Europe - Hi energy UK drum 'n' bass duo Chase & Status has taken the European festival circuit by storm this summer, with a lightshow designed by Neil Carson, based on a floor 'specials' rig of over 160 lights - with 60 x Robe LEDBeam 100s at its core!

Forty of the LEDBeams are attached to two custom pre-rigged trussing dollies wheeled onstage for lightning-quick deployment behind the band, forming a retina-burning 'wall-of-death' effect.

The other 20 LEDBeam 100 fixtures are rigged ten each on two 5m high towers positioned either side of the stage flanking the LEDBeam dollies in the middle

The high-impact effects that Carson has created with the LEDBeam 100 wall have impressed everyone, particularly in relation to the miniscule size of the units, which make them ideal for being toured in large quantities whilst taking up very little truck space.

The design also utilises e

UK - Utopium supplied festival lighting rigs for 11 stages at this year's Boomtown Fair held at Matterley Estate near Winchester, 8 - 11 August 2013.

The fifth instalment of Boomtown Fair, a live music and arts festival, attracted audiences of around 30,000 each day to see performances from headlining artists including David Boomah, Dub Inc., Mad Caddies, Babyhead and Slamboree.

For the third consecutive year Utopium supplied lighting and rigging installations for the elaborately themed and creative Boomtown Fair. This year Utopium was approached to provide festival lighting rigs for the large stages, including Lions Den, Town Centre, Devil Kicks Dancehall and Circo Baile.

Will Howie lighting designer and production manager for Utopium commented, "Boomtown Fair was a very unique project for us. The festival was split into 12 districts, each one its own theme to represen

UK - LSi Online has learned the sad news of the death of Derrick Saunders, for many years one of the best-known figures in the UK's professional lighting industry. Derrick passed away on Friday 16 August after a long illness. As sales and marketing director of Pulsar Light of Cambridge, Derrick was a familiar figure from 1970 through until his retirement from the company in 2000. Even in retirement, he remained actively involved with family business Adda Super Cases, alongside his wife Monica.

Derrick's funeral will be on 30 August at St. Andrews Church, Oakington, Cambridgeshire, CB24 3AN. All who knew Derrick are welcome to attend. The family has asked for donations in lieu of flowers to be sent to St. Andrews Church fund.

(Lee Baldock)

Sweden - This year's Eurovision Song Contest production featured a design element requiring very special lighting; an element that demanded "the brightest LED fixture on the market: The Solaris LED Flare".

Flanking the sides of the main stage, extending overhead to meet above centre-stage, were two eight-ton, 46ft tall super-arches. The arches, located midway between up - and down-stage, required internal illumination to achieve proper depth perception. Exterior lighting just wouldn't do. Layers of plexi/acrylic sheets in each arch were toned and darkened for effect, which posed additional problems: the illumination had to be bright enough to blast through the layers with potency, even on camera.

Ola Melzig, Eurovision's technical director for the last 11 years, explains, "The arches were intended to have stand-alone value, independent of external lighting. We t

Sri Lanka - PR Lighting fixtures were out in force at the recent Derana Veet Miss Sri Lanka 2013 pageant in Wadduwa.

Held at the five-star Blue Water Hotel luxury hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean, the ballroom stage was imaginatively lit by technology company, The Lighthouse (Pvt), who handle the lighting each year for this event.

The company's Dinusha Perera based his lighting plot entirely on LED and discharge fixtures from PR Lighting, which form the core of Lighthouse's rental stock, to complement the opulent stage set conceived by Madawa Madawala from Derana TV.

Chosen for their bright output, advanced featureset and good colour referencing, Perera selected 16 XS1200 Spot, with their fast and intense beams, and 13 XR200 Beam, a high output moving beam light - along with some LED washes and par cans. These were used stridently and dynamically, under the control of an A

Europe - Bruno Mars has been out on the road supporting his platinum Unorthodox Jukebox album - one of the fastest selling albums in 2012.

His production design team once again on this arena tour is Cory FitzGerald and LeRoy Bennett, who have worked with the artist since the 2011 Hooligans in Wondaland tour.

Stepping up to larger arenas this time around, production has upscaled accordingly, and Fitzgerald has again turned to GLP's impression LED moving heads. Having had wide experience over a number of years, this time he has built 27 of the impression X4's, supplied by VER of Glendale, into a retro-style set redolent of the '70s & '80s, including a 6ft mirror ball.

The designer has worked through several generations of GLP's premier LED fixtures down the years - starting with the original impression 90 and RZ 120 zoom. The profile of these was raised when they

USA - Calling a nightclub Light can be risky business. You're basically telling clubbers they should expect a mind-blowing illumination experience every time they step through its door. Setting the visual creativity bar this high could be perilous for some, but not for developer/partners Cirque du Soleil and The Light Group, or for John Lyons Systems (Hollywood, CA), which provided the lighting design for this new nightspot at Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Judging from the reception it's getting from Las Vegas nightlife reviewers, Light doesn't have to worry about living up to its name. Part Cirque show and part dance club with 38,000sq.ft. of space and a 35ft high ceiling, Light features acrobats spinning overhead and world-famous EDM DJs spinning up front. To add to the multi-layered sensory experience, video is everywhere; 6mm video panels line the club's massive walls, its ceiling and

UK - Lighting designer Declan Randall has used ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ to light Dennis Kelly's Love & Money, starting at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff before going on tour.

"The Source Four LEDs were invaluable in creating the look of the lighting," says Randall. "I used them both as a backlight and as an front-of-house fill, and their ability to subtly mix colour and shift from a cooler tone to a warmer one was incredibly helpful. It meant that I was able to achieve a seamless blend between the projections and the lighting for each scene.

"They also offered me the ability to adjust the colour balance during the scenes to be able to underpin the emotional tone of the scene by making small colour adjustments, with the changes almost imperceptible."

ETC's range of LED fixtures, which includes Selador Classic and Desire, as well as Source

Mexico - GLP German Light Productshas appointed Rocketerias Distribuidores S.A de C.V. as its exclusive distributor for Mexico.

Rocketerias has offices and facilities across Mexico, including in the capital Mexico City and in the Yucatan peninsula, which hosts one of the country's largest tourist destinations.

Peter Hald, GLP's sales director for Latin America, said, "We are very happy to have Rocketerias become our distribution partner in Mexico. They have a very focused and dedicated team of people. As the GLP range has grown and become more successful, we have been looking for the right partner to work with and Rocketerias fits the bill perfectly."

Hald will work closely with Rocketerias director, Alejandro Barbosa Calderon, who said, "It is great to add GLP to the range of brands that we represent in Mexico, and we look forward to bringing them to the mark

In The Open - A new performing arts consortium formed from six outer-London venues has been launched to tour large-scale outdoor productions within the venues' resident boroughs. The Albany theatre in Deptford, Artsdepot in Barnet and Millfield Arts Centre in Enfield have joined forces with Watermans in Hounslow, Harrow Arts Centre and Tara Arts in Wandsworth to create Circulate, the new consortium. Arts Council England has provided the group with a three-year grant of around £500,000 from its strategic touring programme, which aims to bring more shows to areas in the UK with limited access to the arts.

The group plans to take one major show annually to six high street locations close to each venue, which will be free for audiences to attend. For its first year, Circulate has commissioned London-based Emergency Exit Arts, which specialises in site-specific work, to create

UK - SGM UK has recruited experienced lighting professional, Matt Wiseman, as sales manager. He most recently spent two years in European sales at Rosco and prior to that served seven years at PRG where he was in charge of gobo sales for Vari-Lite - specialising in the film and TV sectors.

Wiseman said he was drawn to the new position by the pedigree of SGM CEO, Peter Johansen and SGM UK MD, Ian Kirby, and the partnership they have forged. "Ian was looking for someone to lead the sales operation, dealing with SGM customers face to face. SGM has made a huge impact in concert touring and I want to further develop this.

"At the same time the entire LED product range is innovative and the build quality is amazing. With a lot of the products IP-rated I also envisage further penetration in the architainment market as well as TV."

Commented Ian Kirby, "The growt

USA - Elation Professional is making it easy for lighting professionals to get 'on board' with the next step in LED technology. The company has introduced the Cuepix Series, a collection of blinders and strip lights powered by advanced Chip On Board or COB LED technology.

The Cuepix Series will debut with four models: Cuepix Panel- 25 x 30-watt COB LED Tri Color RGB matrix blinder; Cuepix Strip WW- linear strip with 5 x 30-watt warm white COB LEDs; Cuepix Blinder WW2- blinder with 2 x 100-watt warm white COB LEDs and Cuepix Strip Tri-- linear strip with 5 x 30-watt Tri Color RGB COB LEDs.

COB LEDs differ from surface mount (SMD) LEDs in that the multiple LED diodes are directly mounted on and electrically connected to its circuit board as one lighting module. Since there is no conventional device SMT (surface mount technology) packaging, interconnection lengths are shortened a

Germany - Wonderland Open Air is an annual Trance Festival, held at Waldfrieden, in the Stemwede community of Wehdem in Germany. The music is electronic - mostly 'Psytrance' or 'Goa" - and this year the 17th edition of the event welcomed a record number of visitors (in excess of 7,000).

A top class line-up came to this special forest location, which was impressively decorated, and received the full approval of the festival-goers.

The challenge of lighting the location was represented by the large split main floor and the second stage, known as the Backyard. This challenge was accepted by the team of Provisuell from Bielefeld under the direction of Mathias Schindler.

In order to satisfy the dynamics of both the different dance genres and the corporate designs, the production company decided to deploy premium products from PR Lighting.

According to Pascal Vieregg

UK - High Wycombe-based Dry Hire Lighting (DHL) has become the first UK rental house to take delivery of Showline's new LED linear SL BAR 640 luminaire - and will soon offer the SL BAR 660 as well.

Dry Hire Lighting's Nic Tolkien first became interested in the SL BAR 640 during the 2012 PLASA show in London: "We had been looking for the 'next generation' of LED batten fixtures for some time and the Showline SL BAR 640 seemed to tick all the boxes. We've had tremendous success over the past couple of years with the Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze and ColorBlaze TRX fixtures but felt that now was the time to enhance our offering and get into some of the newer technology and add a fixture with the homogenized RGBW. Of course we were very happy to be able to do this with another Philips product. The SL BAR 640 looks fantastic as a direct view fixture and is phenomenally power

Belgium - Around 250 Robe moving light fixtures were deployed site wide for the 2013 Tomorrowland EDM festival, staged in the normally sleepy town of Boom, Belgium, which saw 180,000 EDM fans entertained at the De Schorre National Park site for three days.

This was presented across 14 live stages with visual environment designed by Event organisers ID&T under the technical and artistic direction of Jurgen Nuytemans and Christophe Van Den Branden.

The Robes were supplied by several major Belgian rental companies, and production lighting designs for all the stages - mostly hosted by different clubs, people and organisations across the three days of the event - were created by a combination of the best LDs in the country.

The Creative Factory (TCF) provided their mobile visualisation suite on site, which was at the disposal of all guest LDs and operators to programme their show

UK - Bristol UK creative visual design practice SMASH Productions provided technical production, stage and architectural lighting and video designs for the Electric City area of the 2013 Eastern Electrics Festival, staged at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire.

They collaborated closely with the George Made That collective to meet the brief which was to make Electric City look and feel "amazing, be as environmentally sustainable as possible and work to a tight budget".

All these challenges were relished by SMASH's Tim Smith and his team whose ingenuity and lateral thinking produced some remarkable results.

There were two main aspects of Electric City - an outside collection of impressive palette pyramids designed and constructed by George Made That ... and a Marquee housing the Secret Stage.

The structures needed to come alive at night, and with the area being called

China - The location was especially selected, the scenery perfectly prepared: FAW-VW Audi Sales Division China celebrated a spectacular show for their annual Ice & Snow Experience event with a spectacular outdoor staging. This year it took place in the Chinese ski resort Changbaishan in 1'500m above sea level in January 2013. Nearly 500 spectators from Europe and Asia were present and enjoyed the outdoor snow performance - at -30°C air temperature.

For the presentation of different Audi cars of the Q and Quattro series, a complete slope was prepared with snow-hills, big illuminated brand and car model signs and a gigantic lighting setup. This helped in changing the scenery quickly and put additional focus on the very model presented.

A central element of the performance, however, was the use of especially controllable snow cannons: Not only did they provide a special refle

South Africa - To commemorate the 1976 Soweto Uprising, the 16 June, also known as Youth Day, is a public holiday in South Africa. Events aimed at young South Africans are held across the country and this year a draw card was a concert by Zakes Bantwini held at the Durban ICC on Friday, 14 June.

Zakes Bantwini returned to his home province for the Upfront with Zakes Bantwini live concert. The show was brought to fans by the Ethekwini Municipality and Mayonie Productions. Black Coffee was commissioned to provide the full technical for the event.

"The only challenge was getting in on that morning - actually at midnight - to set up and be ready for the rehearsals at 2pm," commented Llewellyn Pieters from Black Coffee. "But we planned crew shifts and it all worked out. The gear worked very well and everything was pre-addressed at the workshop and labelled for

USA - The Rolling Stones have wrapped the US leg of their 50 and Counting world tour with Clay Paky lighting fixtures along for the ride. The Stones sell-out 50th anniversary tour is their first in six years. They opened the US leg on 3 May in LA and concluded their 18 dates on 24 June in Washington, D.C. The band performed on a stage set featuring a giant set of psychedelic lips and a tongue-shaped walkway that riffed on their iconic logo.

Lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe included Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1500s in his design for the show. Co-lighting director Ethan Weber comments: "They're a very impressive, bright, good-looking light."

They also scattered a complement of Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures around the trusses. "You see Sharpys on every show now," Weber points out. "It's a turnaround from a few years ago when we were all using large format

Sweden - Held yearly, the East Coast Party is an open-air event held in Östhammar, north of Stockholm. Deployed throughout the entire venue by Adapt event planners, Martin RUSH Beam MH 3 lighting fixtures helped create the party scene.

"We had plenty of reasons to choose the Martin RUSH Beam over other lighting fixtures, but in short, RUSH lighting provided the long distance reach we required with the stage setup," stated Viking Grandin, senior project manager, Adapt. "RUSH's small fixture size, high output and narrow beam capabilities allowed us to shoot out over the 5000-capacity crowd and the dance floor without any brightness issues."

Adapt placed 16 of the Martin RUSH Beams on the stage floor and above a backdrop Martin LC-Series LED wall to create the spectacular effects. The rig also included a Maxedia Compact, numerous Atomic 3000's, Jem Roadie Com

Australia - Global Creature's new multi-million dollar production of King Kong has taken Melbourne by storm. It's an all-out spectacle.

Peter Mumford's stunning lighting design has just won him a Helpmann Award, a verdict that surprised no one.

Pivotal to his design are 86 ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ profiles, 50 positioned out front at the Regent Theatre with another eight on the side balcony trusses and the rest in the gantry.

"I've been using ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ profiles quite a bit in London and I really do like them," commented Mumford. "Although they are generic in one sense, they also have internal colour mixing so they have a remote aspect to them in terms of colour changing.

"They are quite beautiful, you can do very subtle colour changes with them over five or 10 minutes which I often do in productions. Although I haven't done thi

Australia - Over 500 Anolis LED fixtures have been installed by The ULA Group at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre (GCCEC), Australia, as part of the venue's continuing investment in sustainable and energy efficient lighting.

The latest power-saving Anolis ArcLine and ArcSource full colour spectrum units illuminate the foyer and corridor areas of the venue, which is Australia's largest regional convention centre. It specialises in all types of events from small meetings to large-scale presentations, accommodating up to 6,000 guests and offering over 10,000sq.m of floor space for conferences, exhibitions, awards shows and banquets, etc.

The GCCEC's decision to invest in the latest Anolis follows the highly successful Stage One supply of Anolis LED Lighting fixture to the common foyer and function areas, also completed by The ULA Group.

Incorporating new mood lig

USA - ETC has released a range of video presentations from their successful CUE 2013 event, which was held in Wisconsin last month.

The event, which was attended by some 150 users from around the globe, aimed to help them Create, Understand and Experience.

The event began with a full day of training on Eos and Congo family desks, followed up by three days of hands on classes led by ETC employees and other lighting experts. The classes covered 75 different topics, including lighting live shows on the fly, working with media servers, the theatre renovation process and proper ETC equipment maintenance.

Throughout CUE, attendees got to try out new tips and tricks in ETC's labs.

The keynote addresses delivered by ETC CEO Fred Foster and Tony Award winning Broadway lighting designer Donald Holder were highlights of the event. In his address, Foster told his emotional firs

Belgium - Lighting designer and operator David Smeets of TCF placed Robe moving lights at the heart of his design for the Main Stage at the 2013 Reggae festival in Geel, Belgium. Headliners included Pentateuch, Iba Mahr & Dubtronic Kru, Ironites, Freddie McGregor and many more.

Lighting equipment was provided by L&L Stage Services from Herentals and capacity crowds of 35,000 enjoyed the summer heatwave, picturesque and funky location and a sizzling line up of the coolest local and international reggae artists in Belgium's only such reggae event. The festival bills itself as the 'most laid back' in the country!

Smeets has lit Reggae Geel's Main stage for the last four years. His design this year was based on being flexible and appropriate for lighting ten different live artists a day and also adding a distinctly reggae vibe to the aesthetics.

This year, Smeets utilised 18 Rob

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