UK - Glastonbury Festival impresario Michael Eavis will be helping UK trade distributor Batmink Ltd celebrate its 30th Anniversary by holding an open forum Q & A session during Batmink's forthcoming week of free professional workshops and training (18-23 March)

These workshops are designed to provide useful 'hands on' experience and core skills and will be presented by some of the industry's foremost companies, says Batmink.

During the week, representatives from manufacturers such as Pioneer, Martin Audio, Cloud, Le Maitre, Shure, Audio Technica and Sennheiser will be conducting presentations on subjects including pyrotechnics, production and installed sound and lighting, signal processing, wireless regulations and providing certified training on Zero 88 lighting desks.

The Batmink team will be supplementing this with daily workshops covering subjects such as an introduction

Germany - Philips Entertainment will be promoting all four of its entertainment technology brands at this year's Prolight + Sound exhibition in Frankfurt in Hall 11, stand no D73.

Selecon, Vari-Lite, Strand Lighting and Showline will each be displaying the latest in lighting technology at the exhibition - one of the biggest and busiest in Europe.

Philips will also debut the latest in the LED illumination revolution, Showline. A complete range of super-efficient, feature-rich, professional entertainment LED luminaires, the Showline SL BAR 640 and 660, SL BAR 520, SL PAR 150 ZOOM, and the all new SL BAND 310 will be on full display as part of a well-planned family designed specifically for the entertainment lighting industry. In addition, a totally new Showline LED concept will be unveiled at the exhibition.

All Showline products utilise homogenized RGBW LEDs, built in effects

USA - Lighting designer Cory FitzGerald added eleven Robe Robin MMX Spots to his design for the most recent US leg of Cat Power's current world tour, which is promoting her highly acclaimed album, Sun.

The fixtures were supplied by Los Angeles based VER, who has recently become a valued supporter of the new Robin MMX series.

While on the road the lightshow was looked after by lighting operator Chris Smith.

Prior to this tour, Los Angeles-based Fitzgerald had not used any Robe products however he decided to use the MMX Spots after a spectacular demo from VER.

"They were great! I love the effects and gobos and they are generally excellent lights," he comments, adding that they were also completely reliable throughout the duration of their time on the tour!

Ten MMX Spots were rigged over the stage on front and back trusses. The eleventh was set on the floor

UK - Hawthorn, one of the UK's largest suppliers of technical and event services has annouinced the acquisition of Anagram, another well respected supplier to the event, conference and exhibition industries.

Currently employing more than 100 full-time members of staff, working across all industry sectors, Hawthorn boasts an annual turnover of £9m, whilst the Anagram team stands at 15 and turns over £3mper annum. Anagram will now dry hire equipment from their base in Cambridge, adding to Hawthorn's existing bases in both the Midlands and London.

Hawthorn's managing director, Martin Hawthorn, said, "This is an exciting opportunity for everyone within the group, allowing us all to open new doors, pool resources and develop existing relationships. There are many synergies between the two companies, bringing them together under one umbrella increases our knowledge,

UK - AED Distribution has announced the opening of a new AED Distribution UK facility, based out of their existing AED Rent premises in High Wycombe - to be headed by David March, as sales director.

AED Distribution UK says it will provide distribution for a cohesive range of entertainment technology brands, underpinned with professional logistics and order processing, supported by the AED Group Solutions. The range will initially include CM Entertainment Technology, Prolyte (including the four complementary but independent brands of Litestructures, Prolyte Structures, StageDex and ProLyft), GLP lighting, MDG foggers, High End Systems' Hog 4 control family, Fenix lifting towers, Swisson DMX solutions and sine wave dimming, SRS motor controllers, dimmers and power distribution, plus hardware from Manfrotto and Doughty.

Formerly director of European Sales for Philips Vari-Lite a

Denmark - Following the completion last week of its acquisition of Martin Professional and the foundation of a lighting business unit within Harman Professional, Harman has announced two key promotions at the company which, says Harman president Blake Augsburger, will position the business unit for optimal development while capitalising on selective shared resources and relationships with Harman Professional.

With immediate effect, Lars Dige Knudsen is promoted to vice-president, general manager, Lighting Strategic Business Unit, "taking over from Martin's previous CEO, Christian Engsted" - the statement says: the only mention of Engsted, the CEO who has guided Martin through eight years of drastic change, much of it in the face of severe economic adversity.

At the same time, Villads Thomsen is promoted to vice-president, Global Sales, Lighting Strategic Business Uni

UK - Congratulations to Richard Howell, winner of the Best Lighting Designer category at this year's Offie Awards, which recognise and celebrate London's eclectic off-West End theatre scene.

The 2013 awards saw the Best Lighting Designer category supported by leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light, a counterpoint to the company's support for both the Whatsonstage.com awards presented earlier in February and the Olivier Awards coming soon and reflecting White Light's aim to support productions of all types and scales.

Richard Howell took the prize for The Hairy Ape at the Southwark Playhouse, about which The Guardian newspaper commented "brilliant lighting from Richard Howell (an endless riff on the theme of light and dark) makes this a hugely visceral experience - like something conceived as an endlessly shifting painting".

Howell's fello

France - Intelligent LED lighting manufacturer, Chroma-Q received a prestigious Les Etoiles du SIEL 2013 award for the new Studio Force V 12 Phosphor white lighting fixture at this year's SIEL show in Paris.

Utilising the same innovative LED technologies found in the Studio Force range, the new Studio Force V 12 Phosphor is a 3,200 - 5,600K CCT, variable white fixture which provides an equivalent soft edge output to a fluorescent unit - up to 6,000 lumens.

Developed specifically for use in TV, film and broadcast studio environments, the Studio Force V 12 Phosphor incorporates fine-tuning of the green and magenta tints and frequency for camera, an extremely smooth uniform wash, extra soft beam, theatrical grade dimming and laboratory calibration to match Black Body Locus.

Chroma-Q's global brand manager, James Bawn comments, "We are absolutely delighted to receive a Les

India - Clay Paky's increasingly strong relationship with Mumbai-based Jagmag Electric Co. is resulting in the full range of Clay Paky fixtures being utilised at many of the most glittering events across India's major cities.

Jagmag became distributor for Clay Paky in India in 2009 with a view to developing the market for Clay Paky in India and ensuring that JagMag's prestigious clients have access to its feature rich, energy efficient, high output lighting stock.

Since then, Jagmag Electric Co., respected as one of India's leading one-stop, full service, in-house lighting, production and power distribution companies, has supplied Clay Paky luminaires to many of India's premier ceremonies.

Lighting designer and general manager of Jagmag, Atul Sonpal, is known for his work on Bollywood award nights and shows in India, and last year Jagmag and Clay Paky have collaborated to en

UK - One Direction picked up the inaugural Global Success Award at The BRITs, shortly after performing from a pinball stage custom designed and built by LS-Live - a company that also collected an award the previous week for Favourite Staging Company at the TPi Awards.

The boy band gave an energetic performance of their Comic Relief single - a medley of One Way Or Another by Blondie and The Undertones' Teenage Kicks - from the giant pinball machine. The colourful centrepiece carried the gaming theme from their previous stage set on ITV's The X Factor final - also designed and fabricated by LS-Live.

Said LS-Live director Ben Brooks, "We successfully delivered a red 'slide' staging structure for the band in December for their X Factor performance, so production manager Kenny Underwood approached us again to develop the idea for a pinball themed show.

&

Brazil - Over 150 Robe moving lights - including 56 x Robin LEDBeam 100s, 26 x Robin MMX Spots and 24 x LEDWash 1200s - were supplied by leading Brazilian rental company Luzbel Iluminação for the 2013 Summer Festival de Salvador. The event was attended by over 250,000 people across four days and broadcast on Red Globo TV.

Salvador, Bahia based Luzbel timed their latest purchase of Robe luminaires especially to be able to put the new units on the high profile event's main stage which featured a production lighting specification by one of their technician's, Junior.

It follows Luzbel's initial investment in Robe's ColorSpot 1200E AT and ColorBeam 700E AT units two years ago ... and the excellent results they have had using these.

(Jim Evans)

UK - For the UK premiere of the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise, Twentieth Century Fox brought in Premier to produce the London premiere of A Good Day To Die Hard.

Reflecting the full-on action of the movie, and providing a backdrop for the arriving stars including Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney, the Leicester Square premiere included a genuine ex-active-service helicopter alongside the red carpet outside the Odeon.

To add a little extra glamour to the heavy machinery, Premier brought in XL Events to provide scenic LED along the base of the 17m long flatbed truck on which the helicopter sat.

The low level of the truck provided XL with a challenge as there was limited space around the base in which to rig the LED. XL Events supplied 56 tiles of Pixled FX-11 for the event.

Pixled FX-11 was selected for the job due to its lightweight 450mm square tile size a

USA - ETC's recent training session for factory representatives on their new Prodigy variable speed rigging featured a Bandit Lites' installation at a Nashville school. Bandit's director of sales Chris Barbee was on site to offer insight into installing the new rigging system.

"It was a beautiful facility that had the equipment in both variable and six-speed rigging, and it allowed us easy access to the grid to show people the equipment," said ETC's Gary Henley. "Rather than a conference room with a projector, we thought that if we had the opportunity to take them to a working space and see the equipment and have the installer there to explain the process, it would be much more practical."

When Ensworth School received a donation to continue the master plan for the high school theater, the independent school contracted Bandit to design and install an automa

UK - As part of Richard Martin Lighting (RML) new initiative as LAMDA's principle lighting partner, the company opened its doors to their first year students to host the annual LED Play Days. "It's a great chance to show these prospective lighting designers and technicians of the future, the latest in the Industry's innovation and design. Our demo room is the ideal space for such an event," says Simon Cox, RML warehouse manager.

In recent years, over 90% of LAMDA's Stage Management & Technical Theatre students who actively sought jobs in the sector found employment within three months of graduation.

The academic year group is separated into four so that they have a much more intimate and hands on experience over the four days. LAMDA is very much a practical academy and so this ties in perfectly with the way in which they train their students.

LAMDA introduce

South Africa - The 9th Annual Channel O Music Video Awards held in November 2012 at the Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, Soweto, comprised of a Mega Dome structure and an enormous lighting plan.

A professional group of companies and individuals put the event together. Television production company, Don't Look Down Convergence Agency, were responsible for producing the event for DSTV while AV Unlimited supplied the full technical. The dome structure in which the event was held was supplied by IN 2 Structures, part of the Gearhouse Group of Companies. The set designer was Garrith Castelyn from AV Unlimited and Dreamsets were involved in building the stage. For the fifth consecutive year, Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier was the lighting designer.

"It was a big design from a lighting point," explained Joshua Cutts. "The brief was to create a black negative space

South Africa - The South African Broadcasting Corporation has invested in three powerful touch screen Avolites Tiger Touch consoles.

Avolites' South Africa partner DWR Distribution and entertainment lighting service company Blackmotion oversaw SABC's Tiger Touch investment for its Auckland Park, Johannesburg, studios.

The upgrade was part of a major enhancement of the Corporation's TV lighting facilities.

"The SABC has been using an analogue console for decades which was an impediment for their LDs to achieve anything other than generic lighting," says Kagiso Moima, managing member at Blackmotion. "With the new era of lighting technology in South Africa and the Digital space every Broadcaster has moved into, it was imperative for the SABC to introduce this technology to its employees.

"Avoites' Tiger Touch touch screen, the fact it's such a user friendl

UK - Lighting rental company Neg Earth Lights invested in five new Kinesys DigiHoist controllers and two remote handsets which went directly out on Muse's The 2nd Law world tour, together with a Kinesys K2 control and Elevation 1+ automation system that they already owned.

The Kinesys system on Muse - currently touring the US - was specified by the band's stage and visual designer Oli Metcalfe and automation guru Gareth Williams - who has been an advocate of Kinesys innovations for many years. Williams is operating the K2 on the tour.

They needed the K2 control package due to the complexity and accuracy of the automation cues, and also because these had to be linked to the Catalyst media server feeding video content to the moving LED screens. This allows the video images to be mapped and sized / re-sized in real time as the video surfaces are moving.

A major part of M

UK - Lighting Design students from Rose Bruford College have been working with the new Martin MAC Auras on a concert lighting project in the college's Rose Theatre. The equipment had been made available by Mike Walker, UK sales director for Martin Professional.

The college and Martin Professional are collaborating on developing a close partnership, working together to provide the best possible training to the next generation of lighting professionals. This new partnership has been made possible by lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe, who is a Fellow of the college and regularly visits the Lighting Design programme to run master classes and seminars.

Hansjorg Schmidt, programme director lighting design, says, "Patrick has been a fantastic supporter of the programme and the college. He knows our students well and some of them have been working for Patrick during the London

UK - Glastonbury Festival impresario Michael Eavis will be helping UK trade distributor Batmink Ltd celebrate its 30th Anniversary by holding an open forum Q & A session during Batmink's forthcoming week of free professional workshops and training (18-23 March)

These workshops are designed to provide useful 'hands on' experience and core skills and will be presented by some of the industry's foremost companies, says Batmink.

During the week, representatives from manufacturers such as Pioneer, Martin Audio, Cloud, Le Maitre, Shure, Audio Technica and Sennheiser will be conducting presentations on subjects including pyrotechnics, production and installed sound and lighting, signal processing, wireless regulations and providing certified training on Zero 88 lighting desks.

The Batmink team will be supplementing this with daily workshops covering subjects such as an introduction

Italy - The Sanremo Music Festival 2013 recently took place at the Teatro Ariston, in the picturesque Ligurian town on the Mediterranean, and was broadcast by Rai 1, Italy's national broadcaster.

Presented by Fabio Fazio and Italian comedy actress Luciana Littizzetto this famous event, now in its 63rd year, has always enjoyed high production values, and working in cooperation with the scenic director, the RAI's experienced lighting designer (and DoP) Ivan Pierri created different looks and stage personalities for each of the main performers, using 30 of SGM's new SP-6 ('Six Pack') LED blinders to bring the 1900-capacity venue to life. The lighting was supplied by Di.Bi. Technology Srl of Rome.

"Each individual scene had its own identity and the lights needed to be in complete harmony," said the LD. "I tried hard to realise a three-dimensional feeling, working wi

Sweden - Leading Swedish Television lighting designer Örjan Fjällström recently used Robe LEDWash 1200s for the first time to light a super high profile special broadcast, recorded by Swedish Television to celebrate the first birthday of HRH Crown Princess Victoria's daughter and second in line to the throne, HRH Princess Estelle.

The Sunday morning service took place in the Royal Chapel in Stockholm, a beautiful church dating back to the Rococo period located in the east wing of the royal palace, which was key lit by Fjällström using six Robe Robin 1200 LEDWashes.

The Royal Chapel is a heritage site complete with white marble altar piece extending up to the ceiling which enhances its grandeur with great flourish. Nothing can be flown from the ceilings or attached to the walls. The only options for lighting positions are on floor stands - and even these are limited - or a

Czech Republic - Following the announcement of a truly international line up of speakers for Showlight 2013, the organisers report that exhibiting companies represent more countries than ever before.

With the event taking place in the Czech Republic, it is not surprising that this and other countries such as Latvija and Slovakia are among the 14 countries represented. Most recent sign-ups include Coemar of Italy, Dedo Weigart Film and JB-Lighting of Germany, AC Entertainment Technologies, Chauvet and Hawthorns from the UK, High End from the USA and Company NA of Latvija, plus the international trade show ISE.

Among the highlights is the evening meal on the Sunday night, when the delegates are entertained by the exhibiting companies at private tables in selected local restaurants. These intimate dinners provide both parties the opportunity to get better acquainted and discuss -

Australia - AV company Scene Change has added a dozen GLP Volkslicht Zoom LED moving head fixtures to its lighting stock.

"We needed a small moving LED fixture that was fast and had a zoom," commented Vicken Hekimian, Scene Change Sydney director. "The GLP Volkslicht Zoom was bright, fast and compact plus it was provided by Show Technology who supply great after sales support and have always been very supportive of Scene Change. Having Show Technology as the supplier gives us a lot of a lot of confidence in the product."

The Volkslicht Zoom uses 60 Luxeon Rebel LED's in an RGB configuration to give a broad mixing palette of colours from its primary saturates, through to the more subtle pastel shades.

"The colour mixing is very good and the dimmer curve is great," remarked Vicken. "Plus it has a white mode which can be useful."

(Jim E

The Netherlands - The new multi-use indoor arena Ziggo Dome has been fitted out with over 400 ETC Selador LED fixtures, in a bid to make its house lighting among the best - and greenest

Traditionally, arena house lighting has been harsh, using unpleasant sodium or fluorescent fixtures, which do little to reflect the stunning lighting often found on stage. But with 80 ETC Selador Desire Lustr+ LED fixtures above the main arena, and 370 ETC Selador Classic Vivid-R LED fixtures in the surrounding corridors and foyer areas, the Ziggo Dome is very different.

Named after Dutch communications company Ziggo, the 17,000 seat venue in Amsterdam hosts a range of different types of events, from Peter Pan, Rihanna and Mumford & Sons, to the music from the BBC's nature documentary Frozen Planet, the MTV European Music Awards and Top Gear Live.

Ziggo Dome's facilities manager

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