Italy - KSCAPE has appointed Vieri Parrulli to the role of sales manager. Parrulli brings with him over a decade of experience in the lighting industry, alongside ‘a wealth of knowledge and expertise’. Parrulli studied at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence. After a year of experience as a freelance professional, he decided to specialise in the field of lighting design, which he had always appreciated from an aesthetic point of view. Since then, Parrulli has gone on to complete several specialised courses and training throughout Italy. “I am delighted to join the team at KSCAPE within K-array, an organisation that is at the forefront of innovation in the audio industry,” confirms Parrulli. “RAIL is an exceptional offering that has already set a precedent in a merging industry of light and audio, and I am eager to introduce it to the wider market.”
USA - One of five Christ Community campuses in the greater Chicago area, Christ Community’s St. Charles/South Elgin location recently received a key lighting and house lighting upgrade of Elation Professional Fuze Profile and Fuze Pendant fixtures. The new lighting system offers the church greater flexibility in creating lighting atmospheres while adding an immersive element to the worship experience. Additional benefits of the new system include savings on electricity. The church sought assistance from JRLX, a Chicago-based firm specialising in systems integration and production and engaged Jason Reberski to devise a solution. Prior to the pandemic, Reberski had conversations with the church regarding upgrades to their house and key lighting, as well as new power controls. The church aimed to replace outdated infrastructure and equipment, while moving forward as a church.
USA - Hale Centre Theatre is a family company headquartered in Sandy, Utah, USA, and dedicated to enriching lives through its world-class productions, which include a range of traditional Broadway and off Broadway plays and musical theatre shows - around 10 per season - staged in two venues under one roof. The larger auditorium, the Young Living Centre Stage, has a capacity of 911 for its dynamic in-the-round format and has recently invested in a zactrack SMART real-time tracking system. The venue’s head of lighting and video, Jaron Kent Hermansen, was lighting a recent production of The Little Mermaid directed by Ryan Simmons, which involved extensive people flying, and decided that the time was right to purchase zactrack, which he could see would be a massive asset to this and other productions. Jaron has lit several flying-heavy shows before and was
UK - Creative Technology was an official supplier of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 - commissioned by Luke Mills and Gary Beestone of GBA on behalf of BBC Studios to provide a variety of LED solutions to bring together the impressive stage design by Julio Himede, realised by technical team headed up by Matthias Kublik alongside lighting designer, Tim Routledge. With the event’s theme being United by Music, the stage design concept was created to reflect this - resembling a wide hug, the entire architecture of the set symbolises welcoming the people of Ukraine and Europe with open arms. Taking centre stage were seven ROE Black Quartz LED towers, two larger outer towers measuring 4x10 m and five slightly smaller inner towers measuring 3x10 m. The towers were attached to an automation system supplied by Belgium-based company Wicreations. These systems no
UK - Electric Airshows, the only drone show company currently in PLASA’s membership, revealed two major advances at the popular PLASA Focus Leeds trade show in early May. First up, the specialist provider of drone light shows gave the production industry its first glimpse of a brand-new, ‘out of the box’ solution that signals the future of fast drone show implementation for entertainment. At the same time, the company introduced another major step forward with the addition of award-winning lighting designer (and trained drone pilot!) John Bishop, to its growing team. The ingenious new flightcase system offers rapid deployment for drone light shows. With 12 drones ready to fly out of - and back into! - each protective case, the system promises to significantly speed-up the laborious process of prepping and laying out a swarm of drones for an aerial display. Impor
USA - ACT Entertainment will showcase its new zactrack mini at InfoComm 2023 (Booth 3643). This briefcase-sized tracking solution offers easy transport and deployment for areas of 15x15m, by a single person. Designed to introduce tracking to new users and spaces, the zactrack mini is suitable for smaller venues, exhibitions and conferences, individual performers, rental companies, houses of worship and more. “With zactrack’s core value of providing a quality user experience at the center of this design, the zactrack mini boasts a smaller form factor with battery operated components and wireless connectivity for an even faster and easier setup,” says Ryan Hindinger, market manager: concert touring & live experiences, ACT Entertainment. “It is also a more economically viable solution, opening the act of tracking and following to any application, designer or p
USA - Anyone who saw Flo Rida’s appearance at Boston College’s Marathon Monday would readily agree that the bold lightshow by Events United perfectly matched the music and the moment, even though both took place in the early afternoon. “This was the second year we lit this event for One If By Land Productions,” says director of event productions, Chase Clark of Events United. “Boston College puts this event on to keep their students on campus during the Boston Marathon. Last year, Jason Derulo performed; and this year it was Flo Rida. Since the show takes place the same time as the Boston Marathon, our challenge is to create eye candy that looks sweet in sunlight.” Clark acknowledges that overcast skies helped with the effort this year, but most of the credit for the bold and engaging show goes to the Events United team’s adroit use of a muscular rig that
Spain - The Torre Sevilla in Seville is the tallest building in the Andalusia region and since Andalusia Day on 28 February, it has hosted a spectacular light show daily. PlanB, creators of the show, enlisted BGL to install the light fixtures that were supplied by EQC. Thanks to the height of the Torre Sevilla, the light show can be seen throughout Seville. The light show illuminates the top of the building with constantly changing colours and patterns to create a fantastic visual spectacle. At just over, one can only assume that BGL, the company who installed the light fixtures for the 180m high tower were supplied by EQC, who provided a total of 300 Showtec Cameleon Bar 16 outdoor light bars to fulfil the vision of PlanB. The Cameleon Bar 16 is part of Showtec’s Cameleon series that also includes floodlights and spotlights, that are all capable of producing e
Australia - When GTV9 Melbourne decided to update its lighting, it turned to Prolights, encouraged by the important presence of suppliers but also by the reputation of the brand. Having a fixture they could add more too, or replace in a short lead time, from any of the main Melbourne rental houses was a major consideration with the purchase. The resulting package comprises: 22 EclFresnel TW ,11 EclFresnel 2KTW, 22 EclPanel TWC, 18 EclPanel TWCJr and 13 EclProfile CT+. Since the installation, the studio has halved the fixture count in the rig from the old tungsten amount and there has been considerable savings in power. “Our staff have even commented on how cool the studios are these days,” remarked Daniel Saveski, senior lighting director at GTV9. “The best thing about LEDs is once the colour temperature is set there is no colour shift when lowering levels. This
Europe - VNV Nation, the Irish alternative electronic project led by singer, songwriter and producer, Ronan Harris, is currently on tour throughout Europe, promoting its new album, Electric Sun. With music and lyrics ranging from melodic industrial dance anthems to haunting ballads and post-classical soundtrack pieces, VNV Nation is renowned for delivering live shows full of sound and light, energy and emotion. Lighting and show designer, Martin Heining, of MHShowdesign, has worked with VNV Nation for eight years and understands well the style that excites him. “Ronan Harris is addicted to light,” he says. “He has strong visual ideas and loves beams, which I like to feature strongly in my designs. “The moment Marc Lorenz (Ayrton’s designer relationship manager for Europe) showed me Cobra at his office and I saw its laser-sharp beam, it took me
Europe - The Australian Pink Floyd Show (TAPFS) continues touring year-round and has just finished a lengthy European arena tour. Lighting designer Tom Mumby has worked with them since 2012, initially coming onboard as the projector tech, and then moving on to LD’ing and operating lighting in 2016. The Grimsby-based lighting rental company, Stage and Light, of which he is a director, is also the lighting vendor for all the UK and European touring work, and this latest design utilised 38 x Robe LED Beam 150s and 22 x Spiider wash beams. The current aesthetic is based on a collage of many classic Floyd lightshow elements. The look is dominated by a 5m circular truss centre stage, which, together with strategically placed drapes masks off an LED wall behind. Video still plays a central role in all the song narratives.s The 24 x LEDBeam 150s are spread evenly aroun
UK - With record attendance, PLASA Focus Leeds 2023 proved itself yet again as the go-to trade event for the entertainment technology industry in the north of the UK as it returned to Royal Armouries from 9-10 May. This year’s show saw a strong 20% increase in attendance from 2022 and a 5% increase from 2019, confirming the rising importance of in-person connections. Furthermore, this year saw 18% more students attending – a promising sign for the long-term prospects of the live sector. Always popular for its inclusive layout and friendly atmosphere, PLASA Focus Leeds welcomed a diverse array of visitors, with organisers reporting that one in five were business directors or owners. The most common professions represented by visitors were engineers, technicians and programmers. Moreover, a third of visitors were final decision makers. Tony Torlini, general m
UK - At PLASA Focus Leeds, Highlite International exhibited many of its lighting, audio, and audio-visual products, including a number of new entertainment solutions and innovations from Showtec, Infinity, DAP and Artecta. For Highlite International, PLASA Focus Leeds offered a great opportunity to meet customers to discuss the latest developments in the entertainment market. The Highlite stand was the setting for a comprehensive presentation of a wide range of new products for entertainment lighting from Showtec and Infinity, audio solutions from DAP and architectural lighting from Artecta. Showtec exhibited their updated Lampy DMX console with V2 software, which promises a huge step forward in functionality with multicell capabilities, a new professional colour picker, multi-touch support and up to 6 universes in combination with the new Lampy Re-Load 4 expansion kit
USA - Artistic inspiration often finds its most fertile ground outside the gates of convention. Such was the case with the lighting and production design that Max Lenox and Andrew Goedde created for Mt. Joy on the band’s current world tour. While conventional wisdom advises not to mix too many colours on stage at the same time, Lenox and Goedde have been enthralling crowds, and supporting the psychedelic indie group’s music, with a full spectrum design that sometimes displays a rainbow of colours side by side. “For this new show, we really wanted to use bold, vibrant colours to capture the band’s energy and creativity,” said Lenox, of Wide Open Productions. “We used multiple colours to create a sense of chaos and movement that enhances the psychedelic feel. While some designers may be hesitant to use a lot of colour, I think taking risks and experimenting w
USA - British rock band Muse recently finished the North American leg of its Will of the People tour, named for the band’s ninth studio album. Lighting designer Sooner Routhier of Sooner Rae Creative, who served as co-production designer with tour creative director Jesse Lee Stout, chose Ayrton Perseo and Domino LT fixtures as stage lights and spots. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America. “I love the reliability of the fixtures and that they are rated IP65,” says Routhier. “With Muse heading to Europe for a summer stadium tour at the end of May, it was important to have fixtures that could deal with inclement weather. We also love the fixtures’ brightness and smooth field of colours.” John Bahnick and Josh Wagner from Upstaging provided the Ayrton fixtures. The post-apocalyptic staging of the new tour takes the b
Poland - The shift towards sustainability in the theatre industry is becoming increasingly decisive and tangible. The National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra sets an example by replacing traditional halogen/tungsten fixtures with new Prolights' technologies: EclPar TU and EclProfile FWTU. The National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice is one of the leading Polish symphony orchestras, as well as a versatile cultural institution. The concert hall, with acoustics designed by Nagata Acoustics, has a reputation for being one of the best concert halls in the world in terms of acoustics. Proof of this is the fact that NOSPR is one of only two European institutions to have been admitted to the international organisation ECHO, which brings together 21 of Europe's most prestigious concert halls. Thanks to the support of Show Design, Prolights' distributor in Poland,
Europe - KlingNet3 is a new flexible, cloud-compatible, lighting and visual control protocol for the future developed by InMusic Brand’s ArKaos for the entertainment industry. The whole ArKaos stand at the Prolight+Sound expo, featuring 50 fixtures, was running on a KlingNet3 network via MediaMaster control to demonstrate the stability and robustness of the system. KlingNet3 enables control of all parameters of a lighting fixture and is offered as a viable alternative to DMX. ArKaos’ KlingNet2 has been a major success over the last 12 years, developed for pixel-mapping of relevant lighting fixtures and widely implemented by most premium and well-known lighting manufacturers. However, this was limited to controlling only the intensity and colour pixel information of a fixture! KlingNet 3 offers major additional features like the auto-detection of fixtu
USA - Bandit Lites recently illuminated the stage at the Bristol Motor Speedway live Easter celebration service. American sports icon and evangelist Tim Tebow and award-winning Christian musicians Phil Wickham and Cory Asbury took the stage on Sunday, 9 April prior to the start of the historic Food City Dirt Race. The BMS Easter celebration preceded the start of the Food City Dirt Race NASCAR Cup Series race and aired nationally on FOX and PRN Radio. Tebow provided a faith-based message while Asbury and Wickham performed several songs. Production designer Scott Moore and Lighting designer Mark Carver sought to integrate lighting fixtures with the upstage LED wall display that would evoke energy as well as read well on camera. “These fixtures would also need to provide various unique looks and flexibility while fitting in the space allowed,” said Carver. “
USA - A runway filled with fashion, a guest list filled with stars, and a lighting rig filled with Elation Proteus. That was the successful recipe for Italian luxury fashion company Versace at its recent FW23 Fashion Show in Los Angeles. 4Wall provided an all-IP65-rated lighting package of 85 Proteus Maximus and 56 Proteus Rayzor 760 luminaires to KCD Worldwide for the event. Scott Ciungan, technical director at KCD Worldwide, the fashion experiences agency that has worked with Versace for a decade, said that the pairing of the brand with the city during Oscars weekend all made sense. “This is a big breakout collection for them and a big moment for the brand. The collection that Donatella put together has roots tied to Hollywood and California, and the set, creative and location were all tailored around those elements.” FW23 served as a platform for Versace to sh
Italy - On 27-28 April, king of trap music, Sfera Ebbasta - stage name of Gionata Boschetti - performed his explosive show for the first time at the temple of opera, the Verona Arena, for the premiere of his summer tour that will take him all over Italy. To illuminate the famed Roman amphitheatre, lighting designer Josh Geromin opted for 41 Ayrton Cobras, which have already been chosen for numerous tours. Cobra is designed to render a D65 white point for perfect colour reproduction, a 0.6° beam angle and an extreme focusing range that allows the shape of the beam to be adjusted according to the operating conditions distance XT Focus. "Cobras have been used both as spots using the various prism/gobo wheels, and as tracers because of their ability to project very long distances,” says LD Geromin. “They were placed partly on moving structures and partly on the floor
The Netherlands - Techno-based Rotterdam Rave runs up to 10 underground rave events a year which draw in excess of 50,000 visitors. Originally located in old industrial buildings, the sold-out events have grown rapidly in size, and the organisation recently adopted the 8000-capacity RTM Stage at Rotterdam Ahoy as the newest addition to the Rotterdam Rave territory. As a purpose-built venue, the RTM Stage needed to prove its worth as ‘a genuine rave cave with plenty of underground vibes’. Helping bring about this transformation at the Rotterdam Rave Kick-Off 2023 event in February was Peitsman Licht en Geluid BV, which supplied two MDG ATMe haze generators to Stöd for show designer, Joël Lemmerling, and lighting designer, Guy van Noorden. Peitsman’s project leader for the event, Patrick Botterman, explains: “There was some scepticism amongst the rave goers tha
USA - Mike Marcario faced challenges when creating the lighting rig for Rend Collective’s 2023 Whosoever tour. The chart-topping Northern Irish Worship band decided that they would be taking two tour bus trailers on their coast-to-coast US tour, which meant that space for gear was at a premium. “Space was definitely a big concern,” said Marcario. “With two bus trailers, varying stage sizes, and power limitations the fixtures we selected had to be compact, low weight, and low power draw.” Complicating matters further, some of the venues have little in the way of house rigs, which means that Marcario and the design team have to rely heavily or solely on their touring package to create the varied and engaging looks in the 75-minute show. Marcario’s solution was to devise a plan that had each fixture fill multiple roles. “There aren’t a lot of fixture
Poland - Robe was a gold sponsor of the 5th Scena Jutra (Stage of Tomorrow) conference, a high profile two day industry symposium taking place at the Teatr Wielki Polish National Opera in Warsaw, organised by the Stage of Tomorrow Foundation. An impressive array of high-profile Polish and international speakers and influencers ensured there was plenty of interest in the diverse programme that explored multiple topics and themes all related to stage presentation, scenography, dramaturgy, theatricality, and expression over 50 separate sessions. Debates, discussions and presentations focused on how new and developing technologies - from the latest lighting fixtures and sound systems to VR, real-time visual tools remote tracking and AI - might affect the future creation of emotional experiences for audiences and guests. Scena Jutra president Rafal Rzeczkowski was delight
USA - Obsidian Control Systems is has introduced the Netron RP2, an intelligent two-way DMX power relay that serves as a protective device for lighting fixtures. The RP2 helps to increase efficiency by reducing power consumption, protecting sensitive equipment and prolonging the longevity of lighting systems. The unit is available and shipping from June 2023. The RP2 is configurable via an integrated OLED display and encoder with real-time status and power consumption feedback. It features optional smart power sequencing and DMX traffic detection to allow complete automation of fixture power based on DMX status. Simply turn the console on or off, and the system will follow along. An internal clock allows for independent standalone operation or automate the power outputs to specific days and times. For example, a system could be turned off every day at midnight to avoid
