USA - After 21 years in the dark, the classic Grain Belt Beer sign is once again brightening the Minneapolis skyline. Built in 1941, the 50x40ft landmark was the largest free-standing signage in the region, but since 1996 the old incandescent lamps have been dark. A recent renovation by S.M.L. Electrical, supported by JTH Lighting, features over 1,000 Intelligent Marquee Systems (IMS) RGBW LED lamps. "Pat and Sean Lawrance of S.M.L. Electrical approached us to find a colour changing, power line control solution,” explains Mike Steskal of JTH Lighting. “They wanted to use existing wiring and S14-style lamps to maintain the sign’s historic look. The system also had to handle the harsh Minnesota cold, which was amply proven last New Year’s Eve when fired up with the thermometer at -8 °F." "Located 100ft above a river, you don’t want to be replacing lamps," says
USA - Matt Calabrese says he thrives on spontaneity. Good thing, too. As lighting designer for the increasingly popular and much travelled progressive funk jam band Kung Fu, his career has taken him on a wildly original, and thoroughly enjoyable, ride. Every show is a new adventure for the Connecticut-based LD, not just as a result of his client’s constantly changing set lists, but also because of the wide variety of venues where they perform. “Designing for Kung Fu is a great experience, where things never repeat themselves,” said Calabrese, as he finished a gig with the band at the legendary Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, where they opened for more. Helping him navigate his way through his long and winding tour schedule is his consistent and reliable ground package of Rogue R1 Spot and COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 fixtures from Chauvet Professional. “The f
USA - High End Systems lighting fixtures were riding high in the rig of RodeoHouston. with LD Nathan Brittain having specified 14 SolaSpot 1000s and 10 Sola HyBeam 2000s to meet his demands for lighting with an impactful kick, while reining in power consumption. LD Systems provided the gear for the nightly concert series during February and March at Houston’s NRG Stadium. After each day of bull riding and mutton busting, with horses, clowns and kids kicking up the dust, the self-propelled stage steered itself to the centre of the arena for the evening’s performance with top name acts. This year’s new concert stage - designed and fabricated by Tait, with support from LD Systems - unfolded like a flower, revealing its five-pointed star shape. The stage used vertical motion control for the star point stage sections and its rotating centre stage section. Its
USA - The ESTA Control Protocols Plugfest, the event that enables manufacturers and developers to test their lighting products for network interoperability, is scheduled to take place from 20-23 July at the D/FW Marriott Solana in Westlake, Texas. Plugfest offers delegates an opportunity to connect their lighting product with those of other manufacturers to test and resolve network compatibility issues. The event also offers a chance to take advantage of the knowledge and experience of the Control Protocols Working Group - one of the Technical Standards Program’s largest working groups. ESTA invites the industry to drop in and experience Plugfest. Attendees can bring controllers, intelligent lights, control protocol analysers, and other network connected components. The event is open to both ESTA and non-ESTA members. Full details are available at
USA - Late in 2016, research agency Gallup conducted a survey of jam band fans to determine the “approval ratings” of different groups. The Vermont-based quartet Twiddle earned the highest score, even edging out fellow Green Mountain State stars Phish. Although the first-place finish might have surprised some, it wasn’t particularly shocking to the legion of Twiddle fans that turn out to see the band play at festivals and music halls from Maine to California. Twiddle has recorded upwards of 50 EPs as well as multiple studio albums, but for the band’s true fans the greatest pleasure comes from seeing them perform live. Joyfully blending reggae, funk and rock, with some spirited dashes of hi-def shred thrown in, the band takes fans on a carefree journey, where a delightful surprise seems to wait around every musical bend. Adding to the magic at a recent Twiddle
USA - In 1946, more than 100 founding parishioners came together to build a community where families could worship as one, establishing the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community. Built around a host of ministries that include a school, an early childhood centre, and various summer programmes, the sanctuary within the community is relied upon as part of the foundation for spiritual growth. With an outdated lighting system which needed replacement, the church worked with the Houston-based manufacturers rep LESCO Lighting Technology who installed a bright and energy-efficient worship design using Chalice LED downlights and Pegasus LED Fresnels from Altman Lighting. “This was our first time working with the congregation at St. Rose of Lima, and we were brought on to help them update their current house and stage lighting system to LED technology,” said Manuel Moran, LES
Europe - Former Baywatch and Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff recently toured Germany and Austria on his 30 Years Looking For Freedom tour, with a lighting rig that included effects from Elation Professional Chorus Line 8 and Lumina Matrix fixtures. Audio, video and lighting for the tour, which ran 11 April to 4 May, was by Austrian-based rental and production company MartinKames.com with lighting design by company owner Martin Kames, who developed a special rapport with the television and music star. Kames landed the job after sending Hasselhoff a 20-minute video in which he presented his company and his design ideas. “It took me half a year to finally reach him directly but after he saw the video he immediately called me and told me I’m on board so my perseverance paid off,” he explains. “It was a very unique experience to work with a
USA - The Knight of Illumination Awards USA (KOI-USA) is now open for nominations. The KOI Awards, launched in the USA in April, have been celebrating the achievements of lighting and video designers working in a range of entertainment genres in the UK for 10 years, with the first US edition set to coincide with LDI 2018 in Las Vegas. Nominations for KOI USA are rolling in across all three categories - Theatre, Concert Touring & Events, and Live for Broadcast - with five awards in each category up for grabs. To be eligible for nomination, productions must have been performed or broadcast in the USA between 1 August 2017 and 31 July 2018. In the UK, the organisers have reported “a record number of nominations” ahead of the 30 June deadline.
Visit the relevant website for more information on how to nominate: KOI UK:
Indonesia - Broadcasting and live streaming services have opened up more ways for Star Church to grow and reach new worshippers. However, with this opportunity has come the new challenge of lighting services in a way that not only appeals to people at the church, but can also meet the more critical demands of the video camera. With this issue in mind, the dynamic Indonesian church turned to its long-time vendor Asiis to create a video-friendly lighting package for its newly built campus, which is located in a shopping mall. Asiis met Star Church’s expectations by creating a carefully planned lighting system that includes over 65 Chauvet Professional fixtures and is controlled by a ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console. “The HD video camera is much less forgiving than the human eye,” says Asiis’ Andy Mulya Sutikno, who oversaw the project. “The lighting in Star C
UK - Lighting and rigging specialist Nexus Dry Hire has added 30 of Chroma-Q's flagship Color Force II 72 LED fixture to its stockholding. The purchase of the 1.8m battens was facilitated by Mike Docksey at Chroma-Q UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies. Nexus' managing director, Tom Agar comments: "At Nexus we are always looking for leading technologies which we believe will become the next industry standard and product of choice amongst our production and rental clients. After studying the market, we chose Color Force II as it is exactly the right product for our requirements. It's a very high-quality light source, covers multiple applications and is well made, so we believe it has great rental potential amongst our client base." Agar adds: "I can't fault Mike and A.C.'s support with getting the deal through, which happened really quickly to meet our cust
UK - Central Presentations (CPL) has invested in six new Barco UDX-4K 31,000lm laser projectors which were deployed on their first event at Arcadia London last weekend. The vibrant two day alt.culture festival, music and performance extravaganza celebrated the 10th anniversary of the birth of the Arcadia concept, and was staged in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with the famed Spider at the hub of the performance action. CPL has been involved with Arcadia since 2013 when the 50 tonne Spider - the conceptual brainchild of Pip Rush and Bert Cole crafted from reimagined military hardware and other recycled industrial waste - first landed at Glastonbury festival. For the last few UK appearances of the arachnid, CPL has been part of a dedicated production team delivering crisp, detailed projections onto both sides of the three giant legs, which are fundamental
Singapore - The Fort Gate at Fort Canning Hill in Singapore provided the backdrop for the 2018 City 65 Music Festival. The location, known for expansive lawns and greenery, has become a hub for cultural and creative activities and a venue of choice for many outdoor events. Craig Burridge was asked to co-ordinate the Main Stage production and lighting design for the one-day event by organisers Michael Spinks and Rachel Mason from City 65 Music Pte Ltd. The main stage line-up featured five diverse bands, three playing in daylight and the final two in the dark, for which Craig used 50 Robe fixtures - 24 x Linees, 10 x ColorStrobes, six PixelPATTs and 10 x LEDWash 600s - positioned prominently on the rig. The venue is managed by the National Parks, and there are some strict rules and regulations designed to protect the environment. No production elements can be within 2m o
Thailand - MediaVision of Thailand has invested in a pair of Robert Juliat Merlin followspots supplied by Total Solution Marketing Pte. MediaVision provides equipment and services for local and international concerts, as well as corporate events and conferences. Robert Juliat’s Merlin 2500W HMI touring followspot was ideal thanks to its rugged body, powerful output and 3°-12° zoom range, making it suitable for venues of all sizes. “We chose the Merlin after Total Solution brought it to our attention in late 2016. We needed a followspot that was reliable and versatile enough to adapt to the many demands of a rental company,” says MediaVision’s Joe Thanaruch. “Robert Juliat’s reliability and build-quality is well-known, and Merlin turned out to be surprisingly light-weight for a followspot of its size. “We were also happy that it proved easy to use
UK - Celebrating PLASA Focus Leeds’ 10th anniversary at the start of May, Current RMS was back at the popular show, exhibiting new features of its cloud-based rental management software to stand visitors. In between catching up with their customers and demonstrating their software to new faces, the show proved an opportunity to showcase its new and highly-anticipated feature, Deal Pricing. Requested directly by Current users via their online wishlist, Deal Pricing allows users to apply an agreed deal price straight to a job. This overrides the charge total and can either be applied as a blanket figure to all items on the job, or to individual groups, for example, audio or conference room sub-labels. Handy for providing clients with friendlier quotations and charging a neat deal price for a job, feedback at the show was “overwhelmingly positive”. As with all
The Netherlands - EVE is a restaurant and event location set in an old locomotive train repair hall, called Polygonal Hall, in Tilburg, Holland. The hall is built around a circular platform which was formerly used to rotate and position trains in the correct track to enter and leave the big hall. You still can see all the old details in the well preserved monumental building. The structure is highlighted by 66 Focus Pinspot compact lights with ultra-narrow beam, while the ceiling is lit by 24 Freeline 90FC LED bars. Scena LED 80 and Profilo LED 80 are used to light several details and areas in the building. This brings the total amount of DTS fixtures to 115, centrally driven by Drivenet 1664. The installer was First Impression & Turific, lighting design is by Ruben Fernandes and Mischa Woudenberg and the lighting equipment was supplied by Full AVL. (Ji
UK - Fifteen years ago The Prolight Concepts Group moved from its home in Bury to its current home in Darwen. It has now outgrown the 37,000sq.ft premises and is set to move. Situated less than four miles away in the neighbouring town of Blackburn the new premises will see a tenfold increase in office and workshop space and treble the amount of warehouse bays. With the M65 motorway also being within such close proximity it allows excellent transport links to the M6 and the rest of the country for fast and efficient distribution along with easy access for visiting customers and suppliers. “We are delighted to be able to secure the future growth of our business with this key property purchase. We have been actively seeking a location to build on the growth we have already accomplished and it was important to achieve this in the local area so we could maintain our high
UK - For anyone working with video, codecs play a vital role in compressing clips for optimum playback in real-time scenarios. For many, the HAP codec - inter-operable between platforms - was key to their work. With Adobe having dropped support of QuickTime 7 (a popular platform that included the HAP codec) as of 24 April, a new workaround for many video professionals is needed. Step forward Green Hippo, whose FlexRes codec means its Hippotizer servers are unaffected by the change. LSi spoke to Sean Westgate, technical director and founder of Green Hippo, to find out more about all things HAP, FlexRes and more . . . LSi: For those who might not know, can you please explain the importance of codecs and what the HAP codec is? Sean Westgate: “To get maximum playback performance in real-time, video clips need to be compressed using a codec. This reduces th
UK - Comedian and musician Bill Bailey is back on the road for his Larks in Transit tour which was first performed in Australia in October 2017. Dave Farmer of THC Design’s, Bailey’s lighting designer for the last seven years, added Robe to the mix in the form of Spiiders and MMX Spots for the current UK theatre leg of the tour, which kicked off with five gigs at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London over the festive period. Dave took the backdrop they had used in Australia as a scenic starting point for the visual design. Originally this was a map of the world, which he re-imagined as a scenic circular globe suspended inside a circular truss and fitted into a cut out backdrop. This brings an authentic 3D impression to the stage and to the audience, it looks like a complete globe. Further upstage is a starcloth to add a bit of magic and sparkle an
UK - Adlib helped bring all the drama, excitement and glamour of the massively popular CMT TV series Nashville to the stage as Nashville in Concert returned to the UK for a second run of sold out arena shows following the success of last year’s tour. The Liverpool based production specialist was asked to provide full production - lighting, audio and video. Adlib this year provided the key disciplines of lighting and sound plus the IMAG video package. The format was as before, a tight house band supporting a selection of cast from the series including Jonathan Jackson, Chris Carmack, Clare Bowen, Charles Esten and Sam Palladio. Adlib’s Dave Eldridge co-ordinated all the lighting and video elements. This year, Adlib was also asked to create a production lighting design after receiving a brief from the production team led by Betsega and Mike
UK - Hire and events company SLX has announced the successful applicants for its 2018 bursary scheme, which sees the company supporting five students enrolled on production courses with £3000 of hire equipment as well as networking and development opportunities. Spanning the UK, the students attend different institutions and are enrolled on a variety of technical production focussed courses. Third year students and graduating this year are Ashley Holdom (Rose Bruford) and Ryan Searle (Bristol Old Vic) and the 2nd year students receiving the bursary are Alex Silvester (University of Bolton – Backstage Academy), Georgia Wren - LIPA and Ben Linwood (Guildford School of Acting). As well as receiving the £3000 bursary to support a project of the student’s choosing, the five applicants were also welcomed into SLX Avonmouth, spending two full days in May with the SLX
USA - Effective immediately, ADJ Products is taking over the development, support and sales for the Compu Show lighting control software previously offered by Elation Professional for the past 10 years. ADJ USA’s national sales manager, Alfred Gonzales, explains: “As ADJ’s fixtures have evolved, we felt it was important to grow our DMX software line as well. Our existing myDMX control software has been a very successful product worldwide for ten years, but we felt we needed to offer something with more power and possibilities. Compu Show is a proven system that offers lighting designers powerful features and flexible control options to allow them to make the most of their lighting rigs and fully realize their creative vision.” Compu Show is an advanced DMX control software application for PC, that is designed for programming and controlling large rigs of moving
USA - Chauvet Professional has introduced the Ovation H-605FC, a convection-cooled fixture powered by an RGBA-Lime LED engine, enabling it to accurately reproduce nearly any colour and virtually any colour temperature of white. This feature allows the fixture to excel not only when functioning as a traditional house light, but also when used to colourise a room as part of a theatrical production or worship service. “We developed the Ovation H-605FC in response to the demand from customers who wanted full colour-mixing in a house light,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “The RGBA-Lime LEDs give this light excellent colour-rendering capabilities. At the same time, it also has a virtual colour wheel to match popular gel colours.” Colour Temperature Presets from 2800K to 6500K with high CRI and CQS ensure that the fixture’s output is of the highest quality. A
USA - City Theatrical has announced the expansion of its QolorFLEX brand of professional, flexible linear LED lighting to include QolorFLEX 5-in-1 LED Tape, a new LED tape lighting that offers lighting and scenic design professionals more colour mixing options and flexibility of white light to help maximise creative potential for performances and installations. Now available in full five-metre reels and sample strips, QolorFLEX 5-in-1 LED Tape is an interior-grade RGBWWCW LED Tape with high output brightness and the ability to create a wide spectrum of colours when used with a DMX colour control system. ETL-listed, QolorFLEX 5in-1 LED Tape includes a tunable white that pairs an RGB diode with 2,500 K and 6,500 K white diodes so designers can fine-tune colors. Each tape also comes with wiring leads on both ends and durable 3M adhesive backing. QolorFLEX 5-in-1 LED Tap
USA - Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is an off-Broadway show playing at New World Stages beneath an all-LED Elation lighting rig. The play portrays a certain famous wizard school from the perspective of the slightly nerdy and not-so-famous house called Puffs. Described as ‘a play for anyone who has never been destined to save the world’, Puffs are the outsiders of the magic school who disheartenedly observe as a certain boy wizard repeatedly saves the day. Written by Matt Cox and produced by Tilted Windmills Theatricals, the play is directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker with lighting design by Herrick Goldman. The third iteration of the show opened at New World Stages in Manhattan last summer, where it’s still running. Puffs came to New World Stages from the Elektra Theatre but was originally staged
