Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

Lighting

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UK - Avolites Titan consoles reigned supreme at Bloodstock Festival, with all stages running Titan for the rock and metal festival that drew more than 15,000 metal heads to Derbyshire this month.

Bloodstock's main 'Ronnie James Dio' stage featured metal heavyweights such as headliners Trivium, Within Temptation and Rob Zombie. LD Ben Coxon controlled using two HSL-supplied flagship Avolites Sapphire Touch consoles, networked together with a TitanNet Processor (TNP). HSL also supplied a dimming solution in the form of two 48-way Avolites ART2000 dimmers for the stage, as well as further Avolites consoles and dimmers across the festival site.

"Due to the busking nature of the festival, Avolites was the perfect choice," says Andy Whittaker of HSL. "The range of Titan consoles, going from the Quartz all the way up to the Sapphire Touch, suited each stage of the fest

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Australia - Queensland's Fifalite Effects Lighting has taken delivery of a new MA Lighting dot2 XL-F, a compact lighting console designed for small to medium sized productions up to 4,096 control channels

Fifalite's managing director David Pfeiffer has always leant towards a different brand of lighting console but he happened to be visiting Brisbane Show Technology on a different matter, when Adam White showed him a brochure for the new dot2 console.

"I had always admired the MA brand in so much as everywhere I go, the grandMA2 seems to be the console of choice," commented Pfeiffer. "I never thought I would own one as I run a fairly small business and they are quite expensive for me. Plus the type of shows that I do would not warrant having such a fancy console. However, the dot2 brochure got me interested and once I found out the price, I was hooked."

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Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Rwanda - DWR Distribution teamed up with DimBright for an LED installation for Cube Communications Limited in Rwanda.

Johnny Scholtz from DWR advised the client on a cost effective way to light up the set of their new News Studio. Jakes Mogale from DimBright was then commissioned to carry out the installation.

"While it was a very basic install, which included a power supply, controllers and LED strips the end result looked great," commented Jakes. "It was a wonderful experience as it was my first time in East Africa. Johnny had worked out a solution from South Africa for the client, but when I arrived, we had to alter the set somewhat to accommodate the lights."

The set was made out of Perspex and was showing spots. A simple vinyl print put over the Perspex set allowed the light to disperse evenly.

(Jim Evans)

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South Africa - TechRig has now joined SGM's rental portfolio in South Africa with the company's initial purchase of the Q-7 flood blind strobe.

As a leading specialist technical solutions agency, TechRig approached SGM's local distributor S.E.T Africa to expand their rental stock with SGM luminaires. "We were looking for cutting-edge LED solutions, and that's why we selected the SGM products," says director of TechRig, Michael Collyer. He adds, "The Q-7 is a nice small multipurpose unit, which can be used as a colour washing set piece to eye candy extravaganza."

SGM's profile matches well with TechRig's vision. This well-established and experienced company seeks to implement the latest technological developments with top quality gear that is constantly updated, and, as Collyer underlines, "SGM applies a different way of thinking to their products makin

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Denmark - The cities of Detroit, Geneva and Frankfurt have something in common. Each plays host to one of the world's biggest and most prominent auto shows. Manufacturers often leverage the attention garnered by these international events to launch new flagship models that will be the core of their business for the year to come.

With so much at stake, brands like Ford, Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover understand that an audience-engaging show booth is worthless without camera-ready, visually stunning displays of their new vehicles. That's why they tap design firms like Imagination and lighting suppliers like Static Light Company, which are staffed by experts who understand the challenges of illuminating a car's sleek curves and metallic sheen in an indoor convention hall. To meet those challenges, they rely on Martin Professional's lighting fixtures.

"Our MAC series of premi

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USA - Striving to make the undergraduate student experience as fulfilling as possible, the University at Buffalo Student Association hosts a series of memorable events throughout the year. As the organization got set to produce the EDM concert Electric Tundra headlined by Bingo Players and featuring 3LAU and DNNYD, the local production staff was asked to create a high-energy atmosphere inside the Alumni Arena, and needed lightweight LED video panels that could also create quality HD projections so they chose the FLEXCurtain HD from PixelFLEX.

"On Electric Tundra we had the challenge to present a national headlining act with limited setup time on a small stage with a video wall, all on a tight budget," began production manager, Katie Gilliland, University at Buffalo Centre for the Arts. "Inside the 6,500 seat arena, equipment cannot be hung from the r

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Italy - Mario Biondi is one of the few Italian artists who can claim some sort of esteem and saleability outside Italy, perhaps on account of the characteristics of his kind of music, or perhaps because he sings in English.

Before taking on a huge number of concerts in major European and Asian capitals, he embarked on a tour of theatres in Italy to mark the release of his latest work Beyond This album also features foreign artists and producers.

Jo Campana, the lighting designer who has worked with Biondi for several years, briefly described how the tour lighting design came about: "After a discussion with Mario and after listening to his new album, I tried to steer my work so that it diverged from the Mario's past and supported his intention to seek out and discover new musical horizons.

"My idea was to create an elegant stage concept, with just a touch of

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UAE - The first half of 2015 was a busy one for Protec - the Middle East's largest event equipment rental company - another sign that the region's events industry is as prominent and dynamic as ever.

While Protec's core business is corporate events it also provides production for rock and roll events, and the year kicked off with #DBXNYE, Dubai's biggest New Year's Eve party, which featured Pharrell Williams, Busta Rhymes, Paul Oakenfold and others. Protec supplied the audio, an L-Acoustics K2 system with a DiGiCo SD5 desk; lighting which included many Clay Paky and Vari-Lite fixtures ran on a GrandMA2 Full desk; video, which was displayed on 150sq.m of Protec's Mambo 9mm LED screen; plus staging, rigging and the company's EHD Mark 2 concert roof system.

Another spectacular event was the opening ceremony for IDEX 2015, which won the 2015 Middle East Event Award for Best Tempor

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USA - It's easy to see why, the Pacific Amphitheatre became an instant favourite among touring artists when it opened in 1983 with a concert by Barry Manilow. Located on the Orange County fairgrounds, the 8,000-capacity venue combines beautiful southern California scenery and gentle Pacific breezes with excellent acoustics. For one month this summer, the setting at this legendary venue sparkled even more brightly, thanks to a collection of Next NXT-1 panels from Chauvet Professional.

Ray Woodbury of RK Diversified Entertainment (Los Angeles) used the moving LED panels to create a captivating lighting display over mid-stage for the Toyota Summer Concert Series during the Orange County Fair. Woodbury flew 16 Next NXT-1 panels on overhead truss for each of the 24 concerts in the series. "They were the workhorse of our rig," he said. "Of course they were also much mor

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UK - Utopium Lighting lit up 10 stages at this year's BoomTown Fair, which took place at Matterley Estate in Hampshire from 13-16 August 2015.

This is the fifth year running that Utopium has been called upon to supply its lighting and rigging for the creatively themed BoomTown Fair, which is well known for its imaginatively themed cityscape. Utopium provided festival lighting and rigging to 10 stages, including the expanded Lion's Den stage, The Town Centre, The Old Mines, The Jolly Dodger, Crazy Calamities Saloon and The Hidden Woods, as well as providing lighting for all the woodland areas.

Utopium provided a range of its LED fixtures to support the organiser's ethos of reducing energy use to minimise the festivals carbon footprint. This year the Lion's Den stage was re-located to a larger area and Utopium were called upon to supply all the lighting control, dimming, distrib

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Sweden - Robe's news team met the Larssons at a special 10th anniversary edition of Let's Dance in Sweden, where they were busy in Magazin (warehouse) 7 at the Frihamnen container port and ferry terminal in Stockholm, a frenetic site specific location that has provided a gritty and visceral juxtaposition to the glamour and glitter of the hit ballroom dancing TV series.

Maverick LD Pelle Larson's lighting design included 24 x Robe Pointe moving lights installed in prominent positions around the dancefloor and amidst the orchestra.

Pelle is a well-known and respected industry figure in Sweden and in addition to a host of top LE TV shows, including Let's Dance for national channel STV4 since the series began and many other TV productions, he has also been active as a touring and concert designer.

He likes to keep the business of his company, LD Sweden, literally '

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UK - Blackout continued its longstanding relationship with Somerset House, supplying rigging and drapes for this year's Summer Series and Film4 Summer Screen events during July and August.

Blackout worked alongside production manager Jon Howes, within a team of contractors, who year on year collaborate with the venue's management and sponsors. The team work to facilitate both events and aid Somerset House's transformation into a concert setting and then an open air cinema.

This is the eleventh year running Blackout has worked on the Summer Series concerts, supporting promoters Metropolis Music. This year the concert featured performances from Passenger, George Ezra and Jessie J and attracted crowds of up to 3,000 people.

Blackout provided all of the stage rigging as well as two truss wings, which flanked either side of the stage, to hang the PA systems and branding, negating

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USA - Lighting designer Herrick Goldman recently designed Evita at the Cape Rep Theatre on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and turned to Elation Professional's Platinum Profile 35 Pro moving head light to create the compelling mood lighting. Herrick and his associate Susan Nicholson designed both the lighting and the projections for the production, which is directed by William Roudebush with scenery by James Dardenne.

Using four Elation Platinum Profile 35 Pro fixtures amongst a plot of LED lights and conventional sources, it was Herrick's task to carve out a black and white world that was later colorized by the presence and strength of will of Eva Peron, in stark contrast to the character of Che and the various political elements that she was constantly beset by.

Herrick relied heavily on the Elation fixtures to define areas of the relatively small stage and make the world of

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South Africa - Lighting designer Peter Rieck is the owner of one of MA Lighting's new dot2 XL-F consoles. Peter, an industry professional for 15 years and one of the country's leading television lighting specialists recently launched a new company, Rieck's, headed by himself. Having been an MA user for the last seven or so years, the first thing the new venture did was purchase its own dot2.

"It made complete sense" he stated, "It's small and light enough to easily fit in my car or go on the plane, and powerful enough to run the majority of the shows on which I am currently working." Having his own console means he can always have his control platform of choice. Peter was delighted that MA's small and highly versatile dot2 was also within a reasonable price range. The console was supplied via MA's South African distributor, DWR Distribution.

"It's the

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UK - Colour Sound Experiment continued its frenetic 2015 summer festival season supplying lighting to 12 major stages, 24 smaller performance areas and eight bars at the 2015 Secret Garden Party (SGP) event staged in Abbots Ripton near Huntingdon UK.

This tightly planned and executed operation - which this year battled with inclement weather for the first time in the festival's recent history - involved the supply of nearly 500 moving lights, 228 high powered Dragon LED PARs and a mix of other kit, including LED screens for the Main stage and other areas.

Colour Sound's crew of 22 was chiefed by James Hinde and Alex Ryan. James co-ordinated the get-in and set up of all the operated stages, while Alex looked after all the other areas, and together with Woody (Stuart Wood), oversaw the whole operation during the show days.

Colour Sound regular Jon Rickets was working as techni

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The Netherlands - At 25m wide and 10m high, lighting the Nederlandse Reisopera (Dutch Touring Opera)'s cyclorama for a touring production of Orphée et Eurydice was always going to be a tall order. With a limited budget, they needed to be in and out of the venue in a day. With the help of 40 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr fixtures with CYC adapters, and some clever rigging choices by chief lighting technician Richard ten Hof, they succeeded.

The opera, held across the Netherlands on 12 dates throughout May and in the first week of June, tells the story of Orpheus, a mythical musician, poet and prophet in ancient Greek religion, who is said to have been able to charm all living things and even stones with his music.

Ten Hof first came across the new Source Four LED fixtures a year and a half ago, when he was working with Dutch dealer Lightco. "I was amazed

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USA - Lighting and visuals designer Fenton Williams and co-LD / programmer Aaron Stinebrink again collaborated to produce the production design - incorporating lighting, set and video - for the current Dave Matthews Band (DMB) US summer tour.

For the first time, they specified Robe's BMFL Spot fixtures, 22 of which are being supplied by the tour's lighting vendor, Theatrical Media Services (TMS) from Omaha, Nebraska.

The band is well known for their long annual summer tours and sets featuring involved improvisations of their songs - always played differently - accompanied by eye-catching visuals and lightshows, an aesthetic that has been carefully crafted by Fenton since he started working with the band in the early 1990s.

Fenton and Aaron developed the design together, often drawing on architecture and art for inspiration as they build a visual stage concept.

This is the

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UK - Matthew Griffiths is to step down as PLASA CEO. A statement from PLASA reads: Over the past few months it has become clear to the boards and executive management of PLASA that a fundamental redesign of our business model and structures are necessary due to the increasingly difficult trading conditions currently being experienced. For the organisation to remain of service & benefit to the membership we represent, it is imperative that our expenditure can be funded by an affordable and sustainable income. To that end, the PLASA Governing Body has decided that there needs to be complete review of its businesses.

In light of the above and after 17 years as PLASA's chief executive officer, Matthew Griffiths has decided that now is the right time to step aside which would help kick start and facilitate a fresh set of ideas and approaches needed for the next chapter in PLASA's dev

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Italy - Renzo Arbore sits on the chair in front of Fabio Fazio as it is announced that he will be the special guest in the final show of Che Fuori tempo che fa (Fazio's talk show). The transmission will be devoted to Quelli della note, one of the most popular late night variety programmes in the history of Italian television, which went on air 30 years ago.

Renzo Arbore has always loved jazz and Neapolitan music classics. For the release of ... e pensare che dovevo fare il dentista... (...and to think I was supposed to become a dentist...), he is leading his Orchestra Italiana, with his voice, clarinet and boundless charm, on a new summer tour that culminates on 7 September in Milan.

Gazebo Giallo (Arbore's management company) turned to Paco Toscano to interpret the atmospheres of Arbore's music with lights. "I joined the production team that organize

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USA - Following the launch of SymNet Composer 4.1, Symetrix has bolstered its control and command offering for SymNet open architecture Dante-scalable DSPs with the addition of three new control options.

The first of these options, the ARC-3 wall panel remote, was introduced to the systems integrator community at ISE 2015. Arriving in a single SKU with both surface- and flush-mount capabilities, ARC-3 incorporates a brand new capacitive touch interface with LED feedback, as well as a multi-lingual graphics-capable OLED display that is expected to resonate strongly with Symetrix' global customer base.

The second new option is the ARC-WEB browser-based dialler, which allows owners of iPhones, iPads, Android phones, tablets and network-enabled computers to control audio via embedded web servers running on SymNet Edge and SymNet Radius DSPs.

"With this option, end-users can

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USA - Following on from the custom video solution they supplied for alt-J's headline show at London's O2 Arena and subsequent worldwide festival runs, XL Video has supplied a similar LED set-up for the band's current US tour.

The tour, in support of alt-J's second album, This Is All Yours, visited a variety of indoor and outdoor venues around the US including a show at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

The video design, created by Jeremy Lechterman and Jackson Gallagher from FragmentNine, uses horizontal rows of LED, interspaced with gaps which can be used with lighting.

At the O2 show, XL Video supplied a solution using their regular touring frames, and special brackets.

"For the US tour design, the designers wanted to reduce the size of spaces between the LED rows," said XL's US touring projects director, Gareth Jeanne. "As our touring frames have

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"The visuals are the priority with this band," opens Marcus Lyall. "For a long time the stage has been dominated by the upstage screen and we wanted to develop that imagery and bring it closer to the audience." Lyall shares the responsibilities of show director and designer for the Chemical Brothers with Adam Smith who has worked with the band for over 20 years.

"We wanted to create a 3D experience for the audience," agrees lighting designer Paul Normandale, "And bring some of the video content to life, blurring the lines between screen and reality. We went to Specialz as they did such a great job on the last tour and this mechanical, visual, yet tourable challenge is very much their area of expertise."

To this end, Specialz was charged with creating a huge 3m diameter reflector, a set of bespoke dollies pre-rigged with Sharpys and last but cer

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UK - Aurora Lighting provides all the ingredients for lighting director Oli Richards at The Great British Bake Off - An Extra Slice.

Following the success of the BBC phenomenon that is The Great British Bake Off, Jo Brand has been welcoming a panel of guests each week to enjoy cake related discussion.

Filmed with Love Productions in front of a live audience at The London Studios, An Extra Slice reflects on the week's baking, with guest interviews with departing contestants, behind the scenes clips and a selection of audience based cake related triumphs and disasters.

To help lighten up the serving, Aurora has provided LD Oli Richards with an array of Martin Auras and Viper Performances which are kept fresh by moving light operator David Francis and tech Simon Willet.

The show features a number of set practical pendants which have added an atmospheric h

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UK - On its initial release in 1994, The Shawkshank Redemption achieved critical acclaim and is still considered by many to be a movie great. Now, on the film's 21st anniversary, production company Bill Kenwright Ltd is touring a theatrical version of the show across the UK. White Light was called upon to supply the lighting support for the production.

The play has opened in Windsor and will begin its UK tour next week, visiting venues in Leeds, Brighton, Richmond, Birmingham, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Norwich, Cheltenham, Woking, Milton Keynes and Cardiff.

Starring television's Ian Kelsey and Patrick Robinson, The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a man serving a life sentence in the notorious Shawshank prison. Realising he cannot survive life behind bars, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with prison fixer Red and soon begins to hatch a plan

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