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Lighting

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Australia - John Farnham is celebrating 25 years of his all-time bestselling Australian album, Whispering Jack, with another return tour. This time he performs an opening unplugged set of familiar hits, followed by a full serve of the 1980s album that really changed it all.

When lighting designer Chris Newman began planning the tour he wandered down to PRG's Melbourne warehouse to check out their latest gear and he came across the Vari*Lite VLX LED wash luminaire.

"I knew PRG had lots of new fixtures but I didn't want to go down the LED track as I didn't think they were a great light source," admitted Newman. "They're a good point source but I've never been that happy with the colour you get from LED fixtures. However, when I saw that they were a Vari*Lite fixture I thought that if anyone was going to get it right it would be them.

"They're a fairl

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UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light helped garage-punk outfit The Horrors with their acclaimed concert at London's Roundhouse Wednesday 12 October.

The company supplied lighting designer Ed Warren from Next Level Lights with a compact but diverse selection of equipment, including six of the powerful, punchy JB A7Zoom LED fixtures, six of the bright Martin MACIII Spotlights, five Martin Atomic strobes and four 5kW Fresnels.

Warren used the fixtures to help create an all-encompassing environment for the show, with reviewers describing 'vibrant green lights washing the crowd' and the 'quintet prowling behind a vibrating wall of light and gas'.

"I've used White Light's rental equipment for quite a few Horrors' shows recently, and you can always be sure of a high quality of service, great communication with their staff and lights that allwork. Smashing."

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - Lighting designer Bernie Davis used Martin Professional's new MAC Aura wash light on the BBC's Songs of Praise 50th Birthday Celebration, which aired on Sunday, 25 September from Alexandra Palace in London.

Davis, who saw the MAC Aura on the Martin Professional stand just two weeks earlier at the PLASA trade show, placed the quiet LED fixtures on stage either side of the artists.

"They were very effective as eye candy and we were all impressed with how six small Auras worked so well, even in an enormous venue like this," Davis comments. "They were great. You wouldn't believe how well they fitted the stage - six scallop-shaped black holes in front of the choirs neatly filled with Auras."

The MAC Aura was launched at the PLASA trade show in London, winning a PLASA Award for Innovation. It is the first compact LED moving head wash light with zoom

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Russia - Fast growing Moscow- based lighting design and rental company Light Logic has invested in its first batch of Robe's new MMX Spot moving light fixtures.

MMX was launched this year and has already been a massive success for Robe, with over 1500 units sold and orders being received and processed daily by the factory in the Czech Republic. The units were supplied to Light Logic by Russian distributor Sofitlight, after being specified by Light Logic's primary designer Dmitry Velikanov and technical director Ivan Nassonov.

The deal was co-ordinated for Robe by Russia/CIS regional sales manager Boris Krylov and for Sofitlight by general director, Arkady Shakhidjanoz

Light Logic was also the first Russian rental company to invest in Robe's fastest ever selling product, the Robin 600 LEDWash earlier in 2011, of which they now have about 75. The company works in all sectors o

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USA - Yost Ice Arena, home of Michigan Wolverines hockey, is the new home of a spectacular centre-hung Lighthouse video system. Integrated by Lighthouse partner TS Sports, the four-sided system features four main video screens, full-colour corner screens, and a 360-degree lower fascia ring.

The arena was constructed in 1923 and has undergone major renovations four times in its illustrious history. A classic collegiate hockey facility, Yost seats 6,637 and has hosted NCAA tournament games five times, most recently in 2003.

Yost's newest upgrade includes a four-sided board featuring Lighthouse Pi10 screens measuring 3.96m high by 5.12m wide, capable of in-game replays, animations and sponsor messages. Full-colour corner screens and a lower fascia ring constructed of Lighthouse F16 add dazzle to the centre-hung board and help keep Michigan hockey fans fired up.

For the Yost Ice

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Singapore - Wireless Solution Sweden is now part of Sentosa, the popular island resort in Singapore which attracts millions of local and foreign visitors every year. Its most famous resident and visitor attraction - The Merlion - a 37m statue formed in the image of the fabled half-lion and half-fish guardian of Singapore recently got a makeover using W-DMX technology.

Sentosa Development Group, which manages the Sentosa Merlion Park had decided to look into enhancing the Merlion Park's environment with the use of creative outdoor lighting. Synergy AVL Pte, a Singapore based audio-visual and lighting system solutions company, was invited to propose a lighting solution for the island's statuesque icon. Synergy's project team, led by senior project engineer Chip Chong earnestly conducted a series of site surveys before deciding on which types of indoor and outdoor luminaires were b

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South Africa - Lira's The Captured Tour is midway, performing to sold out audiences across South Africa.

Kurt du Preez, co-director of Pan Tilt, was honoured when approached to be the touring lighting designer for South African's Afro-jazz star Miss Lira, as she is affectionately known. "It's the work we live for," said du Preez, who operates the show using the Avolites Tiger Touch.

"The Tiger Touch is incredibly fast for its size and mobility. It's user friendly and if you make a mistake, forgiving. Avolites have come a long way in regards to moving lights software and the user interface."

Insane Sound supplement the in-house equipment at each venue with various fixtures including Robe and two Le Maitre units. "We use a lot of haze which makes a huge difference," he added.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - City Theatrical is launching a wide range of new products at LDI 2011 in Orlando this month, including the US debut of SHoW DMX Neo and SHoW DMX SHoW Baby. These two products are the latest innovations in City Theatrical's 10 years of wireless DMX development and manufacturing.

SHoW DMX Neo has advanced Ethernet gateway functions including dual Ethernet ports and accepts multiple show protocols such as sACN, Art-Net, and KiNet.

SHoW DMX Neo includes a RDM controller provided with the Transceiver which allows anyone to monitor RDM devices from their laptop during the show, perform all radio setup functions, and to check RDM responder functions such as Receiver signal strength, battery voltage on SHoW DMX Dimmers, change DMX addresses, and any other RDM functions that are supported by any manufacturer's equipment on the system.

SHoW DMX SHoW Baby takes the same wireless

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USA - Artistic Licence founder, Wayne Howell, has accepted an invitation to speak at the forthcoming LDI show in Orlando, Florida, as part of the Innovation and Technology Conference. The training session, to be held at 10am on 30 October (Room S319), will allow participants to access Howell's considerable expertise in the use of Ethernet TCP/IP for the lighting industry.

Covering essential information on the 'hows and whys' of Cat 5E and Cat 6 cables, which are becoming increasingly prevalent in the entertainment technology sector, the seminar has immediate relevance for any designer, technician or electrician interested in keeping up with the state-of-the-art.

Howell enjoys communicating his extensive theoretical and practical knowledge of the subject, having authored the handbook Rock Solid Ethernet and participating for many years in the ESTA (now known as PLASA) te

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Q Awards - Adele has won best female artist and best track at Q magazine's music awards in London. Other prizes went to rapper Tinie Tempah, who was named best male artist and Coldplay, who picked up best act in the world today. Readers voted U2 the best band of the publication's lifetime. Speaking on the red carpet, frontman Bono said Q had been crucial to his career. "It's a truly great thing," he said. "They're so important for anyone that wants to take all their music all the way."

Adele's Rolling in the Deep was picked out as the best track of 2011 ahead of her ubiquitous hit Someone Like You, which was also nominated. The singer's victory comes just a fortnight after she was forced to shelve a US tour due to problems with her throat. The ceremony also saw Queen entered into Q's Hall Of Fame and Siouxsie Sioux awarded for her outstanding contribution to

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USA - The PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 floor plan is now live. From today, participating companies and a full programme of events can be found alongside visitor registration facilities and exhibitor application information at www.plasafocus.com/austin.

The two-day event, to be held 22-23 February 2012 at the Renaissance Austin, Texas, is the first of a new style of regional event for North America. Based on the successful PLASA Focus events in Europe, the new regional model seeks to bring world class professional knowledge and high-profile exhibitors to the heart of beautiful Texas hill country.

Confirmed exhibitors include ETC, Arri, GDS, Robe, Rosco, CommuniLux Productions, GLP German Light Products, Daktronics Rigging, Clay Paky, Total Structures, High End Systems, Chauvet, Philips Color Kinetics, A.C.T Lighting, Doug Fleenor Design, Strong Entertainment Lighting, and Secoa, wi

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Australia / China - A new addition has been made to the Illumination Physics Bar Pro range of linear direct view LED products. Developed and implemented for the façade of the Landmark China Resources Building in Hong Kong, the unique rectangular shape of Illumination Physics' Bar Pro Rectilinear has been developed to suit applications where the physical appearance of the LED Bar must conform to a more planar appearance:

"The semi-square profile suits certain architectural applications better than a round profile LED BAR," says the company. "The unique linear end cap design means that there is no change in profile as one Bar Pro Rectilinear is butted up to the next. This is because the bonding surface of the end cap is inside the profile of the Bar Pro Rectilinear and the transition from one section of Bar Pro Rectilinear to the next is perfectly smooth."

(

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Russia - As the latest step in their global growth strategy to provide support for local partners, projectiondesign has opened an office in the heart of Russia's capital.

To coincide with the increased local presence, industry veteran Stein Ramsli has taken on the role of regional director, Russia and CIS. Ramsli previously held the position of managing director at Cisco/TANDBERG Russia and PLC and has extensive experience in working in the region.

Ramsli comments, "Our opening of an office in Moscow clearly demonstrates projectiondesign's commitment to supporting partners in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Our products are already very popular in the region, and we foresee strong continued growth here. Localising sales and marketing, training and product service and support is important for us, and will ensure our continued success."

At the same

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USA - A.C. Lighting Inc.'s booth at the 2011 LDI show, Orlando will be showcasing the latest technology innovations from Chroma-Q, Jands Vista and LedGo - all of which are distributed in North America by the reseller.

The new Chroma-Q Color Force Compact will be officially launched at this year's show. Utilizing core LED technology from the popular Color Force range, the Compact provides a powerful 1,700 lumens of output in a slim, compact profile - making it suitable for lighting areas while occupying a very small footprint.

By incorporating the same LEDs as the 12", 48" and 72" fixtures, the Compact works in harmony with the popular Color Force range; providing the deep cold blues, red hot lava looks and super soft pastels that designers love.

Another Chroma-Q innovation on show is the recently launched Studio Force White LED range, which has been designed s

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USA - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light returns to exhibiting at LDI in Orlando this year, after a several years absence from the show floor. The reason for the return - new products from i-Pix and Core Lighting, both companies are members of the White Light Family of manufacturers distributed by White Light.

On the White Light booth, i-Pix will be showing their new LED Beamlight, which surprised and delighted many on its first appearance at the PLASA Show in London in September. The fixture offers a new, low-energy alternative to the classic ACL effect, and is described by i-Pix as being "unlike any other LED fixture you have ever seen". The compact fixture is available with RGBW, RGBA, daylight white, UV and other light engines, creating a focusable beam that can be adjusted from+/-35degrees, with the highlight a tight 5 degree beam.

The fixture itself

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UK - London- based lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) continues to build its contract rental business, designing and supplying lighting and rigging for the newly opened Electric live music venue in Brixton, south London - a place with an illustrious history, arguably best known as the legendary Fridge, and before then, The Roxy.

CSE's contract rental packages are proving a highly cost effective and flexible option for busy venue operators, and come complete with quick and excellent technical support and backup.

Electric is only one of a number of current projects for CSE, which also includes The Box in Soho, four venues in Brighton and the Ice Bar in London.

The installation was project managed for CSE by Fletch who designed the rig in conjunction with Cy Kelly from Electric. The creative and practical concept maximises the available space, offering a syst

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USA - LumenRadio will later this week showcase SuperNova 2.0 and other new developments at the LDI show in Orlando. The entire LumenRadio CRMX wireless DMX, RDM, and DALI product line-up will also be on display in distributor TMB's LDI village.

SuperNova 2.0 had its debut at the recent PLASA show in London and garnered intense interest from a steady stream of visitors. SuperNova's RDM capabilities have been extended to wired networks and now offer unified connectivity and user-interface for systems that utilize a combination of wired and wireless DMX/RDM signal distribution.

"We have received tons of positive feedback on the changes we made for SuperNova 2.0. The ability to monitor and interact with the DMX flow through the whole system has transformed the product from a configuration utility to a full-fledged tool for system setup, control, testing, and fault finding; so

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New Zealand - The IRB Rugby World Cup was the biggest sporting event ever to be staged on New Zealand shores. It kicked-off on 9 September 2011 with the Opening Ceremony at Auckland's Eden Park, broadcast to a global television audience estimated at over 50m. An estimated 200,000 people crowded the Auckland waterfront precinct to take in the visual spectacle aptly named All Lit Up. Lighting designer David Eversfield relied on a grandMA2 system for control.

While the show's lighting design in the stadium was created by Paul Collison, who worked with a grandMA2 system as well, Eversfield and the Opticshock team used one grandMA2 light, one grandMA2 onPC and three grandMA 3D for the lights spread across the city.

Eversfield reports, "The waterfront show was pre-programmed using grandMA 3D where extensive use was made of the ability to have complete 3D models of buildi

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UK - Following several years of increased presence in the UK market, Coemar and White Light have announced that a Coemar Care service centre will be available at the White Light London headquarters starting from October 2011. This will offer a wide range of spare parts and service support, enabling White Light to offer a higher degree of support to the growing number of Coemar users.

White Light expects that this initiative will strengthen the relationship with existing and future customers, enabling them to obtain immediate local support, not only at the time of purchase, but throughout the life of the products.

This initiative is part of the Coemar project to support the excellence and innovation of its products, a recent example of which is the Reflection range, with increasing attention to the needs of lighting designers, engineers and planners.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Paul Young has been announced as the new operations director for both James Thomas Engineering and PixelRange. Young will lead the commercial direction of all future business development.

Paul Young states, "Following a successful PLASA, it is a very exciting time with both brands launching new innovative products. To celebrate the launch, we will be hosting an open day in November to demonstrate the range and everyone will be welcome."

JTE creates trussing solutions and PixelRange high performance LED luminaires. All products are designed and manufactured in the UK.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures have featured on Paul McCartney's On The Run tour, a series of sell-out, stadium concerts across the USA and Canada. Lighting designer Roy Bennett selected over 80 Clay Paky Sharpy narrow-beam spotlights.

Bennett, whose association with McCartney dates back to 2001, decided to incorporate the Sharpys into his design after seeing them for the first time at the LDI industry show in 2010. "When I first saw the Sharpy, I was really impressed. It's totally new and fresh, yet it reminded me of some of the early classic stuff."

During preparations for the new tour, Bennett decided it was time to update the lighting rig: "We'd been using the same configuration for the last four years, and I wanted to do something cleaner. Everyone agreed that it was time to start changing stuff."

The initial concept sprang from an idea sugge

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USA - Widespread Panic has had a long, fun journey over the last 25 years and celebrated it this fall with a jaunt around the US with Bandit Lites supplying the lighting. Lighting designer Paul Hoffman's set featured arches of truss in a staggered waterfall, loaded with 100 GRNLite LED PARs

Hoffman also utilized Martin MAC III's, a new tool for him. He incorporated VL 3000 Spots, GLP Impressions, and Grand MA consoles and used the new, fully programmable Bandit 5x5 Blinders.

Widespread Panic is an iconic American band with a big following. As they wind down in 2011 they have just announced a limited number of acoustic dates for 2012, known as the Wood Tour.

(Jim Evans)

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France - Puy du Fou's Cinéscénie is a visually stunning night time spectacle: a show with effects worthy of Las Vegas but located in the heart of the Vendée region in Western France. As in years past, from June to September, the 14,000-capacity open-air amphitheatre was sold out for each and every show this year.

Cinéscénie is considerable feat of engineering, featuring a 23-hectare stage, 1,200 actors, 8,000 costumes and millions of spectators over the years, not to mention unforgettable special effects.

Once again, the park's production team decided to use Martin Professional lighting products to light up the Cinéscénie show and installed 6 MAC III Performance fixtures (complete with framing module) at the edge of the set. The fixtures were supplied by lighting services provider MES, based in Vertou.

The MAC IIIs were instal

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USA - ABC's Dancing with the Stars features a new production design by James Yarnell, set designer, and Simon Miles, lighting designer. A new set with the dance floor raised above the audience provides a 360-degree stage taking full advantage of the studio space including three balcony tiers, and the dancers making their grand entrance through the new tracking centre-stage staircase. The new design also features a new fully integrated Schnick-Schnack-Systems multi-media LED lighting installation in its North American television debut.

"The visual quality of Schnick-Schnack-Systems is really apparent; the vivid colours and effects combinations are almost endless," notes Simon Miles. "Schnick-Schnack is specifically designed for applications like this. The colour consistency, quick response, and great 'on camera' performance is brilliant. The quality is exact

  1. Robe stars at the Innibos Festival
  2. Black Light in high profile fashion shoot
  3. Static Light identifies with 5 Star
  4. PLASA announces winners of 2011 Members' Choice Product Awards
  5. The Week in Lighting & Sound
  6. ETC Gio controls Dirty Dancing on tour
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