Indonesia - Socialight recently collaborated with P.T. Chayolite to utilise a Martin by Harman lighting solution to enhance GWK Cultural Park’s Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue. Created by renowned sculptor Nyoman Nuarta, the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue is a monument overlooking the city of Bali. Measuring 393ft tall and 213ft wide, the statue consists of 24 segments and 754 modules, and took more than 20 years to construct. In order to visually enhance the structure, Alam Sutera Realty engaged Singapore based lighting designer, Socialight, to design and oversee the implementation of an architectural lighting solution. Socialight selected Martin Exterior Wash and Exterior Projection fixtures to illuminate the statue, which was implemented by lighting solutions specialist P.T. Chayolite. “We wanted to highlight Balinese culture by creating an elegant atmosphere ar
UK - Lighting and visuals design partnership, Co1ab, produced the lighting show for a recent run of gigs by The Streets, led by hip-hop raconteur Mike Skinner. Co1ab unites the talents of Jon Trincas and Steve Hough, two respected young designers who pooled imaginative and creative resources to deliver the right look for The Streets. They utilised 120 x Robe Spikies and 30 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams, all delivered as part of a lighting package by Blackburn based rental company, LCR. Hough was originally contacted by The Streets’ tour manager Keith O’Neill when they played some ‘come back’ gigs in 2018, which culminated in three incendiary gigs at Brixton Academy. The interest in The Streets live resulted in this run, comprising a short UK tour with a lighting floor package, followed by five shows at Brixton, three in Manchester Apollo and three at the
UK - The Society of Light and Lighting is marking 25 years of its annual Young Lighter competition with a revised entry criteria. The contest is open to anyone under 30 with an interest in lighting, with the Society set to cover flight and accommodation costs for overseas candidates attending the finals and the awards, taking place during LuxLive this November. Deadline for entries is 10 May. The winner will be named SLL Young Lighter 2019 and receive a cash prize of £1,000. Iain Carlile, SLL president and senior associate at dpa lighting consultants, comments: “It’s always great to see the next generation of lighting professionals demonstrate their talent and passion for lighting, be that through the presentation of novel project application, social study, technological development, lighting research or any other lighting related topic. I very much look forward t
France - PlugFest, the annual event for lighting protocol interoperability, commenced today (Tuesday, 26 February) in Lille, with a public Ecodesign update scheduled for this Thursday. Taking place 26-28 February at Hôtel ibis Lille Centre Gares, PlugFest welcomed lighting developers and manufacturers from across Europe, including representatives from Artistic Licence, Chauvet Professional, ChamSys, Claypaky, ETC, GLP, Robert Juliat, Swisson and TMB. The programme is focusing on the latest protocols and standards from ESTA and ANSI, with an array of break-out sessions discussing protocols including DMX512, RDM, DALI, RDMnet, Art-Net, sACN and LLRP. Nicky Greet, PLASA’s Membership, Skills and Technical director, comments: “We are delighted to present PlugFest 2019, alongside expert hosts Hamish Dumbreck of JESE Ltd, Peter Willis of Howard Eaton Lighting and W
UK - Sound Technology, distributor of Martin by Harman in the UK, has further expanded its professional lighting division with the appointment of Darren Jackson as head of lighting sales and Ferenc Vacha as architectural lighting application engineer. Jackson has over 20 years’ experience in the lighting industry, with positions at Global Design Solutions and Chauvet. “I am very excited to be working with the team at Sound Technology and to be representing such a world famous and high-profile brand as Martin is a really honour. Martin has been a market leading and innovative lighting manufacturer for many years, having massively changed the lighting industry with what have become industry standard lighting,” says Jackson. “With more in the pipeline, it’s a very exciting period and I am very much looking forward to the challenges ahead.” Vacha joins fro
South Africa - Vectorworks training, presented by Francois van der Merwe, will be hosted in March at DWR Distribution in Johannesburg. Delegates can choose to attend the basic, intermediate or advanced training session while some individuals may prefer to be at all three. The basic course, priced at R750, is held on 25 March and will cover fundamentals, layouts, palettes, basic tools, classes and layers. The intermediate course, held from 26-27 March, will focus on preferences, basic Spolight, basic Renderworks and Intermediate Tools. The cost is R1 600. The advanced training, held from 28-29 March, will cover working planes, advanced modelling and advanced Renderworks. The cost is R1 600. Delegates are requested to supply their own desktop or laptop with Vectorworks installed and a valid ID. (Jim Evans)
UK - Lighting designer Jon Smith has worked for the last seven years with one of the more brash and humorous pop punk bands around, Bowling for Soup. In late November and early December, the band played a string of festive UK gigs dubbed the Almost Christmastour with Jon using an Elation lighting rig to light the shows. This run was a bit different for the LD however, as his own company, JSES provided all the lighting, truss, crew, operation and special effects. “My company has only been operational for two years and I have gone from a freelancer with a desk to a large operation that’s expanding all over the world,” Jon stated. ”We’re running fast to keep up with the work load and the exciting clients we are working with.” Those clients include names such as Drake, Giggs, Gareth Malone and Zebrahead. About to mark their 25th anniversary, Bowling for
The Netherlands - Full service rental company HVR Show Equipment has expanded its rental stock with 66 CLF Aorun beam fixtures as it prepares for the upcoming festival season. Dennis Sommerdijk, co-owner of HVR Show Equipment comments: “Especially for festivals and dance events we were looking for a large quantity of powerful beams. In addition, we received a lot of requests for the Aorun specifically. They are mentioned in a lot of riders and designs in the nearby future. “Based on a number of productions in the past year, we know that the Aorun excels in light output. Furthermore, the movement and effect speed is outstanding. Our entire team was therefore quickly convinced; we had to get the Aorun.” After delivery, all Aoruns were deployed immediately in the Amsterdam Ziggo Dome for the Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo anniversary show. HVR Show Equ
UK - Rehearsals are a valued ally of lighting designers. But for Olly Suckling, they were a luxury he couldn’t afford when he lit the famed fireworks display at Alton Towers Resort. “Given the nature of this show, the first time everything is seen working together is on the opening night,” says Suckling. “It simply isn’t possible to have a rehearsal with all the fireworks and other special effects being set off due to the sheer cost of such a large display. This means that the creatives from each department have to work together closely to plan how the show will look, without fully seeing the final product.” From a lighting designer’s perspective, working on the fireworks show also requires the ability to very quickly update programming and make critical changes. This was something Suckling was able to accomplish quite handily in his eight-universe 156-f
UK - GDS has given new roles to two members of staff as the company prepares to launch new product ranges in the coming months. James Hall will head up sales in entertainment and architecture, whilst Scott Kerslake will act as key accounts executive for entertainment products. Hall worked in the entertainment lighting side of GDS’s business before leaving for a brief period to develop his knowledge of the architectural sector. He will work closely with MD Richard Cuthbert to introduce customers to the company’s new Reality Series and Prodigy Series lighting and control products. Kerslake meanwhile is a highly-skilled former production technician. Managing director Richard Cuthbert states that the appointments are part of the new long-term development plan for GDS: “Both James and Scott are dedicated to GDS and are proven, highly-committed specialists. With the de
USA - In a spectacular New Year’s kick-off, Insomniac Events produced two blockbuster EDM festivals at the National Orange Show Fairgrounds in San Bernardino, with stage designs by SJ Lighting. More than 70,000 fans attended Audiotistic and Countdown NYE, shows that featured dance music acts performing from a large DJ booth highlighted with 12 Solaris Flare Rayzr LED fixtures. “The Flare Rayzr blades were so bright, they were overpowering even at the back of the venue,” says stage designer Stephen Lieberman, president of SJ Lighting. “We used the 1m models to detail the DJ booth, making it the focal point of each show. With a 25 mm semi-transparent LED screen in front, the Flares were so strong, we had to throttle them back a bit because the blow-through on the screen was so intense.” Lieberman adds: “The Rayzr’s flexibility allowed us to tailor the look
UK - After bursting onto the scene in 2007 with their debut album Take to the Skies, Enter Shikari established their reputation as a live band. When the band began planning its current tour, its manager Keith Reynolds asked Matthew Knowles to create a lighting design that would not only support their multi-dimensional sound, but would also contribute to their stage presence with a classic but edgy look. Knowles, who is with 10 Out Of 10 Productions, succeeded in doing just that, designing a show that paid homage to traditional stadium lighting while also projecting a somewhat disruptive sense of contemporary energy. Aiding him in this endeavour were eight STRIKE P38 and two Maverick MK1 Spot fixtures from Chauvet Professional. “The band wanted to go for a classic stadium look, which meant a lot of backlighting with lots of haze to create moody and dark
UK - Alex Webb used 28 x Astera AX1 PixelTubes - battery powered wirelessly operated fully controllable LED RGBW batons - to create The Heart of Manchester, a 20m high heart shaped light sculpture on the Quay Street façade of the #1 Spinningfields building in central Manchester. Alex is a brand manager for Allied London, the property developer at the centre of evolving this vibrant area of the city, which has become a leading business destination, legal quarter and a thriving living and working community as well as a place for socialising and entertainment. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Spinningfields commissioned various public art displays around town to explore love and heartbreak in the city, a project that also included offering this as their own creative contribution for public enjoyment and Instagram hotspots! Inspired and tasked to find new
Columbia - Persival Producciones is a rental and production company supplying sound, lighting, video, staging, rigging and backline, based in Medellin, the second city of Colombia. Like many Colombian rental companies, they started primarily as an audio supplier, and a few years later realized that to keep competitive, they needed to invest in lighting and video to offer full production packages to their busy client base. Persival is owned and run by Mauricio Agudelo. He explained that the lighting side of the business was steady but slower to take off than the audio side, until they purchased their first Robe Pointes in 2016. The first Pointes appeared in Colombia in 2014 when Andres Chamorro and his company Chamorro Iluminacion bought a quantity for a Juanes tour for which Persival did the audio and staging. They already had a competitor beam light onbo
UK - Northern Irish band Snow Patrol embarked on a UK tour to support new album, Wilderness, which concluded at London’s SSE Wembley Arena in February. Lighting and show designer Davy Sherwin selected Claypaky Scenius Unico as the only moving lights of the production. Sherwin has worked with the band since 2002 and describes the creative relationship as ‘excellent’. “Sometimes the band gives me a starting point for a design, and I build on that. There are discussions and it is collaborative process, but mainly I have an awful lot of freedom in the design process,” he says. Rigged on both the front truss and two automated trusses above the stage, Sherwin used the Scenius Unico in conjunction with the video wall to shift the size and shape of the stage throughout the performance, as well as providing crucial key lighting. “The beam shape was a very im
Italy - Claypaky has announced its commitment to ArKaos’s Kling-Net protocol, which will now be embedded in its newest HY B-EYE product line. Giovanni Zucchinali, Claypaky’s product portfolio manager, explains: “As the current and future requirements of lighting and visual design are so dynamic and fast-moving, lighting designers, programmers and operators need the most flexible and creative tools at their fingertips. We see a strong trend for one of those future developments being moving heads and pixel fixtures increasingly working in conjunction with video content.” The new Claypaky HY B-EYE K25 and HY B-EYE K15 recently introduced to the market, are supplied with ArKaos Kling-Net as standard and already included in the firmware. “This new and interesting feature greatly expands the already rich effects of the HY B-EYE range, making it an even more
USA - High End Systems has announced the release of a new flagship console Hog 4-18, along with new OS v3.11 software. The company has also entered a new partnership with Capture visualisation software. The Hog 4-18 console upgrades the popular Hog 4 with 18.5” touch screens, and an updated industrial design with aluminium encoder knobs and integrated accessory mounts. Outputting 8,192 channels (expandable with DP8K processors), Hog 4-18 has eight XLR-5 DMX outputs, sACN and Art-Net, MIDI and dual etherCON connections for HogNet and FixtureNet. The desk features five high-resolution parameter encoders, built-in tri-axis backlit trackball and 10 master playbacks with motorised faders and master control keys. Up to three external display port monitors or touchscreen monitors can be used. Hog 3.11 OS includes several significant updates, with support fo
UK - White Light provided the lighting equipment for Arthur Miller’s The American Clock which has recently opened at the Old Vic Theatre, London. The American Clock portrays the devastation that American citizens experienced when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began in 1929. The play uses an ensemble cast to explore the lives of several families across several cities. It is directed by Rachel Chavkin and features a lighting design by Olivier Award-winning Natasha Chivers. Natasha comments: “This is an epic play that manages to tell a huge story about an entire nation. Rachel wanted to create something quite extraordinary in which we put the audience right into this extraordinary time in American history. Part of this included having audience members on stage. What this means is that the Old Vic stage has now been turned so that it
UK - The heady mix of highly tuned bikes, screaming engines, screeching tyres and brakes and supernatural speed races meshed with the breath-taking daring of motorcycle stunt acrobatics… indoor Motocross racing and Freestyle MX all rolled into a single adrenaline fuelled night of seat-edge action complete with pumping soundscape . . . and you have the heartbeat of Producers and organisers Arena Sports Live presented Arenacross (AX in three of the UK’s leading arena venues – Belfast, Birmingham and Sheffield – for their 2019 AX tour, with HSL supplying a full production package – lighting, video and rigging – plus sound in partnership with Nitelites. Additional venue ‘sports lighting’ was also provided by HSL for the two Birmingham shows at the Resorts World Arena (NEC). HSL’s project manager was Ben Perrin. He and the team were delighted to be
UK - Notch, the visual creation tool for interactive motion graphics, is set to incorporate ray tracing into the software's realtime workflow as part of an upcoming March release (0.9.22). The news was announced at NotchCon, the inaugural Notch conference held in London in January. Ray tracing, an advanced graphics rendering technique that has long been used for non-realtime rendering, provides realistic lighting by simulating the physical behaviour of light. It is the foundation of visual effects used in movies and TV and will provide a ‘significant jump’ in visual precision directly inside Notch, says the company. Matt Swoboda, founder of Notch, comments: “At Notch, we’re committed to making software for content creators that is flexible and scalable. We enable people to realize their creative ideas and improve their workflow, through the power of rendering i
UK - The team at Nottingham-based OneBigStar was already familiar with the Chauvet Professional Ovation series when they made a major investment in the LED fixtures. “We’ve built the Chauvet trade show booths for years, so we’ve worked with Ovation units before and have been very impressed,” says Steve Yeardsley, managing director of the technical and event production company. Recently, Yeardsley and his team acted on this confidence by adding a substantial number of Ovation ellipsoidal and par-style fixtures to OneBigStar’s inventory. The new fixtures are intended to replace the company’s existing tungsten units. “We’re constantly looking to invest in new technologies, especially when they involve moving from older units to better, brighter and more energy efficient ones,” says Yeardsley. “The Ovation range certainly stands tall against the tungste
UK - Artem, the physical special effects company, made further inroads into the theatre sector recently with a new effects’ challenge from the world of dance. Artem, whose credits include Harry Potter: The Cursed Child and Holiday on Ice, were asked to design and build a piece of equipment capable of projecting a single giant smoke ring the shape of a doughnut - known in physics as a Torus - from the rear of a stage, out over an audience. The ‘smoke vortex cannon’, as it came to be known, had to be large enough to make an impact in a sizeable performance venue, whilst being resilient and easily transportable on tour. In addition, the cannon needed to be DMX programmable, to enable control from the lighting gallery. Artem’s client is the Birmingham and Barcelona-based dance company, Humanhood. Artistic directors Rudi Cole and Júlia Robert Parés
UK - Free registration is now open for PLASA Focus Leeds, PLASA has reported. The sold-out event, taking place at Leeds' Royal Armouries Museum on 14-15 May, will feature 120 exhibitors and is ideal for professionals working across live events, concert touring, production, performing arts and installation. Present will be lighting companies including Elation, Robe and Philips Entertainment Lighting; pro audio firms including d&b audiotechnik, Funktion-One and Shure; and rigging, staging and production specialists including Area Four Industries, Gerriets, Hawthorn and J&C Joel. The trade show will also welcome several new exhibitors, including loudspeaker manufacturer Wharfdale Pro Audio and US sound masking company, Cambridge S
Australia - Adding impact to a recent production of Les Misérables at Scotch College in Melbourne was a Tom Willis-designed lightshow that featured Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot fixtures, supplied by Showtools International. Creating an array of textures and colours on stage with the 350W moving LED fixture, Willis reflected the hope, despair, and unrequited love that marked the relationships between Jean Valjean, Fantine and the story’s other characters. “This is the second project I did with OSMAD (Old Scotch Music and Drama), the theatre group that performed the musical at the school,” says Willis. “The set I worked with was beautiful, but it actually had very few moving parts, so light became important to help transition from one location to the next - from field, to inn, to water hole etcetera. However, there were many times where locatio