Lighting

Details

14 March 2016

"The tour was to be short, just six dates and we had no production rehearsal. By definition I needed time to have an intricate show pre-programmed on a desk powerful enough to run a complex structure of cues and give me the time and space to be objective: More than anything I wanted time to look at what I was doing and how that affected the way I called the follow spots, the Kinesys movement cues, and how the lighting and video sat together in the show." A taxing self-imposed brief, yet Carter chose this moment to migrate to a new operating system, a grandMA2.

"I'

Details

14 March 2016

The rig also contained several other Robe fixtures, including five DigitalSpot 7000 DTs, which together with the DLF Washes, were used to illuminate and project on to a scenic back wall above and behind the band, constructed from ten Airformance Design 'Waben Blocks'.

The concept of utilising the Blocks originally came from lead vocalist Philip Oakey, who had seen these at a festival during the summer and thought they would look very cool onstage - which they did.

All lighting and digital lighting equipment for the tour was supplied by Blackburn-based HSL - who have the largest stock of Robe fixtures in the UK - and like to ensure that al

Details

14 March 2016

The theatre had already received a new Eos control desk and RPU (Remote Processor Unit) through ETC dealer White Light; the latest upgrade, installed by Bradbrook Electrical, saw the old dimming units - which were installed in 1996 - taken out and exchanged for the latest power control from ETC.

"We've been so impressed by the new dimming," explains chief electrician Pete Coxall. "We used to have very poor dimming curves, with lights snapping on and off, but the new dimming system provides much smoother fades. We follow the old playhouse production format, with our own rig and lighting control desks, and incoming companies load their show onto the desk. They used to have to make extensive

Details

14 March 2016

Through this new combination of two worldwide industry leaders, Harman and Martin believe that their comprehensive offering of audio, lighting and video solutions for the live stage and events, as well as permanent venues and installations, will 'provide new, exciting opportunities and will take customer satisfaction to even higher levels'.

This transaction will create a one-stop-shop for the professional entertainment market. Adding Martin to Harman's USD $4.4 billion organization and combining two of the largest R&D budgets in the audio and entertainme

Details

14 March 2016

For the second consecutive year, PRG's Jeff Bailey and Andrew Strachan worked with Peter Pearson, line producer at Unique TV and CPL Productions, to provide a comprehensive screen, lighting and rigging package.

Working with the production set designer Richard Drew, PRG's Jeff Bailey supplied two 3.2m x 2m Barco C5 5mm LED screens, a 4m x 4m PRG P30 LED screen and five plasma screens.

The two 5mm LED screens are a key feature of the production design and are used for awards graphics and video play outs. These screens are new to the PRG r

Details

14 March 2016

Following XL's work on the Total Recall premiere earlier this year, Premier PR once again called upon XL Events' technical expertise to provide a suitable outdoor LED solution for the event in London's Leicester Square.

In addition to the requirement for a 'weather-proof' product, the event needed LED which allowed access through the LED tiles for rigging of the lightbox letters forming the glowing Les Miserables logo.

XL Events supplied 60 tiles of Pixled's lightweight FX-11 to fill the rear upright of the stage where the stars were interviewed by Michael Ball and Emma Willis before the film screening.

The FX-11's easy maintenance allowed removal of the rear shutters and IMs so that the letters could be att

Details

14 March 2016

A four day event, Showlight is unique for many reasons, not least of which is that everyone - speakers, exhibitors and delegates - are present for the duration, so there's plenty of time for discussion and exchange of ideas. Hence the high regard in which Showlight is held as being one of the best networking events in the business.

There is also a unique wanderlust attached to Showlight: a different location is found every time,

Details

14 March 2016

"I was present at the first shoot-outs at the Phlippo Showlights headquarters and the Viper looked promising to me," says lighting designer Thomas Boets of Light Design Productions, who specified the Viper on I Love Techno that took place in November at Ghent's Flanders Expo, one of Europe's leading indoor dance festivals.

"In the field, the Viper performed even better," he says, "An amazing light output for a 1000 W fixture! And with the even field through the entire zoom range, you get a fantastic quality of light throughout the beam. Definitely a winner."

Li

Details

14 March 2016

Warren Haynes originally organized the Christmas concert to gather musicians together in his hometown of Asheville, N.C. for a marathon of good music for a good cause. This year featured artists such as Sheryl Crow, String Cheese Incident, The Warren Haynes Band, Blind Boys of Alabama and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. The eight-hour event, which was broadcasted for the first time on AXS TV, donated the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity.

"The lighting design this year for Xmas Jam 2012 was one that I could not have been more proud of," said lighting designer Preston Hoffman. "I was able to take what I learned from last year and

Details

14 March 2016

In the lobby of each Bandit office, employees decorated a Christmas tree with angels requesting items for families in need. Items range from necessities such as diapers, shampoo and towels to gifts of stuffed animals, books and games. For those who participated, it was an opportunity to share the spirit of the holidays with those less fortunate.

Lee Anne Cooke, Bandits' business manager, has been at the helm of the angel tree campaign in Knoxville for over twenty years, a cause she says that does her heart well.

"Delivering our gifts is when Christmas really starts for me, and it's a task I will never delegate," said Cooke. "When someone tears up at the sight of a box of toothbrushes at

Details

14 March 2016

Taking place in mid-December at the London Transport Museum, the 'Taking Control' evening was the final event in the Society of Light and Lighting's current programme to inform and educate participants about trends in lighting, providing a forum for debate.

Lighting designer and chairman of the Society's London Events Committee, Peter Phillipson, introduced Wayne Howell as the inventor of the lighting protocol Art-Net, a method of distributing DMX512 over Ethernet. Howell's company, Artistic Licence, makes control devices that use many lighting protocols, and is a world leader in DMX512.

Howell compared and contrasted the major control proto

Details

14 March 2016

Characterised by the use of 37 x 10-Watt RGBW LEDs (containing four colours in one), another key feature is its wide linear zoom, with beam angle ranging from 12° to 54°. Additional features include a linear CTO from 3200K to 10000K, linear colour mixing with macro function, 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer and an electronic strobe (0 to 25fps). In terms of movement, the XLED 1037 offers speed adjustable pan and tilt (with pan angle of 0°-540° and tilt of 0°-270°) with auto position correction function. It also enables auto speed adjustment of the fans, brightness and contrast adjustment and boasts an advanced cooling system, with LED lamp overheating

Details

14 March 2016

A variety of original effects, designed by Elena Morozova specially for the Leningrad concert, included looks from the first 10 MAC Viper fixtures delivered to Russia.

Aleksandr Blednykh, an owner of Euroshow, shares his impressions of the fixture. "The Viper is a great product. It's fast and bright," he says. "I like it very much and we are looking forward to receiving more of them. Another important thing for me is that we have finally got a serious alternative to the Sharpy. There are too many of them out there and it is a one-fun

Details

14 March 2016

At the core of the lighting rig - a design based on a plot by Van Buuren's LD André Beekmans, and operated by Michael Seeverens both from Dutch based company The Art Of Light - were 70 Robe moving lights supplied by Slovenia's largest lighting rental company, Event Lighting.

The Robes were positioned all over a series of 12 trusses hung above the stage and comprised Robe Robin 600 LEDWashes, Robin 600 Spots and ColorSpot 1200E ATs.

As well as forming a dynamic nucleus for Van Buuren's high energy set, they were the workhorse lights for the other DJs in the eight hours of non-stop performan

Details

14 March 2016

Clarkson has been headlining her fourth tour in support of her latest studio album, also called Stronger. She has played dates in North America, Europe and Australia.

Bennet equally divides his complement of Sharpys in the air and on the floor upstage in vertical racks. "I use them primarily for effects," he says. "I key people with them to play around with the prism and the frost, which is an interesting effect on people. The overall look of the show is very clean; there are a lot of soft goods on th

Details

14 March 2016

Since Bandit Lites provides concert lighting for some of country music's biggest stars, including Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, it made sense that the producers of Nashville trusted Bandit Lites to provide the rig used at the Bridgestone Arena for the country rivals' concert.

Earlier episodes took place at The Grand Ole Opry, country music's most famous stage, and the historic Ryman Auditorium. Bandit provided both venues with permanent installation systems and fixture packages for their in-house lighting systems.

Viewers will have to wait until the show returns 9 J

Details

14 March 2016

wysiwyg - 'What You See Is What You Get' - is an award-winning software suite that is the graphic application tool used by production professionals to create stunning pre-visualisations of lighting and video designs at home or in a studio, without having to spend time and money programming at the actual venue. The software gets its name from its ability to deliver renders that are identical to what the designer can expect to see at the event itself, helping users become more

Details

14 March 2016

Elton John's lighting designer Kevin 'Stick' Bye, a former Vari-Lite technician, prefers to use Vari-Lites and for this run he preferred to have around 52 VL3000 and 12 VL2000 washes. Lighting was supplied by PRG.

Nickleback's lighting designer Butch Allen also used PRG's Vari-Lite 3000 fixtures as well as six VL2500 washes with Chris Maeder in control.

The most talked about concert was Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto World Tour where lighting designer Paul Normandale used Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX units to create a lighting experience to perfectly complement the band's ultraviolet spectacular.

"The band wanted a vivid ultraviolet feel, with a sphere of energy that could transform from small to massive," explained

Details

14 March 2016

John, from Woolwich Arsenal, South East London, has many years' experience in technical and specification sales, with a broad range of customers up to board level.

With a track record that includes experience in the lighting sector, he will lead on technical specification for 8point3, which manufactures and installs LED lighting systems, predominantly for industrial and commercial clients.

"LED lighting makes perfect commercial sense for businesses as it brings with it energy savings of up to 80 per cent, cost savings and a reduced carbon footprint," said John.

"More and more businesses are waking up to this and it is a real growth industry. Just as importantly, LED offers the lighting designer a real opportunity to produce innovative

Details

14 March 2016

A classic rock 'n' roll show it is, complete with guitar and drum solos and row of on-stage Marshall amps. Once recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as 'The globe's loudest band', Deep Purple can still put on a powerful, energy-filled show, and that goes for the lighting rig as well.

Deep Purple's latest tour may not be as ear-splittingly loud as year's past thanks to sound exposure limits but there are no limits on how bright or active a lighting rig can be. And Louis Ball takes full advantage.

"They really take a hammering," he says of the 1500-watt moving head fixtures, supplied for the tour by TDA Rental. "The show is evolving ev

Details

14 March 2016

Collison commented: "The biggest advantage of the grandMA2 platform on this project was the simplicity of the networking. Being able to have a control surface on the floor and one in the arena grandstand really helped manage the plotting. The show is viewed around 270° and covering the riders evenly from both sides on the ramps was of paramount importance. Having control surfaces on both sides of the arena also really helped with achieving this in the short timeframe. The show producers wanted a really simplistic lo

Details

14 March 2016

The popular talent show was produced by Schwartzkopff TV Productions GmbH & Co KG and Talpa Distribution B.V. and recorded in Am Studio 20 of Studio Berlin. It was broadcast on ProSieben and SAT.1, and featured a live audience of 1200.

Da Costa also lit the first TVOG series in 2011, for which he also used Robe fixtures at the heart of his design. He had a relatively open brief on lighting this one, and had to fulfil all the main criteria of a high profile TV show - being flexible enough to give each artist an individual look for their different performances and to ensure it worked well on camera and looked good to the studio audiences.

Also, there needed to be a visual harmony with Florian Wieder's impressive mode

Details

14 March 2016

"I am extremely excited about working as part of the well-established team at Flashlight. The company has a fantastic reputation for providing excellent levels of customer service and support, things which are crucial to any business," says Manister.

Providing sales and distribution of a wide range of the latest lighting equipment and consumable from the industry's leading manufacturers from their base in Heywood, Greater Manchester, Flashlight Ltd has enjoyed significant success in the film, TV and theatre sectors.

"Flashlight are extremely pleased to have someone of David's calibre joining the company, he won't be the only addition in 2013 as we continue to gr

Details

14 March 2016

A colourful character, known equally for salesmanship and his cheeky, humorous, bluntly honest (and occasionally profane) manner, Volver joined Martin Professional in 1994. His tenure as managing director of Martin Singapore, beginning in 1996, provided a showcase for his abilities. He took over Martin's US office in 1998, tripling sales there in the process.

Volver left Martin, and the lighting industry in 2005; he returned in 2011, joining SGM, the Italian lighting manufacturer, which had been purchased by Peter Johansen, the founder and former managing director of Martin Professional. At SGM, Volver served as export manager, North America and Asia Pacific.

Volver's years at Martin coincided with a period of transf