South Africa - Choirs from 12 African countries competed in the 9th annual One Harmony Choir Festival at the Joburg Theatre. Having supplied the full technical since the show's inception, Showgroup were honoured to be involved once again.

This competition recognises the commitment, sacrifice and hard work of all the choir members, employees of the Barclays Africa Group, who practiced uncompromisingly, outside of normal working hours.

When travelling abroad ten years ago, Robbie Blake, director of Showgroup, was inspired when seeing Clash of the Choir. "Back in the day, Robbie pitched a similar concept to ABSA bank when they wanted to do something for their staff," explained Andries from Showgroup. ABSA - now under the Barclays Africa Group umbrella - have run the event ever since.

For the latest competition, crew moved into the Joburg Theatre as Starlight Express w

UK - London-based moving light specialist Richard Martin Lighting has made a major investment in Showline's SL Nitro 510 LED strobes.

The company - which recently celebrated 30 years of working on projects including Top of the Pops, Children in Need, and Comic Relief - says it purchased the SL Nitro 510 luminaires predominantly to meet demand for a versatile fixture designed to create a striking visual impact for TV and rock and roll.

"The output that the SL Nitro 510 can achieve means they can create dynamic and dramatic lighting for applications such as live music - their punchy and bright strobe effects are perfect for upbeat songs, for instance," says Richard Martin Lighting's Gemma Jaques. "They can also be integrated into set pieces and would be great for game shows. The possibilities are there, and we're sure that our customers are go

Denmark - As John Mayer travels the world on his four-conintent Born and Raised tour, lighting designer Nathan Alves ensures the lavish set is deployed quickly and easily to wow fans beyond Mayer's renowned guitar playing. Supplied by Upstaging, 50 Martin Professional MAC Vipers and 18 MAC III Quadrays light up the stage for the nine-month tour.

"We chose Viper because of its size and weight. It's really the only full-feature light that will stand up to our video backgrounds and the wide variety of other beam-driven graphics on stage. Viper's crisp beam and flat field really impressed me," stated Alves. "I have eight instrumentalists on stage at every venue and I require a light that will hold up to everything from the bright spots to the wear and tear of international travel."

The Quadrays were originally slated as MAC III Arifx fixtures, but after

USA - Elation Professional announced at the recent LDI trade show in Las Vegas a distribution agreement with High End Systems that allows the company to distribute the HES HedgeHog 4 in North and South America, India and Southeast Asia. Developed by High End Systems, the HedgeHog 4 is the newest member of the Hog family of consoles.

Featuring the familiar programming and command line interface and user-friendly ergonomic control surface that have made the Hog series so widely accepted by lighting professionals throughout the world, the HedgeHog 4 is a powerful, self-contained lighting controller with a built-in computer running Hog 4 OS software, the same software as all the other Hogs, and even comes with ArtNet and CITP capabilities.

The new console has a 12.1 touchscreen interface, two onboard DMX and four Art-Net universes, ten Playback Faders and many other outstanding fe

UK - The MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) Awards came of age in October this year when it celebrated its 18th anniversary in style at Glasgow's new 13,000-seater SSE Hydro. Lighting designer Gurdip Mahal, working alongside programmer Ross Williams, bought the M shaped MOBO stage to spectacular life for the BBC3 live broadcast. Not only that, the live audience and VIP guests also enjoyed a dazzling light show that saw the set and stage practically dripping with Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s.

This year Radio 1 DJs Trevor Nelson and Sarah-Jane Crawford hosted the Awards. Performing on the night, between award presentations, were many of today's top Artists including Tinie Tempah, Naughty Boy, Iggy Azelea, Laura Mvula, Rudimental and So Solid Crew.

Tinie Tempah set the stage alight, backed by a number of flaming, supersized music stands and 16 x high output Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s place

South Africa - Magnetic Storm, one of the leading event companies in the Eastern Cape, have invested in their first ever LED moving lights. They now have four Robe Robin DLS Profiles and four Robin DLX Spots.

Glenn van Eck and David Limbert from Magnetic Storm required new spots. Wanting to go with LED technology, they had a good look at Mediatech to see what was available. Harry von den Stemmen from Robe was at hand to introduce the equipment to them. The Robin DLS and Robin DLX fixtures have been making waves, well received for their low maintenance and great output.

"They were the best option available t fit our needs at this stage," said van Eck. "We decided to go LED due to the lamp life, lower maintenance and power consumption. It also brings our intel rig up to date and in line with national standards and offers our national client the latest technology n

Germany - TS Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH & Co. KG has recently extended its range of Clay Paky lights by adding 38 A.leda Wash K10s and eight Alpha Spot HPE 700s to the 14 Alpha Spot 300s it already had at its disposal. The firm also purchased a grandMA2 light, a VPU light and a 4Port Node onPC from MA Lighting. In the past, they had already chosen a grandMA2 ultra-light.

"Since we are a benchmark as live music technical support goes in the South of the country, with more than 200 shows a year, and since there is a growing interest in dry hire throughout Germany and Austria, it is vital for us to be able to count on highly reliable and easy to maintain products," said managing director Florian Daniel Tospann when commenting on their purchase. "We chose Lightpower for the same reason. They are an unequalled trustworthy distributor, who has so far joined us as a pres

USA / Australia - Tucson, Arizona based lighting designer Martin Thomas, of Relentless Lighting Design, used Robe's new Pointes for the first time for multi-talented Grammy Award winning singer / songwriter, actress and poet Jill Scott's recent highly successful Australian tour.

Thomas has worked for Jill Scott since 2007, after working with her previous designer, the late Tyrone 'Admiral' Long on the Sugarwater Festival Tour in 2006. For this tour, the start of a live performance campaign that continues into 2014, he took a complete departure from the last one in terms of the lighting aesthetic, putting intimacy, close communication and a sense of timeless elegance right at the heart of the performance.

"The previous tour featured large, dynamic lighting elements while this year's look is more subtle and refined," he comments.

The 24 Pointes were newly purchased f

USA - Bandit Lites is making it easier than ever for access to all things lighting, including quotes, concerts and photos with its new mobile app.

For those looking for buy new or used gear, the app allows users to purchase everything from fixtures, gobos, consoles and even set pieces. Additionally, those looking for a rental, sales or touring quote will have direct access on the app.

Other features include access to press, photos and social media. Users will also be able to submit photos of concerts in addition to finding events and venues near them.

Users will also have the ability to stay up to date with easy access to Bandit press releases, events, and the Dimmer Beach Blog.

(Jim Evans)

UK - There is perhaps one venue whose name is carved deeper than any other in the hearts of every self-respecting British music fan. Opened in 1932 and designed by Robert Cromie in Art Deco style as The Gaumont Palace cinema, it was renamed the Hammersmith Odeon in 1962, later the Hammersmith Apollo and now after an extensive refurbishment that has restored it to its former Art Deco glory, it will be known as the Eventim Apollo.

For a certain generation, this Grade 2 listed building has and will always be known as Hammy O. Ziggy Stardust was killed off there, Motorhead wouldn't sleep until they got there and it was there that Thin Lizzy recorded, some would say, much of the greatest live rock album of all time. No matter what age or genre, it remains the ambition of musicians across the world to tread its boards and its future programme attests to the fact that this is a situati

UK - Buckinghamshire based lighting rental specialist Siyan supplied a floor specials package for chart-topping British singer / songwriter Conor Maynard's recent UK tour, where he opened for Will.i.am.

Maynard's lighting designer Paul Smith from Edge of Blue Design wanted to make an impression, and so chose Robe Pointe and LEDWash 600 moving lights, among other fixtures to help achieve his goal.

The project initially went out to quote, and he recalls that Siyan were the first company to come back with all their requirements at a good price so they didn't have to start making substitutions to the kit.

Siyan's Tom Grant project managed, saying, "It was a pleasure working with Paul again - his designs are always practical, well thought out and look fabulous in action."

In this case and being the support act, time was absolutely of the essence in getting the rig on

UK - SGM's X-5 LED strobes helped to create accent and drama on the recent high profile Robbie Williams: One Night At The Palladium show, seen by millions of prime time viewers on the UK's BBC1. With lighting heavyweights Oli Richards (LD) and Theo Cox (moving light operator) at the helm, the show was also recorded for DVD.

As part of the London Palladium scenography, the LD utilised six X-5's - four attached to the set and two placed inside very large gold closets - which sprung into life when Robbie and Rufus Wainwright sprung from within in pink glittery top hat and tails to celebrate their 'coming out' in Swing Both Ways. The strobes were supplied by TV rental specialists, Aurora Lighting, and all fixtures were triggered from a Hog 4.

Commented Richards, "The feature I like most about the X-5s is that they physically look good on camera - nice and low profile,

Gross Income - US rock band Bon Jovi had the biggest international music tour of the year, according to Billboard magazine's 2013 rankings. The group played to more than two million fans during 90 sell-out shows, grossing $205m (£125m).

Cirque Du Soleil's Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour was second on the list, followed by singer Pink. The Rolling Stones were the highest placed British act - at number six - raking in $126m (£75m) from 23 shows. They finished behind Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, who were fourth on the list after grossing $147m from 53 shows. Rihanna was at number five in the rankings after she played to more than 1.5m fans during the year, bringing in £137m.

Ticket pricing - A majority of audiences say booking fees for concert and theatre tickets are too expensive and any extra charges should be revealed up

UK - Hot on the heels of his European tour, Bryan Ferry toured the UK with his 'Jazz Age' tour - with production managed by OneBigStar Limited. The set featured a video wall backdrop comprised of 36 CHAUVET Professional PVP S7 video panels.

Six separate 1m wide by 1.5m high screens, each made from six individual PVP S7 panels, were exploded across the stage. The content, designed and created by Anna Boburg, was relayed via a Catalyst media server, controlled from the desk of Ferry's lighting designer, Rod Clay.

"The image on the Chauvet Professional screens has been super-crisp at all times - even when the space is tight. I've been throwing a lot of light across the screens too and still the image is bright and true. I'm really impressed with the quality of the screens and the image itself - the panels have been perfect for this tour," said Clay.

Chauvet Profession

Australia - The Adelaide Festival Centre has joined the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, His Majesty's in Perth, State Theatre Centre of WA and most of the country's leading company's and venues, in installing ETC lighting consoles.

Most significantly, they were the first venue in Australia to receive an ETC Eos Titanium, ETC's flagship lighting control console. Ti includes many software and hardware features that add to its award-winning Eos-family functionality, including large-format, articulating multitouch displays, a multitouch encoder display, a solid-state hard drive and the ability to work with Magic Sheets.

"It was time to replace our aging Strand 500 Series consoles and ETC was the obvious choice," commented Nathan Luscombe, head lighting technician at Adelaide Festival Centre. "Strand used to be the industry stan

South Africa - Broadcasting from Johannesburg, South Africa, SkyRoomLive.com distributes live music concerts both within South Africa and internationally via internet streaming - and since its inception has rocketed to ninth most popular live-streaming internet portal on Irocke (the most comprehensive source for live streaming concerts on the globe).

The SkyRoomLive.com Jozi Digital Music Festival, which runs across six consecutive days from November 29, sees many of South Africa's top artists performing live to the world via internet streaming.

Prosound South Africa was named official audio partner for SkyRoomLive and now this festival was lit by Prosound partner, PR Lighting for the first time.

"We are proud to have PR Lighting join such a high profile event alongside our other top brands such as Electro-Voice, MIDAS, Audio-Technica and TC Electronic," says Proso

Indonesia - Major Indonesian creative event management company, Focus Productions, has been working together with PR Lighting for the past three years - and during that time it has built up a massive inventory of around 400 discharge and LED fixtures, making it one of the Chinese manufacturer's biggest customers.

With offices in both Jakarta and Bali, Focus specialises in providing all types of lighting, video (including LED screens), audio and staging - to an international standard.

Among their own customers is the huge MNC Group, the country's biggest media conglomerate, which includes RCTI TV, Global TV, MNC TV, and other wholly-owned subsidiaries, supporting their broadcast events, both outdoor and indoor.

Recently they supplied MNC Group with the production services to enable Global TV to celebrate its 11th anniversary, including 80 PR Lighting XR 200 Beam.

The show c

USA - GLP's Scenex Lighting flexible LED tape has been used extensively on a Sony TV commercial to 'explode' a domestic living room into a simulated high energy full concert arena.

Distributed in the States by GLP US, the Scenex Lighting solution was adopted by production designer Tim LaValley of Battlecruiser Inc., who as concert lighting consultant was tasked with developing a 'concert lighting' feel for the commercial - to promote Sony's new Bluetooth Wireless Speaker.

Having used GLP's Scenex LED successfully on tour he requisitioned a large amount of the LED tape to be embedded into the walls, the floor and other items on the set. Hooked up via DMX to create a large 'grid' it was brought to life progressively, a section at a time, as the transformation developed.

Explaining Battlecruiser's involvement in the project, Tim LaValley said, "The producer of the commerci

Mexico - Leading Mexican rental and technical production company Meridian Pro S.A de C.V - based in Iztapalapa in the east of Mexico City - has expanded its lighting stock with the addition of 14 Robe Pointe moving lights.

Meridian is the second Mexican rental operation to invest in Pointes, which will be used for all types of events and concerts across the country.

CEO Germán Sevillano Sánchez explains that these first 14 x Pointes - Meridian is expected to invest in more in the near future - will be used on the new 35 date Mexican leg of popular rock band Zoe's world tour. The band is promoting their new album Prográmaton and Meridian is providing full technical production - lighting, sound and video - for the Mexican shows.

"The Pointe is a highly innovative product and we wanted to use it for the new Zoe show", he says, extremely proud of his first in

Germany - The opening ceremony of the new Walldorf Ärztezentrum (Medical Centre) was a true show with an imposing rig. Show management was assigned to Session Pro, which in turn placed its trust in 32 Clay Paky Sharpys, 48 Clay Paky Alpha Spot QWO 800s, 24 Clay Paky A.leda Wash K20s and 24 Clay Paky A.leda Wash K10s.

The lighting designer and operator Benjamin Schleger had this to say, "The town of Walldorf wanted fireworks and we gave them something very similar. The concentrated beams and bright colours of our light and laser show in the town centre left over a thousand spectators speechless! The extremely precise powerful beams of the Clay Paky Sharpys stood out in particular. The Sharpys were undoubtedly the best choice, and that is why we used them from start to finish."

He continued, "In order to project images on the façade and create a beamshow seq

Germany - Daktronicshas announced the appointments of Reece A. Kurtenbach as Chief Executive Officer and president of Daktronics, and Peter Egart as vice president of Daktronics international regions in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Egart will be at ISE 2014 to talk to visitors and partners and give insight of the company's vision.

Based in Wiesbaden, Germany, Egart is in charge of all sales and service operations for international customers EMEA and Latin America. He is responsible for strategic development of new business, management of Daktronics subsidiary offices, and strengthening international relationships.

Egart began his career at Daktronics in the USA in 1993, after more than fifteen years of experience in network television as a director, producer and manager. He played a key role in establishing the business communications market niche for Daktron

USA - LDI premier show sponsor Elation Professional enjoyed perhaps its busiest LDI Show ever November 22-24 in Las Vegas as the company continued to raise its profile in the industry with a number of key product launches that included the surprise announcement of a distribution agreement with High End Systems.

The agreement, which allows Elation to distribute High End's new HedgeHog 4 and Nano Hog 4 lighting consoles in the US, Canada, Latin America, South East Asia and India, caused quite a stir on the show floor.

"The distribution announcement started things off with a bang and really set the tone for the rest of the show," said Eric Loader, director of sales at Elation Lighting. "This gives us a powerful and intuitive industry-standard lighting control platform and we're thrilled to be involved with it. Customers were equally excited and interest in it was g

USA - Barco Lighting Systems and Creative Stage Lighting Co have announced an additional product partnership that will enable Creative Stage Lighting to serve as a major Axon HD reseller of High End Systems' media server products throughout the United States of America. Effective this month, this agreement enables Creative Stage Lighting to make HES' Axon HD products available to their extensive network of local resellers.

George Studnicky III, president of the Creative Stage Lighting comments, "CSL also being a major Axon HD reseller is the perfect complement to our distribution relationship with High End Systems. Like the Hog4 line, we are steadfastly committed to supporting the Axon line with readily available sales and rental inventories.

Craig Burross, Eastern United States regional sales manager, for High End systems, comments, "We have enjoyed such a productiv

Sweden - Rocking Around the Christmas Tree ...so the lyrics go. And that's exactly how the Swedes will party at Trädgår'n in Göteborg this winter season.

Lighting designer Henrik 'Henke' Hjälm, who is also production and technical manager at Trädgår'n, was so impressed with SGM's SixPack LED blinder, demonstrated to him by SGM Sweden's Mikael Uddh, that he did not hesitate to add 12 units for the show Rock Around The Christmas Tree - from Elvis to Guns N Roses". This is playing for 15 sold out nights, and will be seen by almost 8,000 people during its run.

"I wanted to step away from the traditional 'blinder effects' for the rock parts of the show and use more stunning colour effects ... as well as brutal blinding in both warm and cold colours," explains Hjälm about his task to create the ideal setting for some

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