UK - Following its sell-out debut success in Australia, Vision Nine and BBC Worldwide recently brought the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular to the UK for an arena tour. A musical celebration of the BBC series, the Symphonic Spectacular featured Doctor Who's most captivating music, video sequences from the past 50 years of the show, along with a host of live monsters including the Cybermen and Daleks. White Light was the choice supplier for providing the lighting, rigging and crew to deliver the full tour; comprising of 13 performances across London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow.

Working alongside the show's producers, White Light expertly recreated lighting designer Paul Collison's original vision, whilst making subtle adjustments to suit the logistical intricacies of each venue. The highly ambitious project incorporated 100 different performers, including t

Europe - One of the industry's brightest lights dimmed on Thursday, when Fulvio Cotogni, ETC's regional manager for Southern Europe and the Middle East, passed away after a courageous battle with cancer.

A funeral for Cotogni was held on Saturday, where friends and family had the opportunity to share memories of him. ETC CEO Fred Foster gave a eulogy in which he noted, "I am incredibly honoured to have known Fulvio for a couple of decades, and to have been his colleague for much of that time. My wife, Susan, refers to Fulvio as an 'ancient soul', not because he was old, but because he had the wisdom and patience of the ages. It was in his eyes, it was in his rich voice and in his wry smile. Fulvio has taught us all more than we even realise."

Cotogni was known for his immense personality, sense of humour and infectious laugh. He began his career in lighting when he w

Chile - Fifty Robe Pointes added to the fun and excitement of the Opening Ceremony kicking off the 2015 Copa America international football tournament for South America's national teams which is being staged in Chile.

The fixtures were part of a lighting design by Toni Amoros for the event staged at the Estadio Nacional de Chile in the Chilean capital, Santiago. The event was attended by 60,000 football fans packing the stadium and experiencing the carnivalesque atmosphere as well as seeing Chile getting off to a rocking start in the first game, beating Ecuador 2-0.

The Pointes were positioned around the field of play and used for beams and aerial effects for which they are renowned. They were chosen by Toni for their power and brightness, for the precision of the beams and the variety of possible effects.

The event - which featured a cast of 600 actors, musicians and dancer

Finland - In a different approach to indoor arena lighting, Finland's Hartwall Arena features an innovative LED video system integrated with its ice hockey rink. The arena, which is home to the Jokerit of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and Finland's National Men's Hockey Team, was recently modernized to enhance the fan experience with significant upgrades to its lighting, video displays and digital signage.

As part of the arena's modernization ice hockey rink equipment designer, manufacturer and supplier, Icepro OY, created a concept to integrate lighting within the stanchions supporting the rink's glass safety dividers. To realize their vision Icepro worked with Finnish A/V Integration firm, Studiotec, to develop a lighting design that included more than 940 of Martin Professional VC-Strip LED video fixtures.

The system is built into the stanchions between the glass divi

UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment now holds the largest stock of Robe BMFL Spot moving lights in the UK with the purchase of 50 new fixtures, which have been delivered by Robe UK.

The new BFMFLs join Colour Sound's stock of over 800 moving lights of which around 450 are Robe products. They will be in action all over the country this summer, helping to service an impressive run of 60 plus major music festivals for which Colour Sound is already confirmed as lighting and LED screen supplier, including We Are FSTVL, Glastonbury, Creamfields, Reading / Leeds and numerous others.

Says Colour Sound's Haydn 'H' Cruickshank, "BMFLs are starting to appear on riders. I know that any Robe product is likely to be reliable and 'a good bet' for us, and we also needed a new bright and versatile moving light for the festivals generally. The

UK - As well as the major stars, Glastonbury is also known for hosting a series of other types of performance, such as dance, circus, comedy and theatre. This year renowned dance group Michael Clark Company took to the stage and performed over two days at the festival. Making their Worthy Farm debut, they called upon White Light, a company with which they have a long-standing relationship, to provide production support

Richard Godin, lighting designer for Michael Clark Company, states, "The company performed an extract from an existing piece called Come Been and Gone. There were three performances in total during the festival: one on the Pyramid Stage and two more in the Astrolabe Tent. It is extremely rare for a dance group to perform on the Pyramid Stage and I can only think of one other time this has happened."

The piece performed by Michael Clark Company w

USA - Bandit Lites has promoted Steve Powell to rentals manager and Mark Steinwachs to general manager.

Steve Powell, who recently celebrated more than 15 years with Bandit Lites, steps into a new role as rentals manager. Now in charge of asset allocation for tours and shows, Powell will also step up efforts to rent gear to other production houses.

"I am always excited to be part of the great team at Bandit Lites and look forward to this new opportunity," said Powell.

Bandit Chair, Michael T. Strickland says of Powell, "Steve has been the rock of Nashville production, sitting in the centre of the board for 12 years. Steve is a large part of our success. This move to rentals manager will allow Bandit to become more efficient in that area. This was a part of Steve's prior role, but it has grown into a full time job. Steve is an absolute A player and an industry

Canada - Available now, wysiwyg R35 lighting design software from CAST Software boasts a number of new features.

These include: Pulling Focus in LIVE mode via DMX is introduced to ensure footprint focus is previsualized and pre-cued so 'What You See Is truly What You Get' on stage; Increased performance from CAD to Shaded View and even in Graphic Memory Management; Sharper Laser Simulation in Shaded View mode and numerous CAD additions. Further, 205 brand-new lighting fixtures are added to wysiwyg R35 - a wysiwyg record!

"R35 delivers numerous new exciting features and enhancements in all areas of wysiwyg: new CAD tools, updates to Paperwork, and more performance and enhancements to our visualization," says Dino Mazza, product manager at CAST Software. "Additionally, workflow has been improved in many areas to speed up the design process. I believe by incorporat

Romania - When Cultural Centre House of Arts District 3 in Bucharest promoted a two-day summer garden party in the Romanian capital's Titan Park recently, Temple Media Romania were brought into provide sound, lighting, LED screens and staging. This included a number of premium discharge and LED fixtures from PR Lighting, for whom they handle local distribution.

The event was designed to bring together Romanian music and dance of various genres. From the traditional costumes and folkloric music of the opening day, headed by the violin orchestra Lautarii Chisinal to the pop rock line-up headlined by Connect-R on day two, Cristian Simon's inspired lighting design for the event dubbed Music & Art in Titan Park brought the setting to life for an audience of up to 10,000 people.

Simon's stage design was built around 16 PR XR 200 Beams, 10 XLED 1061 Wash and 16 XLED 2007.

The two f

UK - SKY Arts Sessions is a new TV music series which invites a host of artists to perform some of their favourite songs in an intimate setting. With no presenter or audience, the focus is solely on the music as the guests play songs fully live and reflect on their influences and inspirations.

Richard Martin Lighting (RML) has a long standing relationship with SKY and its lighting team. LD Richard Bowles returned the light the show after the success of the first series and we were also asked to return. The main lighting rig is made up of Sharpy, Sharpy Wash, 2 Lites, Jarag-L and Patten 2013. It also includes one of RML's most recent purchases the Clay Paky Mythos.

"Mythos is a highly advanced form of hybrid light: first of all, it is an excellent 470 watt-lamp spotlight, which produces an outstanding large light beam, featuring a zoom that ranges from 4° to 50&

Mongolia - The art delegation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), comprising 106 members, recently held the first of three shows at the Ulaanbaatar Central Palace of Culture during a 10-day visit to Mongolia.

The delegation consisted of people from the Song and Dance Troupe of the PLA General Political Department, the PLA Academy of Arts and the Acrobatic Troupe of the PLA Guangzhou Military Area Command (MAC).

During their visit, the delegation carried out artistic exchanges with the song and dance troupe of the Mongolian military, where spectacular effects from PR Lighting were provided by the Chinese manufacturer's Mongolian partner, D-light. This involved 36 pieces of XR 200 Beam and 36 XPAR 336.

The lightweight and compact XR200 Beam is equipped with a Platinum 5R or Osram 230 HRI lamp, to provide a parallel, laser like 'pencil' moving beam with a brightness of 67,76

USA - Every dimension of Air Supply was on full display at a recent concert in the Boston area, supported by a Troy Stubby-designed lightshow that featured Legend 230SR Beam moving fixtures in a variety of stage positions. JDI Productions provided the Chauvet Professional fixtures for the sold-out performance, substituting them for "more famous name movers" that were in the tour's original rig design.

"Troy's original design called for these other fixtures to be used, but we've been using the Legends back to back on so many shows that we felt very comfortable with them," said JDI's Freddy Thompson, who, along with his colleague Pete Therrien, oversaw the lighting rig. "So with Troy's approval we made the switch. In the past, Troy had been using the SR beams on the floor to cross shoot the backdrop with a rotating prism. It created a really great effect,

UK - "The Ayrton MagicBlade-Rs that we have purchased from Ambersphere Solutions are undoubtedly the lighting fixture of summer 2015," says Rob Merrilees, director of Dry Hire Lighting (DHL). DHL now hasa substantial number of MagicBlades in stock although they very rarely actually see them. "The Blades are constantly in demand," continues Merrilees. "We're grateful that their quality of build and excellent reliability factor means we can pretty much guarantee they can fly in and fly out of the warehouse in perfect working order. Even so, we are having to turn away requests for Ayrton Blades at the moment."

The continuous rotation on both Pan and Tilt axes is the central characteristic of this seven RGBW LED unit. Compact, light and economical, the MagicBlade-R offers the lighting designer imaginative and creative possibilities with an almost endles

India - Dutch trance music DJ and producer Armin van Buuren's radio show A State of Trance (ASOT) has been going strong since 2001 and its 700th episode on 6 June was celebrated in style with a huge live show in Mumbai, India, lit by Elation Professional's new Platinum SBX moving head along with the popular Platinum Beam 5R and ELAR 180 PAR fixtures.

Propelling him to superstardom with trance fans around the world, ASOT attracts 33m listeners weekly through 100 FM radio-stations in more than 80 countries. A State of Trance milestone is always an occasion to party and ASOT 700, held in association with Sunburn, saw The Dome in Mumbai decked out in a large intelligent lighting package for performances by Armin van Buuren, Cosmic Gate, Orjan Nilsen, Super8 & Tab and Ruben De Ronde.

Star Dimensions India provided lighting, trussing and LED screens for the event with lightin

UK - dbn Lighting returned to Heaton Park in Manchester to supply lighting to five out of the eight stages and video to two of those - for the popular Parklife Weekender music festival with which they have been involved since its inception in 2010.

The crew - which peaked at 24 technicians, programmers and operators - was led by dbn's Pete Robinson, and they started their various get-ins across the site on the Wednesday. There were a few logistical curved balls thrown into the mix for good measure, including a Friday night concert by the Courteeners which was slotted in by promoters SJM on Stage 4. While dbn were not lighting this, the licensing restricted access to other areas which therefore had to be ready ahead of time.

The main stage this year was up-scaled to a 24m Space roof from Serious three weeks before the event to accommodate the two headliners - Disclosure and Rud

USA - Over 30,000 of the leading cancer researchers and specialists from around the world journeyed to Chicago's McCormick Place recently for the 51st annual ASCO conference. The official theme of this year's meeting, Illumination and Innovation: Transforming Data into Learning reflected the shared commitment of those in attendance to exchange trending research and insights that can help combat the disease. Among the learning tools used to advance this worthy goal was an impressive 36ft x 6ft LED wall made of 54 Chauvet Professional MVP Ta8 Curve panels.

Supplied by Image Productions Services, which built the videowall, the panels were used at an exhibit by Sirtex Medical Ltd., an award-winning Australian-based global health care research company that is pioneering a targeted radiation therapy for liver cancer called SIR-Spheres Y-90 resin microspheres. (The therapy place

USA - Prolific multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer Todd Rundgren has just released his new Global album, and is one of the highly innovative artists in the current portfolio of lighting and visuals designer and touring lighting director Martin Thomas.

Martin has been touring regularly with Rundgren for around six years and is now out with a tower and floor specials lighting package comprising just 18 moving lights - 12 Robe Pointes and six Robe MMX Spots - plus LED video panels.

With lighting and visuals absolutely at the essence of the energetic and fast-paced show, Martin was confident he could deliver all the dynamics needed with just these few touring elements, as well as hooking in to a different 'top' rig each night at the various venues on an eclectic itinerary.

Initial phone conversations between Martin and Rundgren revealed the desire to cre

UK - Holo-Gauze, the 3D display solution for hologram effects, is instrumental in realising the video projection effects for Damon Albarn's modern musical reimagining of Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland. The show's projections are by 59 Productions, with Lysander Ashton acting as creative director.

Appearing at Manchester's Palace Theatre until 12 July as part of the Manchester International Festival, wonder.land is a co-production between National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris, scriptwriter Moira Buffini and Albarn, who wrote the score. The musical is set to transfer to London's National Theatre from 27 November.

In wonder.land, Lewis Carroll's fantasy world becomes an online game, to which Aly, who is bullied at school and unhappy at home, escapes. However, some of the people Aly meets online - Dum, Dee, the Cheshire Cat and Red Queen

South Africa - During Mediatech, One of South African's leading lighting designers, Michael Broderick will present a carefully orchestrated performance using one Robe BMFL fixture and a dancer. The 15-minute shows will be held every day from 15 to 17 July at 10:30am, 12:30am, 2:30pm and 4:30pm. Bookings can be made at the DWR Distribution stand (J47).

"We are trying to push the boundaries and wanted to see what we could do with a single fixture," said Michael Broderick. "The act consists of story which paints a picture of the relationship between the light and the graceful dancer, Belinda Henwood."

David Gouldie is the choreographer and director. He worked closely with Michael Broderick, who programmed the show on a grandMA 2. Sound design is by Liam Magner, with final sound mastering by Colin Peddie form Sonic Studio.

(Jim Evans)

South Africa - Elation Professional has announced that The Production Warehouse of Johannesburg is a new sales partner for the company in South Africa, now stocking a full complement of Elation products.

Started by brothers Jacques and Marnus Nieuwoudt in 2014, The Production Warehouse specializes in supply and installation of lighting and video equipment affordable and reliable enough to meet international touring standards while stressing a high level of service commitment.

The Production Warehouse's inventory now includes a full range of Elation products including the Platinum SBX hybrid moving head; Satura Spot CMY Pro moving head; award-winning Sniper 2R effect light; powerful Protron 3K LED Strobe; Cuepix Series of blinder/strip lights; Colour 5 Profile ellipsoidal spot; SixPar 200 LED colour changer; Rayzor Q12 LED wash with zoom; and more.

The Production Warehouse wi

UK - ShowTex, a worldwide leader in inventing, manufacturing, selling, and installing flame retardant curtain fabrics, tracks, and motion control systems is the newest Behind the Scenes Pledge-a-Product Partner. ShowTex has pledged a percentage of the profits from sales of the GiantMirror to support the charity.

GiantMirror is an innovative product that provides an easy to use, excellent quality, and versatile alternative to glass mirrors. The oversized lightweight mirrors with virtually invisible joints offer near perfect clarity and reflection. Use transparent GiantMirror to create hologram special effects and make objects appear and disappear.

Raf Peeters, project manager at ShowTex stated, "ShowTex believes our industry exists by the grace of a lot of hard working and passionate entertainment technology professionals. Without them our business would not be the same, s

USA - New York's Brooklyn Bowl was an appropriate site for an unforgettable concert by Electron, the heavy hitting four-piece band formed by Disco Biscuits bass player Marc Brownstein that is making major waves in the Big Apple and beyond.

Lighting designer Manny Newman drew on the brawny power of Intimidator Spot LED 250 moving fixtures from Chauvet DJ to provide a monster light show for the band's recent performance at the venue. "Looking at the band, the venue, the crowd and the tradition, it's an exciting night," said the LD. "You don't want to bring a meek lightshow to something like this. I wanted to make a power statement without being overpowering or blinding the band."

Manny accomplished this goal in eye-popping fashion using the Intimidators and a collection of other Chauvet DJ fixtures. He positioned three T-bars upstage and flew two Intimidator

Italy - Vasco Rossi is currently engaged in his summer Live Kom 15 stadium tour which is completely sold out, and will see the legendary singer play to nearly 1m fans, with another stunning lighting and show design by his long term LD, Giovanni Pinna.

This year Giovanni has incorporated 34 Robe BMFL Blades and 16 BMFL Spots into the design, which are the work-horse spot fixtures of the tour. He has also deployed 100 of Robe's LEDBeam 100s which are dotted around the back wall of the main set. One of Italy's leading designers, he has been using Robe products in his work for some years, but this is the first full-on project for which he has specified BMFL Spots.

Giovanni worked closely with Claudio Santucci and Florian Boje from set design company Gioforma who produced the imposing industrial stage set constructed from aluminium and fabricated by Rome based rental company BOTW,

UK - HOG Factor, the lighting design and programming competition for HOG4 Consoles, is to enjoy its second UK outing at the PRO Show at the NEC Birmingham on Sunday 13 September.

HOG Factor, an initiative from European Master Distributor AED Distribution in partnership with High End Systems, is coming back to the UK. The competition was first held at PLASA 2014, then most recently toured to Germany for ProLight+Sound Frankfurt.

The competition is open to young students currently enrolled in a full-time UK Entertainment technology related education course, or working at the starting level in a UK lighting rental production house. There will be six teams, each with two members, competing against each other. In advance they will be presented with a lighting rig comprising High End Systems Luminaires along with a set piece of music. Teams have to design a lighting show using the l

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