Finland - Choreographer Tero Saarinen's creation Vox Balaenae is set to the contemporary music piece of the same name - one of the best-known works by American composer George Crumb. The music was inspired by a recording of humpback whales singing in the depths of the ocean. The composition has three parts: a prologue and an epilogue, separated by five variations named after geological periods.

Theatrical elements are built into the play's staging instructions: the piano, cello, and flute are all electrically amplified and the musicians are meant to perform masked on a stage bathed in deep-blue light.

Lighting and set designer Mikki Kunttu relied on a grandMA2 light to control the show's lights and the media server.

He states: "This line of work requires both very fast and very detailed programming. There is really no other console on the market that can deliver

USA - Melissa Etheridge is once again on the road, this time promoting her newest album, 4th Street Feeling. The Academy Award and two-time Grammy Award winner kicked off her tour early October and will make her way through North America throughout the fall season.

While it has only been a few months since her last tour, the singer-songwriter is offering a different experience for her audience with a stripped, intimate tour that reflects the artful, organic feel of her 12th studio album.

Lighting designer David Hamilton worked with tour manager Steven Girmant to give the show the exposed, rehearsal vibe he and Etheridge sought to express. In his ninth year of working with Etheridge, Hamilton wanted to "turn the venues on their heads" and strip the stages of any and all ornament.

"You see ladders, truss, lighting instruments, PA cabinets, and whatever's

Nigeria - Solution Media and InfoTech Ltd, a high-tech multimedia company specialising in sound, stages, laser multimedia, lighting, tent and digital print in Nigeria, recently staged an evening of live entertainment to demonstrate the power and versatility of the latest Robe technology along with other brands in their inventory.

Five hundred guests relaxed and enjoyed their favourite songs at the Memoirs and Wine, event including performances by two bands; Soda Pop from the Philippines and the Flame band from Kenya at the Federal Palace hotel in Lagos.

The event was co-ordinated by the CEO of Solution media, Prince Adeyanju Lipede and executive director, Prince Adeyeloye Lipede, together with the staff, plus Robe's Middle East sales manager, Elie Battah who comments, " It was really an excellent way of getting a good targeted audience in-front of the equipment and

Storm Report - Hit Broadway shows The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are among the New York productions which closed in preparation for Hurricane Sandy. All Broadway performances on Sunday and Monday night were scrapped. Several film events were cancelled too, including the New York premiere of Keira Knightley film Anna Karenina.

It is not known how long Broadway's lights will stay out. Broadway League executive director Charlotte St Martin added that "the safety and security of theatregoers and employees is everyone's primary concern." Meanwhile the music world has also been affected, with acts such as Mercury prize-winners The xx, Rita Ora and John Legend all cancelling US shows.

AIM Awards - Singer Edwyn Collins has been honoured for his contribution to the music industry, seven years after he a

USA - GLP's groundbreaking impression Spot One is among several of the German lighting manufacturer's LED fixtures that are presently dominating high profile touring productions in the US. However, while the impression series has extended its popularity with the arrival of the new X4head it has been the new fully featured automated Spot which is being seen as the holy grail by others.

Jackson Browne's lighting director/production designer for four years, Steve Comer, is one who admits, "I had been looking for an LED hard edge light for a long time, and when the Spot One came along it was just the fixture I'd been waiting for."

This latest tour expanded organically from its origins as a solo acoustic tour to an ensemble, with more and more musician friends set to join him onstage. And this called for a more theatrically lit show where stage positions and musicians cou

USA - ELC Lighting received the Rock our World 2012 award for their innovative intercom system at the recent LDI 2012 show in Las Vegas.

For The Netherlands based ELC Lighting team that developed the Green-GO intercom system range of products, moving into full production in January following successful launches at PLASA and LDI in 2011, the Las Vegas win was an exciting climax to a busy 12 months.

ELC Lighting's 'Green-GO' digital show communications system designer Joost van Eenbergen and sales manager Silvio Cibien said that they were overwhelmed with the compliments from such an eminent group of judges that included Mike Wood who stated, "In all the years of the Rock our World Awards the Green-GO received the quickest agreement as an award winner that I can remember. The judges were universally enthusiastic in their praise."

ELC has built an enviable reputation

UK - PR Lighting has launched new white and RGB versions of the XRLED 300 Spot.

The XRLED 300 Spot-W is equipped with 300W Butterfly white LED module, with a 13°-34° wide zoom, and its ultra quiet operation makes it an exceptional member of the product portfolio.

The fixture is also fully featured, boasting seven dichroic colour filters (plus white), seven indexable rotating gobos plus seven fixed gobos; a beam angle of 13°-34° (linearly adjustable); linearly adjustable focus, iris and dimmer (0-100%); electronic strobe (0.3-20fps); 1 x 3-facet prism (bi-directional, rotatable, indexable) and 540° (pan) and 270° (tit), with auto position correction, speed adjustable and lock mechanism. The product weighs 19kg.

The XRLED 300 Spot-RGB is equipped with high-power 300W Butterfly RGB LED module, with a 13°-34° wide zoom.

Also fully featured, this

UK - Roker, a seaside resort area in North East England, just installed new energy efficient and dynamic lighting along its famed Marine Walk as part of an ongoing regeneration project by the City of Sunderland.

The project received the 2012 LGN Street Design Awards in the Public Lighting category. The Awards - in its 25th year and sponsored by Local Government Magazine - recognise high quality, best practices, and innovation in public design projects across the UK.

LumenRadio's UK partner LITE Ltd. and Philips, in close cooperation with Balfour Beatty Living Places, designed and commissioned a system to revitalize the Roker Beach area with functional, efficient, and vibrant lighting.

The system is a combination of Philips CosmoPolis pole mounted dimmable DALI fixtures and high-performance Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast and ColorBurst LED fixtures to generate rich,

UK - The ITV show Surprise Surprise is returing to the small screen, hosted by Holly Willoughby.

Nigel Catmur designed the lighting show which is provided by Richard Martin Lighting (RML). The vast rig encompasses a huge variety of different types of lights and styles, meaning that they integrate into the set beautifully.

These lights include Alpha Wash 575, Alpha Spot 700, Mac Aura, Nova Flower, Robin 600, VL1000TS, VL2000 Wash, Chroma Batten 50 kit, Mac TW1 and still proving as popular as ever - Sharpys. With 42 units on the show, the striking beam is now so recognisable.

Another unit selected by Nigel for the show, which has become very popular recently is the Sunstrip. The latest piece of equipment to be added to RML's inventory, Sunstrip Active is "fully active and has a built-in dimmerpack. In order to make the unit most versatile for many applications you

Cambodia - PR Lighting's broad portfolio of fixtures are being specified increasingly on television shows around the world - from Algeria to Cambodia - in view of their rich feature-set, discreet form factor and quiet operation.

Cambodia is the latest, where a number of automated heads and architectural LED colour-mix FX are being used in a high standard production on Dream Palace, a programme which features leading singers and musicians from around the country.

The show is screened by Hang Meas HDTV - the first High Definition TV station in the country - and takes place in front of a live theatre audience every Saturday night.

Complementing the regal backdrop, with performers entering the stage down the palatial stairs, are 24 of PR Lighting's versatile, compact and fully featured XL300 moving heads, 12 x XL700 Spots and 16 of the newly-launched Arc LED 3108 fixtures

Italy - Clay Paky was once again present - as it has been for many years - at Miss Italia 2012, the number one Italian beauty contest.

Lighting director Fausto Carboni used a very diverse mix of 150 Clay Paky lights, including Alpha Spot HPE 700s, Alpha Wash 700s, Alpha Profile 1500s and Alpha Profile 1200s, in addition to the now omnipresent Sharpys.

"The scenery featured a very large structure, with massive video screens that completely surrounded the stage. There was also a framework inside the video screens consisting of tiles and building materials chosen specifically to give the set a particularly elegant look," said Fausto Carboni.

"With a set like this," Carboni continued, "it was absolutely essential to use the most compact rig possible, so my choice fell on the Clay Paky 700 watt spotlights and washlights. They are compact and lightweight,

UK - LED-based panel lighting is available in some exciting new form factors, but emergent technology cannot shine without commensurate advances in control. Ever comprehensive at the cutting edge, Artistic Licence Engineering will be demonstrating control of two very different planar lighting products that are newly available from Philips - luminous textile and organic LED (Lumiblade) at LuxLive 2012.

The luminous textile solution integrates multi-coloured LED modules within textile panels. These may be combined to produce a wall of mood lighting or dynamic content. Artistic Licence Engineering's dVnet driver is designed for such installations, allowing video to be directly rendered on the luminous textile panels. dVnet achieves this by converting digital video input to KiNet, the streaming protocol supported by Philips.

On a smaller spatial scale, organic LED (OLED) technolog

UK - A new hydrogen fuel-cell powered lighting package from industrial gases and engineering firm BOC provides a solution that is long on staying power and short on emissions, the company says.

Aimed at a range of applications, from lighting an outside maintenance area or a night-time sports practice court, to outdoor temporary events, the latest addition to the Hymera family of hydrogen fuel cell products from BOC, a member of The Linde Group, is an ideal option for locations that cannot connect to grid electricity, say BOC. The package uses high-efficiency, low-wattage lamps with an output equivalent to two 300W halogen lamps.

BOC say its system has significant advantages over both battery-powered or diesel/petrol generator alternatives. When compared with generator performance, the Hymera emits no carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) or particulates. In fact, it only pr

Australia - Resolution X took delivery of the first Martin MAC Viper Profiles in Australia (via Martin distributor Show Technology) and the new units didn't spend long in their new warehouse before making their debut appearance on the AFL Footy Show Grand Final Edition.

The show, an Australian sports television programme dedicated to the Australian Football League, was broadcast live from Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena with a TV audience in the millions, but that didn't stop lighting designer Rohan Thornton from debuting a product he'd never used before.

"I knew it wouldn't be a risk as Martin is famous for their reliability, and the people at Res X would have tested them thoroughly," he added. "The only risk was that I only had 24 Vipers and I used all of them with no spare but I wasn't let down."

Thornton had seen the MAC Viper at the Entech tradeshow and

UK - Nick Gray from London-based creative lighting and design practice Renegade 'imagineered' a dramatic and striking lighting ambience - both outside and inside - London's iconic Tate Modern art gallery, which hosted the new James Bond Skyfall movie world premier's glamorous after-party.

Gray was working for Skyfall after-party event producers AD Events. A demanding production brief included making the after party equally as dazzling and memorable as the premier screening at the Royal Albert Hall.

The event took up the entire Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern (formally a power station), and once again gave Gray the opportunity to work his lighting magic in this most distinctive architectural space.

Gray says, "The Turbine Hall is an amazing environment to work in and already highly atmospheric, so the real challenge was to add requisite 007 qualities like m

USA - Robe's Robin MMX Spots are an integral part of the new Luminosity: Ignite the Night. Powered by Pepsi visual extravaganza at the Cedar Point Amusement Park on the Lake Erie peninsula in Sandusky, Ohio.

These were specified by lighting designer Al Crawford of Arc3design, who worked alongside Lighting director and EOS console programmer Zakaria M Al-Alami (Zak) on the project.

Based in New York, Arc3design is a collective of LDs and technical artists who combine their multi-disciplinary experiences on innovative projects encompassing the genres of concert performance, theatre, dance, corporate and private events and environmental installations.

They were brought on-board to bring imagination, vitality and 'wow' factors aplenty to the Luminosity show by show producers Ryan Stana and Tarrah Hirsch of RWS & Associates Entertainment.

The 20 Robe MMX Spot fixtures ar

UK - Blackburn-based lighting and visuals rental specialists HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to Cheryl Cole's first solo A Million Lights arena tour, once again working for technical producers Production North.

The lighting design by Peter Barnes, directed / operated out on the road by Neil Trenell of Fix8, proved that imaginative and intelligent use of lighting and effects can bring serious layers of magic to a high-impact show.

The tour was project managed for HSL by Mike Oates who comments, "Production North under the technical direction of Iain Whitehead co-ordinated another superb looking and highly entertaining show, and we were really pleased to be involved."

Barnes and Trenell worked closely with creative directors Fatima Robinson and Beth Honan, who commissioned the set design from Bruce Rogers. They also initiated the video and visuals con

UK - A.C. Special Projects (ACSP) have provided an attractive exterior LED colour-changing lighting scheme for Da Mario Gastronomia Napoletana, an Italian restaurant in the heart of London's busy Gloucester Road area known for being a popular celebrity haunt.

Located a short walk from Kensington Palace, the 120 year old building's beautiful architecture merges Venetian and Gothic styles and was commissioned by Queen Victoria.

Having previously provided the restaurant with a custom multi-zone audio and DJ system for their basement, when deciding to upgrade their exterior lighting system, Da Mario contacted ACSP about the project - who also have extensive experience supplying and installing specialist LED lighting schemes.

Lance Bromhead, who project managed the job for ACSP comments, "It was really vital for the lighting to be elegant, understated and appropriate for the

Lebanon / UAE - The latest Middle East technical production company to invest in Robe products is Sound On Stage, based in Lebanon and the UAE, and run by Mazan and Rawad Saad.

The company, well known as an audio specialist, wanted to expand its operation to include lighting, so recently made an investment in Robe's Robin LEDWash 1200 and 600s, MMX Spots and LEDBeam 100s to kick start its lighting rental stock.

Sound On Stage supplies design services, equipment and crew for a variety of different corporate events / presentations and live concerts and shows.

The deal was co-ordinated by Robe's Middle East Sales manager Elie Battah.

Says Rawad, "We really liked the Robin range for its light weight, which makes the physical handling extremely easy."

He adds that Robe's reputation for reliability and robustness was another key reason leading to their decision, toge

Canada - Pop legend Peter Gabriel gives a rare glimpse of his nostalgic side in his new Back to Front Tour, which recently opened in Quebec City with a full performance of his classic 1986 album, So. Many aspects of the show hark back to the past, and lighting and show designer Rob Sinclair is using Clay Paky Alpha Spot QWO 800 fixtures in an application employed by him 25 years ago.

Gabriel wanted to bring back some of the elements from the tour that launched So, including camera booms with lights mounted on the end, one boom for himself and one for each of the original touring band members who have reunited with Gabriel: bassist Tony Levin, guitarist David Rhodes, drummer Manu Katche and keyboardist David Sancious.

"We brought the technique up to date by having five manually-operated camera booms with three Alpha Spot QWO 800 fixtures on each of the

UK - Black Light has installed an external lighting system at the recently completed, £20m, sports centre at Lancaster University. The project, which presented a number of key technical challenges, highlights the company's national reach and the fact that it can offer turn-key solutions of the highest quality.

"We were asked by the consultant, ARUP (Manchester), to provide a lighting system to highlight the building during dark hours and make it stand out from the street," says Jock Wallace, Black Light's installations manager. "As the sports centre is a brand new building we had to ensure that our work complemented it aesthetically. We also had to be extremely careful that our installation was faultless and that we achieved a perfect finish."

To ensure that the project's goals were achieved, Black Light carried out a demonstration of equipment on sit

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light supplied the lighting to the Horse of the Year Show, a long-standing fixture in the British event calendar, held at the Birmingham NEC. The event features equestrian displays, show jumping, and more. The show is an annual must-see for equestrian fans.

The Horse of the Year Show is organised by Grandstand Media Ltd, with Production Team as the production company led by artistic director Nadia Raibin. The show's lighting design was by Mark Strange, with Ben Fox as technical producer - who gives "a big thumbs up from the whole team to White Light for a great event". White Light supplied lighting for the main Andrews Bowen International Arena along with the smaller Caldene Arena.

"We've been through a few different lighting companies on the Horse of the Year Show over the last few years," comments Ben Fox, &quo

France - Over 200 Robe LEDWash 600 RGBW LED moving lights were again central to Peter Heilig's lighting design concept for the BMW and Mini booths and press launches at the Mondial de l'Automobile 2012 à Paris (Paris Motor Show). This was staged at the Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles and attended by over 1.2m visitors over two weeks.

The lighting fixtures were supplied by Rock Service from Salzgitter in Germany and specified by Heilig after his very successful use of Robe's LEDWash and PureWhites for BMW at the Geneva Motor show earlier in the year.

Thirty-two LEDWash 600s were positioned on the floor at the back of the BMW stand - designed by Mutabor Hamburg - for the press launch and unveiling of the new eco-friendly BMW Concept Active Tourer vehicle at the event.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Martin Professional's M2GO and M2PC lighting controllers are selling strongly in the US.

With over 300 units sold in the US since June, and outstanding sales at the recent LDI exhibition in Las Vegas, Martin Professional's M2GO and M2PC lighting controllers are quickly establishing themselves as the lighting control choice for rental houses across the country, says the company.

"The success of the M1 console has really paved the way for these new M-Series consoles," states Scott O'Connor, product specialist - control at Martin Professional, Inc. "With the M2GO on its way to becoming the standard for rental houses, our M-Series consoles have not finished impressing. We will have more from the M-Series coming soon."

The M2GO is equipped with a fast, dual-core processor with no external computer required while the M2PC is the complementary control surf

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