales, distribution, and support of the complete range of lighting products across its extensive network of dealers. Thorsten Sattler, partner and director of sales at ROXX, remarks: "With their extensive knowledge and experience in the lighting industry, ICD has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to providing its customers with top-of-the-line lighting solutions. We are thrilled to appoint Inner Circle Distribution as our exclusive distributor.” Ole Kaack, Inner Circle Distribution CEO adds: "By joining forces with ROXX, ICD fortifies its position as a premier distributor, offering an even wider selection of high-quality products to its esteemed cli
Spain - The Bilbao Exhibition Centre (BEC) was dressed for a special occasion recently for the farewell concert party for Hertzainak, spread over two nights. Hertzainak was a leading light in the movement known as ‘Basque radical rock’. Their first records combined the provocation of punk with the dance rhythms of reggae and ska, maintaining the political situation in the Basque Country as the context of their songs. Lighting designer Carlos Cirre was commissioned to design a show that would transport the audience back to the style of the 80s and 90s and evoke a retro spirit recreated by 100 fixtures from the catalogue of GLP. This included 35 of the new impression X5. According to Cirre, “The entire stage ceiling was covered with X5 luminaires. Although it was a completely new experience for me, I think this was one of the great discoveries of the event, a
UK - After 14m albums sold, including two No. 1 hits, and a fistful of awards from Grammys to Brits, Mumford & Sons continue to surprise fans by pulling out widely varied musical influences, from ancient folk to highly polished modern rock. On the band’s current global festival tour, designer Ed Warren reflects this expansive sense of discovery with a background that uses a combination of video tiles and lighting, along with fireworks from Strictly FX, to convey dramatically different impressions throughout the band’s 90-minute-plus shows. At times, Warren creates a bright, seemingly solid wall of light behind the group, using the majority of the 108 Chauvet Professional Strike 1 fixtures in his kit, which is being supplied by Neg Earth in the UK and Europe, and Upstaging in the USA/Canada. During other segments of the show, the designer will have video images
The Netherlands - Successful singer-songwriter duo Nick & Simon (Nick Schilder & Simon Keizer) played six sold-out nights at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena, the culmination of their Nu of Ooit (Now or Someday) tour which also was the last time they will appear in this format, as after 17 years of performing together, both artists now intend to pursue solo careers. Lighting was designed by Martijn Steman of Triple Showtechniek working closely with artistic / show director Ad de Haan from Live Legends with the help of approximately 220 x Robe moving lights on the live show rig, plus another 60 x Robe Spiiders appearing as virtual light sources within the digital scenery that defined the stage design and show aesthetic. Jim de Brouwer from Live Legends created the set design in conjunction with Sander van der Ham of Bluepaper and creative Desiree van Giezen, wh
