Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

Lighting

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USA - grandMA2 consoles proved to be country strong when they turned out in force for the 2013 CMT Music Awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Lighting designer Tom Kenny used six grandMA2 full-size for the gala special, which was hosted by Kristen Bell and Jason Aldean.

"The CMT Music Awards is a huge event on the music calendar and gets bigger and bigger every year. It outshines every other awards show," says Kenny.

Kenny partnered with production designer Ann Brahic, who marked her fifth year with the show. "She designed a set that was a very modern scape. It went along with the theme of the show: a cross-cultural look at country music," he explains. "People loved it. Ann really understands lighting, and we have a great relationship."

VER supplied Kenny with 140 Clay Paky Sharpys for inside and outside the arena. Two grandMA2 consoles

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When ETC began developing a lighting product for cycloramas, they didn't want to introduce just another cyc light on the market. It had to meet several requirements to be deserving of the ETC brand: the light would be bright, easy to use, provide seamless coverage, and comply with the high standards ETC sets for its products. The result is the Source Four LED CYC, an adapter that affixes to any Source Four LED luminaire, transforming it into a powerful tool to illuminate cycloramas.

Using the x7 Color System, which combines up to seven LED colours in one unit, Source Four LED luminaires can provide a nearly limitless range of colours, from pure whites to refined pastels and vibrant, saturated hues.

With the introduction of the Source Four LED CYC accessory, that colour flexibility can now be applied to cycloramas. "The Source Four LED CYC can really jazz up monochromatic cloths,

Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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UK - Hastings-based Wilson Process Systems (WPS) is squarely addressing the fast growing LED lighting market with the installation of the first assembly line in the UK that can assemble boards up to 1.3m long fully automatically. WPS has invested £500,000 to set up the line.

The upgraded WPS line can manufacture boards up to 1.3m long x 0.6m wide, for the growing opportunity in LED lighting, retail displays and digital signage. It is the first line in the country that can manufacture such long boards fully automatically, including the critical screen printing stage. According to WPS, the line will also be used to manufacture boards of more standard dimensions. The investment increases WPS assembly capacity to 140,000 components per hour.

Commenting, joint managing director Tim Wilson said, "This investment supports our continuing growth. Customers find that we can m

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UK - The first music festival to be promoted by an industry technical production company - Chilfest by Universal Event Productions (UEP) - was "a resounding success".

Music fans enjoyed two days of entertainment. The pop themed Friday night was headlined by Little Mix, The Lovable Rogues, Heather Small and others, followed by the best of the eighties on the Saturday - Tony Hadley, Rick Astley, Howard Jones, Midge Ure, Hazel O'Connor and Carol Decker.

All of this was delivered complete with the very highest in production values by UEP who supplied sound, lighting and video equipment and design.

UEP's Steve Butcher - who came up with the ambitious idea to celebrate the Tring based company's 15th birthday - was "completely blown away" with the response and the outcome.

"We set out to do something special to celebrate an important company landmark and

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Australia - Indie pop duo/couple Matt & Kim who hail from Brooklyn, New York, have just toured Australia as part of the Groovin' The Moo festival. Lighting designer Ian Lyles uses a Jands Vista L5 console for the arena, club and theatre shows that the band play in America and so when he found out that he would be visiting Australia, Lyles made calling into Jands HQ a priority. He was particularly keen to see the Vista M1 and S1 consoles.

"We were interested in trying out the Vista S1 as we're thinking of buying an M1 or S1 for our small Catalyst rig in the US," said Lyles. "We run bullet security cameras as iMag along with content running on Resolume from our playbacks rack. I was also intrigued to see if I could run a larger show, such as an arena show, on a smaller console like the Vista S1."

Jands kindly lent Ian a Vista S1 console for the Groovin' The M

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Turkey - Istanbul-based event engineering company Phantom has supplied a team of Clay Paky Alpha, A.Leda, and Sharpy fixtures to light the 2013 Mediterranean Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Eighteen months of preparation culminated in the Opening Ceremony of the 17th Mediterranean Games in Mersin, Turkey on Thursday 20 June. Lighting designer Jean-François Bonnement from Paris-based visual arts company Concept K, specified more than 400 Clay Paky fixtures to realise his dramatic design, included Alpha Profile 1500, Alpha Spot HPE 1500, Alpha Wash 1500, Alpha Profile 700, Alpha Spot HPE 700, Alpha Wash 700, Sharpys, A.leda Wash K10 and A.leda Wash K5.

"We chose to use Clay Paky fixtures because they are the only ones that can provide a balanced range of high powered luminaires such as the Alpha 1500 range," comments LD, Jean-François Bonnement. "We needed

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New Zealand - Dream Solutions has announced the release of its highly successful LightFactory controls software.

Version 2.12 expands LightFactory into the mobile space with the addition of an all new iPad remote. This latest version also brings more exciting new features like a visual timecode editor designed to make programming shows faster and more streamlined, says the company.

This release is a free upgrade for existing version 2 users and "continues the reputation that LightFactory is the most versatile software based lighting control system on the market".

(Jim Evans)

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UK - It is with sadness that the Association of Lighting Designers has announced the death of Andy Collier, the editor of the Association's Focus magazine and long standing member of the Executive Committee.

Andy passed away suddenly on Friday 12th July on his way to an ALD Executive meeting, where he was due to discuss the next issue of Focus and the ALD website, both projects that Andy was intimately involved in.

Andy joined the Executive in October 1995, and filled several key positions starting as Associate Member Representative, then as Corporate Member Representative, before excelling in the role of editor for Focus, re-generating it as a full colour magazine that led from the front page with its pictorial content as well as the grammatically incorrect tag line that he judged each article submission by: "More Art, Less Tools", a direct response from the members

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Australia - Chart topping Australian singer/songwriter Guy Sebastian is using Robe moving lights on his 47-date Get Along Australian tour, the latest stage in his impressive career, which has been nothing less than supersonic since winning the first Australian Idol back in 2003.

The tour's lighting and visuals design has been created by Bruce Ramus, and lighting director / operator on the road is Simon 'Junior' Johnson. The lighting and video equipment is being provided by Melbourne based Powa Productions.

Ramus has worked with Sebastian for about two years. He was given an open brief to come up with a flexible and dynamic scheme to help make the show rock on this one, the start of the live campaign to promote Sebastian's latest number one album 'Armageddon' which is already double platinum!

Ramus had used Robe moving lights on the last two of Sebastian's tours

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UK - Philips Vari-Lite's VL3500 Washes once more provided the backbone of Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage's versatile house-lighting rig.

Designed by Andy 'Fraggle' Porter and supplied by Neg Earth the rig had to accommodate a plethora of very different artists along with three headline acts, each of which played a single night of the festival, and each to record audiences.

"I knew I needed something powerful and reliable," comments Porter. "I also wanted a fixture that I knew was familiar to all the incoming LDs and that would provide the feature set for each of the very different lighting designs they wanted to deliver. Obviously many of the supporting acts are playing in daylight, so we needed something that would cut through on a sunny day! Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash and VL3500 Spots are ideal for this as they are super bright, extremely reliable and robust in all ki

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USA - Many times as music tours are being launched the preparation behind them gets left unnoticed. With custom design elements, these tours take months to prepare and the designers must find new and inventive ways to bring the music to life. With the Smashing Pumpkins 2013 world tour Shamrocks & Shenanigans, lighting designer Lawrence Upton had to find both a new dealer who could support his completely custom design needs, plus find a new lighting instrument to meet crucial design elements. He found his solutions in authorized Vari-Lite dealer LMG Touring, 24 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash luminaires and two Showline SL BAR 640 LED luminaires.

"The Smashing Pumpkins are a powerful and dynamic band with big colourful lighting and you have to keep the visuals fresh," began Upton. "The proof with VARI-LITE is that the VL3500 Wash luminaires are once again my f

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UK - Every year Lawnfest is organised by Camilla AlFayed for the AlFayed Charitable Foundation to raise funds for West Heath School. The one-day festival showcases a mixture of raw unsigned talent and name acts and was headlined this year by Billy Ocean.

SRD Group in Kent were asked to supply a unique lighting effect to add height, depth and texture to the stage. To do this they purchased 30x 1m LED tubes from MilTec (UK) Ltd. The tubes were used in two locations- 10 mounted on the curved roof of the stage, fanning out vertically to add height and 20 were hung vertically at the rear, forming a curtain of light. The tubes were pixelmapped onto an Avolites Pearl desk and used throughout the day to complement and enhance the stage lighting.

Colin Umbers, project manager for SRD reports, "The customer had a clear idea of the effect that was required but the original plan turn

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Serbia - Robe moving lights were used by lighting designer Marko Malesevic from Studio Berar - also the lighting rental contractor - as part of the rig for a massive performance by Balkan superstar singer Svetlana Ceca Raznatovic which coincided with the St Vitus Day public holiday (also known as Vidovdan).

The open air concert was staged by Miligram Music on a site at Usce in Belgrade, right at the confluence of the Rivers Danube and Sava ... and attended by an enthusiastic audience of 100,000.

The pressure was on to ensure that it was a memorable and spectacular event for everyone - all of those experiencing it live, plus the additional tens of thousands watching on TV.

Fifty Robe Robin 100 LEDBeams and 20 x ColorSpot 700E ATs were used to light the audience. With so many people and a live telecast by the Serbian Broadcast corporation on national TV, audience lighting was

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UK - "It's a busy time; we've just purchased another large batch of Clay Paky Sharpys for our rental inventory and they arrive this week, yet we'll still have to sub' in a few extra lights to keep our regular clients happy." Rob Merrilees at Dry Hire Lighting is managing growth with a wise head. "We will take those extra lights, check and prepare them to our standards, then off they go.

"We don't rent to end users, we don't do production. This is plain black box rental," Merrilees confirmed. The company has grown five-fold in the 12 months since foundation in August 2012, "We build our relationships steadily. The investment we have made in Clay Paky equipment has been an important part of that growth; their distributor Ambersphere has given us fantastic support and truth is, the range of lights Clay Paky has is what everyone is asking for. We stock

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UK - Nick Gray of London-based creative lighting and design practice Renegade produced an impressive stage design for Kasabian's Saturday night headline performance at the 2013 Hard Rock Calling event, staged for the first time at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to a sold out audience of 45,000.

Gray wanted to ensure it was a very special show with a high impact. It was essentially a large one off preceded by a couple of festival warm ups bringing to a close the band's impressive Velociraptor! album cycle.

The whole visual concept was inspired by the stark, contrasty and quirky music video for Switchblade Smiles directed by Aitor Throup.

With this in mind Gray and Throup draped the entire stage in white velvet including the walls, trusses and both of the floor based ground support trusses. A white Marley floor was laid, complete with white risers and fascias, plus

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UK - Technical entertainment specialists, Stage Electrics, are participating in The Gromit Unleashed campaign which is happening in Bristol. The company has sponsored a 5ft tall sculpture of the famous dog Gromit named Watch out Gromit designed by renowned cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe and is one of many such sculptures positioned across the city.

Gromit Unleashed is a new public art exhibition hitting the streets of Bristol for 10 weeks this summer to raise funds for Bristol Children's Hospital Charity, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal. Spearheaded by Aardman, the art trail features 80 giant Gromit sculptures, each individually decorated by an eclectic mix of well-known and local artists, designers and celebrities.

Dan Aldridge Managing Director of Stage Electrics commented, "Raising funds for Bristol Royal Hospital for Children is such a w

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Italy - Thursday 4 July, at the Clay Paky head office in Seriate, the Moto3 250cc four stroke engine was unveiled after one year of toil by Rumi-Sport Engineering.

At the official presentation more than 90 people participated, mostly coming from the world of motorsport; technicians, engineers, journalists in the sector, as well as two special guests: the multi-world champion Carlo Ubbiali and volleyball champion Marco Meoni.

Some guests were also from the main local media - the Eco di Bergamo, Bergamo TV, VideoBergamo, Mediaset Italia2 - SportMediaset. - who carried out reports which were to be published or aired the next day on the local news stations.

Stefano Rumi, coordinator of the project, started by presenting the Racing Team Department, which was followed by a video that retraced the stages of the history of Rumi and then by a light show specially made by Clay Paky's

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Austria - Every year since 2000, the most successful national and international musicians in Austria have received Amadeus Austrian Music Awards in different categories. It is the most important pop music award in Austria. MA Lighting and Clay Paky products were among those used during the recording of the ceremony this year at the Volkstheater in Vienna.

The lighting designer Matthias Frank, the show light operator Matthias Schöffmann, the white light operator and MA system technician Jürgen Erntl and the media server manager Stefan Kürzel counted - among other things - on two grandMA2 light consoles, a grandMA2 fader wing, an MA Network Processing Unit (NPU) and 80 Clay Paky Sharpys.

Matthias Frank commented on his use of the MA system, "It was critical in this production for more than one operator to work in a network. However only the systems needed for the console

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Italy - Italian fans enjoyed a spectacular display of lights, lasers, and effects at Vasco Rossi 's sold-out stadium tour this year. For maximum visual impact, designer Giovanni Pinna specified 64 of the new Lase-Array systems from ER Productions of London, plus 14 Look Solutions Viper Deluxe smoke machines.

Controlling 12 of the Viper Deluxe machines were a LumenRadio wireless transmitter and 12 LumenRadio receivers. "Wireless was the only way to go," says ER Production's Ryan Hagan. "Smoke machine placement around the stadiums varies depending on the wind, which of course is unpredictable. With wireless we can cover every angle and whatever the wind throws at us. Such flexibility just isn't feasible with cables."

Hagan adds, "LumenRadio wireless DMX is great. It's solid as a rock and never lets us down. We use it at every festival show we work on too

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USA - Designing shows for artistes ranging from Sheryl Crow to Fleetwood Mac over a long period, experienced LD Paul 'Arlo' Guthrie has been increasingly finding GLP's impression X4's an essential component in his touring inventory.

Earlier this summer, PRG supplied production for Fleetwood Mac's LIVE 2013 48-city Stateside arena tour - and this time Guthrie requisitioned 36 of the new generation LED moving heads.

The association between Paul Guthrie' (of Toss Film & Design) and Fleetwood Mac dates back to 1999 when he worked with lead singer Stevie Nicks, before co-designing the band's 2003 tour with their veteran LD Curry Grant and Bruce Rodgers (of Tribe Design). He then took over the reins entirely for their 2009 and 2013 tours.

Curry's own history with the band dates back to 1974, and since he had always used PRG as his preferred service provider Guthrie saw no reason t

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Australia - Robe got behind UK based lighting designer Simon Brockwell of SBLD to assist the facilitation of his innovative interactive work The Nocturnal Pianola, one of the eye-catching exhibits at the 2013 Vivid Festival of Music, Light & Ideas in Sydney, Australia.

The festival featured around 60 major lighting installations all located in and around the downtown area of the city after dark, spread across 18 days in June. It attracted approximately half a million people who came to enjoy and experience some of the wonders and thought-provoking and imaginative properties of light as a live art form.

Robe has always been interested in creative arts projects, and Brockwell's initial contact with Robe was with Ashley Lewis, key account manager for film, theatre & TV from the UK office. The two have worked on some previous projects together. Ashley put him in touch with

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UK - Lighting specialists Stage Electrics has taken the lead as systems integrator, supplying a full architectural LED lighting solution into Theatre Royal, Drury Lane which stands proudly on the oldest theatre site in London. First built in 1812 in the heart of London's West End and originally known as 'Drury Lane', the theatre has recently completed a £4m restoration.

In collaboration with architectural lighting designer Norman Bragg and Theatre Royal's Steve McAndrew; Stage Electrics' worked hand in hand to find the right lighting solutions for this iconic venue. Control of all lighting was via Zero 88 Chilli dimmer racks with a Stick KE1 touch screen control interface and DMX was distributed around the space via Swisson DMX merger and splitter units.

Business development manager Paul Roughton commented, "The scope of the project was to provide discreet lighting

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Germany - Lighting any type of religious building for a special occasion means a close eye to detail is required; so when Cologne Cathedral call for special lighting, they really mean it.

To create Lux Eucharistica, a dynamic audio visual show gracing Cologne Cathedral's recent Eucharistic Congress 2013, the management called on illumination art specialists Friedrich Förster und Sabine Weissinger of Casa Magica in Tuebingen, southern Germany. They, in turn, enlisted ETC Ion control desk expert Matthias Strobel to help programme the spectacular projections and colourful light.

"Controlling the Selador Classic Vivid-R fixtures and projection using Ion was the easy bit," says Strobel. "The more challenging part was taking control of the cathedral's very complex house light system with 1000+ channels via the Artnet protocol. The fact that we could organise it all u

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Spain - Significant recent growth in the sales of GDS LiteWare in North America have been closely followed by evidence that this most flexible of cutting-edge lighting technology is enjoying a similar increased uptake in Europe.

GDS' Spanish distributor, Entertainment Equipment Supplies (EES) reports that demand for LiteWare, notably from lighting designers connected with high-end events such as society weddings, has soared.

These battery powered, wireless LED fittings offer full RGB colour mixing with no heat. The range incorporates 'the original' LiteWare UL giving 40W of LED power, the LiteWare HO high output 80W version and the newest addition LiteWare Satellite which provides a hitherto unseen degree of flexibility. Its fittings incorporate a remote, fully-adjustable head with 360 degree pan and 180 degree tilt and an internally wired extendable pole that can elevate the

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