Germany - Besides extraordinary talent and the fact they have all made the history of music, another thing legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse all have in common is that they belong to the 27 Club. The members of this fictitious club all died prematurely at the age of 27 in tragic (and obscure) circumstances.

The play of the same name, The 27 Club, directed by British director Toby Gough and performed at the St. Pauli Theatre in Hamburg, pays tribute to these and other music legends. It is a musical journey through time in which first-class musicians from Britain and the United States bow down to their idols and play songs such as Hey Joe, Light my Fire and Smells like Teen Spirit.

Patrick Woodroffe and associated designer Roland Greil dealt with the lighting design. Fifteen Clay Paky

USA - Avery Fisher Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Centre, has taken delivery of two DMX-controlled Robert Juliat Cyrano followspots from PRG/NJ. Avery Fisher Hall is part of The Lincoln Centre complex on the west side of Manhattan. The concert hall, which is used for a wide variety of events, opened in 1962 and has a capacity of 2,738 seats.

The Cyrano followspots replace aging fixtures. "The new Cyranos are the only followspots in the theatre," says Jason Marsh, associate director of production at Lincoln Centre. "We chose them for their exceptional quality and ease of use."

Marsh notes that productions in Avery Fisher Hall range from classical, rock and pop concerts to corporate events, television specials and network upfronts. "Television is the area requiring the highest-quality lighting, and TV lighting designers have requeste

UK - A global musical phenomenon, Wicked has taken to the road for its first UK and Ireland tour and the Production Resource Group (PRG) is providing a custom-built automation solution and the full lighting system.

The show opened at the Manchester's Palace Theatre to five star reviews and plays until 16 November when it will move on to Dublin. PRG is no stranger to the show, having supported the US tour since 2004.

PRG supplied a bespoke designed automation package for the production. For expediency the system used was set-up in its entirety in PRG's testing facility in New Windsor, New York prior to shipping to the UK. This enabled Wicked's creative team to pre-approve scenic moves, which saved valuable time in the theatre.

To support its UK installation John Galante, systems manager for PRG, joined the PRG and Wicked's technical team at the Manchester Palace Theatr

UK - After 25 years in the business, in the year Artistic Licence celebrates its Silver Jubilee, the company is relocating to a new studio space in London's vibrant Kentish Town.

Based in Harrow, Middlesex, for over two decades, the lighting control specialist has previously occupied the sort of light industrial premises suited to a traditional manufacturer. However, Artistic Licence now operates more as a design house, outsourcing the majority of its product assembly needs.

CEO Wayne Howell explains, "Artistic Licence is an agile company, happy to reinvent itself as the market evolves. The decision to outsource manufacture was one such change, but it has left us in a building that is no longer well suited to the way we operate. Our company philosophy is all about ideas and pushing the boundaries of new technology, and the new studio provides just the sort of environment

USA - At the 65th Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards, held in Los Angeles on 23 October, Lawo was awarded the Emmy Engineering Plaque. The award honours achievements that exhibit a high level of engineering and are important to the progress of the industry.

"I wish to thank all our partners and customers. They have always supported us and pushed us to develop products that better suit their needs and support their rapidly evolving workflow requirements. To me this cooperation is the key to Lawo's success", said Philipp Lawo, CEO of Lawo.

The Emmys' jury acknowledged that as one of the original manufacturers of audio networking technologies, Lawo pioneered the use of telecommunication protocols such as ATM/SDH (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and now RAVENNA (real-time Audio-over-IP technology), making it possible to distribute broadband audio in real time over WAN network

USA - Following their hugely successful PLASA London presence, Avolites and Avolites Media are heading to LDI at the Las Vegas Convention Center, from 22-24 November, to launch an array of new servers, fader wings, and consoles, Stateside.

Avolites Media will continue this year's launch of benchmark products by unveiling the S Series media servers, and Ai V7. The Ai S2, S4 and S6 are Avolites Media's latest server systems that offer 2, 4 and 6 Display Port / DVI outputs. They also feature the latest third generation PCIexpress motherboards, new series AMD graphics cards and PCIexpress SSD drives. In addition, the Salvation Engine can be easily configured to provide up to 64 layers of PIPs with a single server.

Plus the Avolites team will join the team from US distributor Group One to show off the eagerly anticipated Tiger Touch II. The much loved, intuitive console now offers

USA - Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson has taken his laid back acoustic sound on the road under the illumination of Bandit Lites. The month-long North American tour in support of his new album Here To Now To You concluded in October with every performance a sold out spectacular.

Lighting designer Scott Holthaus worked with Jack Johnson to create a simple tungsten look, using only scoops and lekos for the main part of the lighting design. Wooden battens and large pulleys give the appearance of "Roald Dahl meets the Italian circus" while 15 scoops and 15 lekos hang from random heights on the five bars.

"While we showcased the old technology, we have some moving heads hidden above in the support trusses to give a bit of pepper," explained Holthaus. "We (per lighting director Leif Dixon's idea) were worried that the artist would soon be bored of the s

UK - The newly opened Da Vinci Studio School was announced as the winner of the Locos in a Different Light competition at the National Railway Museum in York late last night. The competition which saw colleges and universities get to grips with lighting up Mallard and its sister locomotives ran as part of the Illuminating York festival and the museum's Autumn Great Gathering.

The students, who were judged by industry professionals were marked according to a number of categories including; theatricality, energy consumption, conservation and safety and conservation.

Da Vinci Studio School's creative lighting effects brought Mallard's freshly cosmetically restored sister engine Dominion of Canada to life, with subtle steam effects, a highlighted headboard and bell and dramatic red side lighting to provide contrast for its gleaming garter blue paint. Their work scored parti

Kenya - Following a large purchase of PR Lighting's premium discharge and LED automated lights, Nairobi-based rental company Homeboyz Entertainment Services has considerably broadened awareness of the Chinese company in east Africa.

Homeboyz, whose range of services includes turnkey event management, end-to-end event / AV production and hosting a famous urban FM radio station, has an outreach that includes other east African countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia.

Mainly specialising in rental/hire for the concert, corporate, theatre and club markets, they were attracted to the PR Lighting range after being introduced by the manufacturer's African sales manager, Lawrence Mao.

"We hit it off straight away," reports Homeboyz' CEO, Myke Rabar. "We had heard about PR Lighting in the past and seen them at international trade expos ... and

USA - A team of professionals with notable backgrounds in commercial and theatrical lighting, new product development, industrial design, engineering, finance and manufacturing have come together to form Aquarii, Inc., a provider of engineered LED lighting solutions.

Aquarii designs and manufactures LED light fixtures that bring unprecedented flexibility to venues, from front-of-house operations and house lights for performing arts centres to overhead lighting for municipal arenas. Created to make versatile LED lighting both practical and affordable for a wide range of facilities, Aquarii's lighting fixtures unite a variety of desirable features in one instrument, at price points that make it compelling to convert entire facilities from conventional lighting to LEDs, says the company. The company headquarters is located in Camillus, NY.

Led by Raymond Carrock as president, the

USA - Emmy Award winning lighting designer Oscar Dominguez from Darkfire Lighting used Robe MMX WashBeams for the first time on the 2013 NCLR American Latino Media & Arts (ALMA) Awards.

The star-studded extravaganza which celebrates the best of Hispanic talent, creativity and contributions made to film, television, music and the arts in the US was staged at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and presented by Mario Lopez and Eva Longoria. Longoria was also the executive producer of the ALMAs and kept everyone on their toes this year sporting seven different and equally stunning dresses throughout the evening!

This was the fourth year that Dominguez has lit the show, a task on which he collaborated closely with production designer Steve Bass.

His starting point for the lighting was the detailed set and his approach to lighting this was very architectural, accentuating its prominent

World - Heavy metal icon Black Sabbath continue their Reunion Tour in Latin America, Europe and the UK with a grandMA2 light console. The tour celebrates the band's reunion last year and supports their album 13, the first with Ozzy Osbourne since 1978. Baz Halpin is the tour's lighting designer and Michael Keller, lighting programmer.

Keller selected the grandMA2 for the tour since he's most comfortable programming that platform. "We're carrying the grandMA2 light with us now, but you can find grandMA2 in most places. grandMA2 does everything I need."

Keller initially migrated to grandMA2 "for its networking" capabilities, he says. Since then he's discovered that "it's a very friendly board. Once you get your profile set up it's easy and powerful. There's nothing you can't do on it." Upstaging provided the lighting for the tour.

(J

UAE - Wireless Solution Sweden AB is creating magic at the new MusicHall in Dubai with a system that provides an intelligent solution to a multi-use space. The venue is the second of a concept opened by brothers Michel and Jean Elefteriades who opened the original MusicHall in Beirut 10 years ago. It serves as a live entertainment hot spot as well as restaurant and nightclub.

The brothers found the popular Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Hotel on The Palm in Dubai, which was looking to expand on their large event space and saw MusicHall as a good fit. The space already had an adequate stage, lounge area and dining facility, so it just needed an interior makeover and new lighting scheme.

In addition to the proper areas in place, the venue had a good existing infrastructure which included four over-stage trusses with winch control and some existing power and dimming provision through a ha

Spain - Robe lighting has just launched the Spanish version of its complete website (www.robe.cz/es/ ).

Users from Latin America, Spain and other Spanish speaking regions will now be able to find all the main content available in their own language, including information on all the new and existing products and their technical specifications, plus the latest from the company's busy newsroom.

Regional sales manager for Latin America, Guillermo Traverso, comments, "It's really great news to have the official Robe lighting site in Spanish now! It is a great opportunity for everyone using the Internet daily as an information and communication tool to be able to access this in their own language.

"It is also another great advance for the Latin market in general and we hope that, combined with our highly proactive social media channels, we can continue to provide an exci

UK - Richard Martin Lighting (RML) reports that it has recently added the Chauvet Nexus 4x4 to its already extensive inventory and they are available for hire here now.

The Nexus 4x4 is both a bold eye-candy and tour-ready washlight capable of delivering at once the sizzle of a pixel mapping display and a robust light output afforded by 16 20-Watt RGB COB LEDs. The combination of COB emitters and a clever reflector design yields a striking, diffused light richly drenched in saturated hues.

The units are controllable via Art-Net, Klings-Net and DMX protocols and feature interlocking hardware to build large arrays. Whether in use for front viewings or as a backdrop, Nexus 4x4 promises a hard-to-match visual impact.

(Jim Evans)

UK - As part of its on-going 30th birthday celebrations, Black Light is offering 30% off all pyrotechnic hardware hires (subject to availability). It is also running a '3 for 2' offer on all Le Maitre pyrotechnic sales. Both offers run throughout November and usual terms and conditions apply.

"These offers are perfect for anyone who wants to use pyrotechnics to make their stage show, launch or gig that much more memorable," says Black Light's events and hires manager, Calder Sibbald. "We are hoping to get more people switched on to the creative potential and technical brilliance of Le Maitre's wonderful range of effects and equipment."

Black Light stocks the full range of Le Maitre effects - from its theatrical flashes and stage gerbs, to its confetti canons, smoke puffs and fountains. All the associated hardware - including controllers, pods, detonators an

USA - Leading moving light manufacturer Robe Lighting s.r.o. announces the appointment of Bob Schacherl as CEO of its US based operation, Robe Lighting Inc.

Bob Schacherl's exemplary high profile career has seen him work with two leading brands in the moving light field spanning the last 28 years - firstly as a co-founder of High End Systems and subsequently as vice-president of sales and marketing at Vari-Lite from 2001 to 2013. This career will now continue with Robe, as the company positions itself for further expansion and the strengthening of all its global markets throughout 2014.

In addition to his wealth of experience and knowledge, Bob is one of the most universally liked individuals in the industry, having gained many friends and earned much respect. He's known for his stylish, intelligent and energetic approach to business, which makes him ideal for Robe's 'Family'

UK - At PLASA London 2013 at ExCel, London, the Solaris LED Flare lighting and effects fixture was honoured with the coveted PLASA Sustainability Award. The eco-friendly concept behind the Flare's design was recognized by the PLASA Innovation Award judges, who asserted, "This multi-purpose, energy efficient product will save loads of energy by replacing and eliminating the massive power consumption of existing fixtures including strobes, audience blinders, and wash lights." The PLASA Sustainability Award is awarded at the judges' discretion for significant achievements in environmental excellence which will benefit this generation and the next.

The Solaris LED Flare is a super-bright, 1000W, high-performance RGBW wash, strobe, and blinder - in one fixture! A single multifunction Flare offers superior performance over traditional conventional or LED fixtures and saves l

Australia - Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour is a production that combines Michael Jackson's music and choreography with Cirque du Soleil creativity to give fans worldwide a view into the spirit, passion and heart of Jackson.

Lighting designer Martin Labrecque was required to design a rig that provided a decent amount of front and side light, as sometimes the stage can have forty-nine people on it, and that could also compete with the extensive use of LED video screens.

Another challenge was weight allowance with the space above the performance area already crammed with video walls, scenic elements and acrobatic machinery.

Originally Labrecque planned to use all VL3500 Wash and VL3000 Spot fixtures but was advised that he needed to scale back considerably due to weight restrictions. Rather than cut back the amount of fixtures, he turned to some of Vari-Lite's newer an

UK - The AED UK businesses including AED Rent, AED Distribution, AED Store and AED Second-hand are opening their doors on Tuesday 5 November for a Guy Fawkes themed Open Day. From 10.30 am to 6 pm, all visitors are welcome to meet the AED UK Team and have a look around their facility.

AED Distribution which enjoyed a busy inaugural PLASA, will be showing products from all of its partner brands including High End Systems automated luminaires, digital lighting and the HOG4 Family of consoles. Also, other brands such as SRS, Swisson, Prolyte, CM, GLP and MediaLas will be in action with many brands having their own product specialists on-hand for one-to-one demos.

David March, managing director of AED Distribution says, "We really hope that people will drop in for a visit to see first-hand the AED UK Operation and importantly meet the team here along with our colleagues from

France / Slovakia - After meeting at PLASA London, Leader Light has announced a new French distributor, Dimatec. From 1 November 2013, Dimatec will be strategic distributor of the full range of Leader Light's professional and architectural lighting.

"The deal is the next forward step for the company," said managing director Julius Szaraz. "We would like to increase the sales and after the meeting I was immediately persuaded that this is a good choice."

Dimatec distributes leading brands of lighting equipment and accessories for the film, television, video, photo and performing sectors.

"Leader Light's products are top quality and we believe that they will be a great supplement to our product portfolio," said Olivier Bordini from Dimatec. "The next exhibition where you can meet with Leader Light's products will be JTSE on Dimatec's stand (82

Australia - The Royal Australian Navy International Fleet Review symbolised 100 years since Australia welcomed their first Naval Fleet into Sydney Harbour. It was Imagination Australia's job to celebrate that milestone in a way the entire city and the world would take notice of. The spectacular was created in seven acts, from introducing the original fleet, through 100 years of service to Australia, current capabilities, a moment of reflection for the fallen and a finale to rival Sydney New Year's Eve.

Imagination conceived, wrote, designed and produced every element of the show. For the first time ever, fireworks were launched from seven warships, combining with a light show from 28 land and ship locations, a 30 minute projection show, live action on-board ships plus aerial flyovers from the Navy and Air Force. This was all choreographed to a soundtrack taking the viewer on a 1

Denmark - When the staff at Svalegangen, a theatre in the western Danish city of Aarhus, started looking for new control desks for their 200 seat main theatre and touring needs, they weren't expecting to make a quick purchase.

They wanted to find a control system with familiar syntax, in order to ease users' learning process on the new desks, and which would have great support and would be future proofed, with regular software updates keeping up with advances in lighting technology.

After browsing the market for a replacement control desk for about a year, head of lighting Anders Kjems and his team decided on ETC Gio for their main stage and a second for touring, complementing the Ion they previously bought for the 40-seat foyer stage. As part of the ETC Eos line, both Gio and Ion use the same control syntax they were used to from their previous desk, enabling both resident an

USA - Leroy Bennett's lighting design for the current Nine Inch Nails Tension 2013 tour utilises the largest installation of Ayrton's MagicPanel 602 fixtures to date. Following a successful summer festival tour promoting their new album Hesitation Marks across the Far East and Europe, American industrial rock project, Nine Inch Nails, are currently bringing their show to North American arenas under a dramatic lighting rig that incorporates no less than 126 Ayrton MagicPanel 602 fixtures.

Legendary rock production/lighting designer Leroy Bennett, whose long line of collaborations includes Prince, Tina Turner, Faith Hill, Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga, Rammstein, Madonna, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars has installed 14 motorised pods on variable speed winches above the stage, each containing nine Ayrton MagicPanels in a 3 x 3 configuration.

Ayrton MagicPanel 602 is a moving head v

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