Europe - In response to growing industry demand, PLASA Events Ltd has announced that two new PLASA Focus events will take place in Europe during 2014.

The first of these new events - and the first PLASA Focus to be staged in mainland Europe - will take place this summer, when PLASA Focus: Brussels open its doors in the heart of Belgium's capital city, on 1-2 July. PLASA Events reports that initial interest from exhibitors has been very positive, with over 30 companies already applying for space in Brussels, including brands such as ADJ, Chauvet, d&b audiotechnik, Robe and Shure.

Having introduced the successful PLASA Focus event model in Leeds, UK, in 2009 and subsequently in various cities across North America, PLASA has long been aware of the market's desire for more of this type of event in Europe. The BeNeLux region was one of the first to be considered for a regional mark

Germany - LDR has announced a new addition to its range of followspots for the entertainment lighting industry, Astro 200 W LED.

Designed for the professionals, Astro is billed as the most powerful LED followspot available on the market.

The power of the 200W LED module is enhanced by a state of the art optical design which results in an outstanding light output and a perfect beam shaping at any angle.

Dimming is fast and accurate with a resolution of up to 512 steps controlled from a single channel through DMX/RDM signal or from a control knob positioned on the rear panel of the unit.

Fabiano Besio commented, "With more than 20 followspots in the range, unique stylish Italian design, LDR products are recognized for offering the best performance in their category at an affordable price. With the introduction the Astro LED followspot we target to reinforce our marketin

USA - Chauvet Professional has added two new PAR-style fixtures to its popular COLORado family of LED wash lights: the COLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour and COLORado 2-Quad Zoom VW Tour. An RGBW and a variable white unit respectively, both of these fixtures utilise 14 extremely bright 15-watt LEDs to emit powerful illumination for concerts, tours, productions, theaters, nightclubs and events of all types. Quiet and flicker-free in their operation, they're suitable for use in broadcast rigs and studios as well.

The COLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour and COLORado 2-Quad Zoom VW Tour also each include a variable 6°-30° zoom, controllable manually or via DMX, which gives designers the versatility to use them as a wash, a beam - or both in the same rig. Additionally, both models feature five dimming curves for programming flexibility and 16-bit dimming resolution for extremely smooth fades.

World - Three million ticket sales, 35 countries played... This does not happen by accident. The Australian Pink Floyd Show, one of the world's most successful tribute acts, have spent many years honing their craft. SW19's Kevin Hopgood has played a significant part in making this touring powerhouse's show the technical success it is. His role for the current tour has expanded and, along with Paul Crockford, he has taken on overall management of the band as well as the production.

Kevin has been working with Australian Pink Floyd since 2003, having originally been brought in when their collective star was in the ascendant; they were moving from theatre-sized venues to arenas and going to places they had never toured before.

"They brought me in for my global experience, to take the production up a notch," comments Kevin. "So I brought in a team of people I knew w

Spain - International lighting distributor, MGC Lighting, has appointed Rosa Comba Lopez as international sales administrator for their Spanish office in Valencia.

Rosa, also from Valencia, will be a key member of the sales team, assisting with order entry, quotations, lamp and LED sales; she will also be visiting customers.

Rosa previously worked at Antares Iluminacion, S.L. as a domestic sales and administration assistant. Working for the company for 12 years, she gained wide sales and administration experience in the lighting industry.

Commenting on her appointment, sales manager at MGC Lighting, Spain Leoncio Ramirez said, "Rosa is very excited about the new job and is looking forward to new challenges and opportunities ahead. She is a very efficient hard worker and a quick learner, which together with her good telephone skills and sales abilities, will help MGC Lig

UK/Germany - Mushroom Lighting Technology has added significantly to its portfolio of distributed brands by becoming a UK distributer for three European brands - Mobiled, LTH and CLS.

With a team that boasts over 40 years experience in the lighting industry, Northampton-based Mushroom is a distributor, consultant and installer (for both temporary and permanent installations) of high quality lighting, sound and pyrotechnics. The addition of three major new lighting brands to its distribution portfolio gives customers throughout the UK a considerably wider choice of lighting products, whether for entertainment, architectural, retail or industrial applications.

The wireless LED fixtures from France's Mobiled mean that LED lighting systems can be put together which are remarkably versatile. Battery power and cable-free DMX control mean that very flexible systems can be put togethe

USA - Imagine Dragons has exploded onto the music scene of late and LD Nook Schoenfeld has turned to Elation Professional's compact Rayzor Q7 LED moving head to paint the American alt rocker's current Into the Night arena tour in coats of saturated colour.

"I wanted a small light that I could use in bulk that had internal LED color mixing and the Rayzor Q7 fit the bill perfectly," stated Nook, who handles production design on the band's five-week stint across North America.

Imagine Dragons enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2013 with the album Night Visions and top hit Radioactive and more success has followed in 2014 with a recent Grammy award and the Into the Night tour.

Nook says he turned to the compact Rayzor Q7 LED for the current tour for three main reasons: size, colour quality and price. "I like to emulate the old PAR can 64s o

UK - Bristol-based lighting rental specialist Fineline Lighting is supplying all house lighting & rigging to Motion - one of the most popular multi-room clubbing experiences in the UK , located in a atmospherically significant collection of historic warehouses in central Bristol, and with a reputation for showcasing some of the best EDM sounds on the planet.

Hand-in-hand with this goes a big commitment to providing the very best in production values for Motion clients, explains head of lighting James Harrington, who asked Fineline onboard as the regular lighting and rigging supplier in 2011, having known the company for many years.

Fineline supplies a standard 'house' lighting rig to the venue which has a capacity for up to 2,500 people depending on how many of its multiple spaces are opened, and this is regularly augmented with extras and specials as and when needed.

"

USA - It was a night of glittering gowns, a red carpet and amazing lighting at The Trumpet Awards in Atlanta, Georgia. Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the event which works to celebrate and honour African American achievers and those who support the African American experience.

The Awards, which took place 25 January at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, honour accomplishments in diverse fields including law, medicine, business, politics, the Arts, civil rights, sports, entrepreneurship, entertainment and other careers.

The honourees of this year's event were a distinguished crowd including DeVon Franklin, senior vice president of Columbia Tristar Pictures, The Honorable Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, awarding winning producers and song writers, Golden Globe winning actress Alfre Woodard, and Harvard Law professor Charles

UK - PLASAtechnical announces that the RDM and sACN Developers Conference and Plugfest returns for 2014 and will take place on Thursday 24, Friday 25 and Saturday 26 April, in the UK, at Gatwick Manor, London Road at Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport.

The Developers Conference provides a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and aims to ensure that the adoption of these new standards achieves desired levels of interoperability and reliability.

Conference sessions will cover the understanding, implementation and use of the published E1.20 and E1.37 RDM standards as well as the E1.31 sACN standard. Other projects in the current PLASA Technical Standards Program such as"E1.33 : RDMnet" will also feature.

In all, three new Control Protocol projects were proposed at the recent PLASA meetings, held in January in Dalla

UK - Leisuretec Distribution has announced a number of staff changes and additions. As of February 2014, Cliff Dounting has taken over the reins from Mike Henden as Managing Director. Dounting joined Leisuretec in November 2007 as Operations Manager and became Commercial Director in July 2008. He comments: "it genuinely is an honour to become Leisuretec's Managing Director, a position of great responsibility that I take very seriously. We have a fantastic team with a very positive outlook of providing excellent technical and commercial support with a great service with a smile. Of course this is all possible by having some wonderful suppliers who are like our friends and we have great strength of partnership providing some of the best brands in the world. I'm very proud to be part of it".

Mike Henden comments: "With Leisuretec's continued development over the last

UK - ARRI Lighting Rental, a leading supplier of professional lighting equipment, has appointed John Colley in the role of general manager, following the retirement of managing director Tommy Moran at the end of 2013.

Reporting to Martin Cayzer, CEO of ARRI's global rental business, Colley will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the company, as well as expanding its service to all types of feature film, television and commercial productions in the UK and across Europe.

Moran will continue working with ARRI Lighting Rental in the post of consultant, supporting Colley with the transition into his new role.

Colley is a veteran of the industry with a well-regarded reputation as a lighting gaffer. His experience spans 15 years, working on productions such as 24 Hour Party People, Breaking and Entering, Eastern Promises, The Duchess, Never Let Me Go, Made in Dagenham,

Germany - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd will showcase a selection of the latest lighting, audio, rigging and video solutions available from their vast portfolio of premium brands - on stand location 9.0, E63 at Prolight+Sound 2014, Frankfurt.

Sales teams from AC-ET's four specialist product divisions will be on hand to demonstrate the latest technologies from leading brands including various Chroma-Q, Mole-Richardson and Spotlight LED entertainment & broadcast lighting solutions, Jands' innovative Vista lighting & media control solutions range, and award-winning Stage CL lighting console 'made for LEDs', Luminex's range of high performance networking solutions, LedGo's Blackface series high contrast, modular LED video panel system, Columbus McKinnon Entertainment's CM Lodestar industry-standard chain hoists, and Chroma-Q's new ShowCom cost-effective show intercom b

Germany - Visual Productions BV, lighting control manufacturer, will be exhibiting at Prolight+Sound, Frankfurt: Hall 11.0 B40.

On the stand Visual Productions will show their latest innovation with the product launch of Cuety: Lighting Control for iOS

Cuety is a new generation lighting controller that turns your iPad into a powerful lighting console. Easy to use and budget friendly, Cuety enables you to take full advantage of the iPad's mobility and multi-touch display.

The app works together with the new LPU-1 lighting engine. This engine runs your show, calculates fade times and renders dynamic FXs. The system architecture of combining the Cuety and LPU-1 is robust; in the case of a WIFI interruption your show will go on.

Also on the stand will be the solid-state product line which includes the CueCore. Alongside these hardware products will be the latest versions of th

UK - In support of his second album, Shangri-La, Jake Bugg set out on a UK tour, including headlining the first Albert Session of 2014 at Royal Albert Hall on 21 February. The sold out tour featured his home city at The Capital FM Arena Nottingham; Newcastle; London; Edinburgh and Manchester. At the Albert Hall he captivated his audience in two sets - one acoustic and one with his band.

PRG senior account manager Scottie Sanderson worked closely with Stuart Farrell, the lighting designer for Bugg's UK tour. The eclectic run of venues started as smaller club shows, building to the larger Nottingham Arena and Royal Albert Hall; back down to the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh. The prep was built around the larger shows, and allowed the crew to scale back with minimum impact on the production.

Facing a number of logistical challenges across the series of venues, Farrell talks a

Germany - Philips Entertainment's four premier brands - Selecon, Showline, Strand Lighting, and Vari-Lite - will debut a raft of exciting new products at this year's Prolight + Sound - stand 11.0 D71..

Vari-Lite will debut the much anticipated feature rich VL4000 Spot luminaire. The VL4000 Spot represents the first in a new generation of Vari-Lite luminaires designed to provide designers, rental companies, venues and productions with luminaries that offer even more creative possibilities without compromise on quality. The VL4000 Spot includes all the tools required to create dynamic, artistic lighting for any application. Featuring low ambient noise, high lumen output, precision optics and a full feature set, the VL4000 Spot has been designed with high-expectation performance in mind.

Amongst a plethora of new LED products from Showline will be the much anticipated SL NITRO 51

USA - The Super Bowl Halftime Show always glitters, and Bruno Mars's stellar performance at Super Bowl XLVIII was no exception. This year 330 Clay Paky Sharpys and a dozen Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20s were on hand to illuminate the show.

Lighting designer Bob Barnhart opted to have "a more rock 'n roll vibe in the rig than the stylized, choreographed shows that we've seen in the past. Bruno wanted this to be more of a live rock show."

Barnhart was challenged to capture that rock 'n roll sensibility as well as prepare for winter weather conditions that might envelop the open-air MetLife stadium in New Jersey. "It was a question of what we could design that could survive severe weather," he says. "Another factor was the limitations of rigging positions in the building and how we could symmetrically lay out the rig. We had to cover as much of the full stad

USA - Sacramento Production & Lighting (SPL) supplied both LED and discharge lighting gear from Elation Professional for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's State of the City address held at the historic Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on 12 February.

The 3800-seat multi-purpose venue is over 80 years old and after reopening in 1996 after a thorough renovation maintains all the charm of a building listed on the National Historic Register. SPL chose to light the historic stage, curtain and columns using Elation Platinum Wash ZFX Pro and Platinum Spot 15R Pro moving heads, as well as Elation Design LED Strips and Opti QA PAR lights.

"We are an Elation house primarily because of cost and road durability and used the Elation gear on the State of the City address to augment the venue's existing house lighting system that consisted of a front truss only," stated SPL's Dion Coo

UK - Popular folk-punk singer Frank Turner has taken Europe by storm with an energetic arena tour featuring bold, atmospheric lighting controlled by Avolites' Sapphire Touch console.

Lighting designer Shaun Moore utilised the Sapphire Touch's dual wide screens and intuitive layout functionality to provide him with easy access to and integration of all the fixtures in the extensive rig.

"With the console giving the user full freedom to define the layout, I am able to create windows of fixture type, and then fixtures per song," says Moore. "This makes finding fixtures within the interface a breeze. Also, each song is programmed as a cue stack and there are no more than four faders per song, which is amazing as it makes running the show stress-free, allowing me to enjoy my work.

"I just love everything about the console. With each software update it makes my

Uk - Describing UEP's equipment inventory as both "quirky" and "eclectic", Steve Butcher, founder of the technical event production company, can draw on many years' experience providing top-level support across premium lighting, sound and staging components.

He regularly reviews his hire stock to ensure it remains at the cutting edge and this month invested substantially in SGM's new generation of LED lighting effects, ordering substantial quantities of SP-6 SixPack pixel blinders, XC-5 RGB colour strobes and P-5 wash lights from SGM UK. UEP had barely taken delivery of the low-profile strobes before they were requisitioned for The BRIT Awards 2014 at the O2 Arena.

Having set up Universal Event Productions (UEP) back in 1998 and watched it rapidly develop, Steve Butcher can reflect on many high-end corporate projects featuring not only leading multinational

Germany - Robe Lighting is celebrating its 20th glorious year throughout 2014.

The company first made the pilgrimage to Prolight+Sound, Frankfurt in 1994 when there were seven full time employees.

That number has now grown to 470 who are engaged in manufacturing in the Czech Republic and sales and support teams in four wholly owned subsidiaries in the UK, USA, Singapore and Dubai.

Following several years as a successful OEM manufacturer, 'Robe' was launched as an own brand in 2002, and is now one of the world's leading moving light brands, distributed globally in over 90 countries.

Robe is once again using the Prolight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt to showcase a raft of innovative new products.

LEDBeam 1000TM is a new strong and powerful fixture that will be launched at the show. It utilizes the latest LED technology and can be used as a beam or a wash light.

With flex

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. have been appointed as the exclusive UK distributor for James Thomas Engineering (JTE) Ltd's innovative, retro-styled Patt 2013 tungsten-source softlight.

JTE and lighting designer, Tim Routledge, collaborated on the new project to create a range of vintage-look lighting fixtures with a modern twist. Combining old school aesthetics with a modern output and build quality, the JTE Patt 2013 is the first of this range to be released.

The fixture is a 750W tungsten softlight housed in a beautifully sleek spun aluminium body which maximises its curves to look as good on stage as the performers it illuminates. Taking inspiration for its appearance from vintage broadcast lighting, the JTE Patt 2013 is designed around an easily available, reliable, HPL dimmable light source.

Featuring a 550mm OD spun parabolic aluminium reflector, th

The Netherlands - Lighting designer André Beekmans from Eindhoven, The Netherlands based creative lighting practice The Art of Light specified Robe Robin Pointes and Robin LEDBeam 100s to be a major visual feature of his stunning designs for the A State of Trance 650 (ASOT) event, staged at the Jaarbeurs, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Beekmans - who designs lighting for a number of superstar DJs including Armin van Buuren, Hardwell and Afrojack - is one of the best known designers in the Netherlands and has an imaginative and innovative approach to lighting EDM events and all the specialist aesthetics this genre requires. He has lit ASOT in multiple countries on every continent ... however, with Utrecht being on his own home turf, this required some extra special treatment!

Part of making the Utrecht show special for the 32,000 EDM fans who packed into the venue to i

USA - When Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Ben Rector embarked on a 34-date autumn tour of the USA to promote his The Walking in Between album, lighting designer Ryan Burton employed a Jands Vista S1 to provide portable yet powerful control.

Ryan's lighting concept for the tour was to create a warm and natural vibe, reflecting the feel of the songs, whilst contrasting with blasts of colour when the music reached more dynamic levels. To achieve this, Ryan specified a lighting rig including Martin MAC Auras, Thomas 8-Light Blinders and Altman 1500W 18" Scoops, all controlled by the Jands Vista S1 console connected to a MacBook Pro running the Vista v2 software.

"The Vista S1 is very flexible," says Ryan. "I really like the programming interface, which is intuitive and visual, as well as the controllability I get with the timeline. It makes it very e

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