Germany - The Infinity Signature Series uses the latest LED technology with European software and have a variety of control options and lenses that are familiar to every entertainment technician. “We have found an excellent partner in the world-famous manufacturer Robert Juliat, with almost 100 years of experience, to develop our new series of theatre luminaires,” says the company. Only Lumiled LEDs are used throughout the entire range. This ensures consistent binning and colour consistency. The warm white LEDs were selected to maintain a constant temperature of 3000K with a CRI of +95. The selection of coloured LEDs enables the best possible colour mixing with the highest CRI. The software offers flicker-free dimming and a flash function without time delay. With the coloured units there is also a virtual colour wheel with 64 of the most popular gel colours for the
USA - Clearwing Productions of Milwaukee used Elation Professional’s Level Q7 IP RGBW Par lights on Miller Holiday Lites in Milwaukee for the entire month of December in cold weather with no issues then rolled them right into ‘big game’ festivities in Minneapolis in January, where they continued to perform in even colder weather. Clearwing, who stock hundreds of the Level Q7 IP Par lights, provided all of the lighting, decor, video and audio equipment for Miller Holiday Lites in partnership with GMR Marketing, their second year decking the halls on State Street with GMR Marketing and Miller Brewery. Miller Holiday Lites is a yearly family-friendly tradition in Milwaukee, where guests are invited to take a mini-tour down State Street, decorated with festive holiday lighting courtesy of Miller Brewing Company. Guests had the chance to view a five-minute programme
UK - The Vegas Golden Knights hockey team not only continues to impress the sporting world with its outstanding play, they are doing it in typical Las Vegas-style. A striking projection mapping show uses Christie projection and processing technology coupled with the expertise of Image Engineering to engage the crowd and bring the story of the Golden Knights to life on the ice at T-Mobile Arena. Bringing a professional sports team to Las Vegas – a city known for showmanship and world-class entertainment is no small feat, and the Vegas Golden Knights have embraced the challenge of playing their home games in the Entertainment Capital of the World. One of the top priorities of the team is to create a truly memorable fan experience. The first-year National Hockey League (NHL) club uses 12 Christie WU20K-J projectors, Christie Mystique Install, Christie Pandoras Box and Christi
USA - Experienced production designer Travis Shirley has recently been turning to the GLP fixture portfolio in order to meet some of his more demanding challenges. Having used the company’s new revolutionary JDC1 hybrid strobe with his long-time charge, Enrique Iglesias, he has now become the first major adopter of GLP’s new Force 120 high speed, variable direction fan unit with internal RGB LED lighting - this time with country rock band, Old Dominion, having been introduced to the five-piece on their previous tour by manager, Will Hitchcock. In mapping out their touring plan for 2018 the band chose to embark on their own arena size tour before supporting Kenny Chesney on stadium dates later in the year. “There was a determination to have a presence throughout the entire year, whether in a support or headlining capacity,” acknowledges Travis. With the
Switzerland - Avolites has reached an agreement with Cast Swiss Light Consulting for distribution of its full range of Titan lighting control and Ai media server products in Switzerland. For more than 24 years Cast Swiss Light Consulting (Cast) has been a leading supplier of fixtures, lighting control, staging, power, signal distribution and accessories for the entertainment, theatre, studio and film industries. The agreement now sees the company become the sole distributor of Avolites control consoles and media servers in Switzerland. "We were looking to expand to meet demand from our client base for top-class consoles and media server technology and we realised only a major player like Avolites could fill the gap," says Silvio Cibien, Cast's chairman. "We believe we are a great match - both companies are focused on delivering the best quality equipment for the indust
UK - Broadcast and event lighting rental specialist Version 2 has introduced the Litepanels Gemini LED 2 x 1 softlight fixture to its range of low-energy lighting products. Created specifically for use in the film, television and media industries, the Gemini’s intuitive onboard control system features three fully-featured lighting modes capable of delivering virtually any colour; CCT Mode for true daylight and tungsten with +/- green fine tuning, HSI Mode for total control over hue, saturation and intensity to create any colour in the 360° colour wheel at any intensity from 0-100% and Gel Mode to easily replicate the industry’s most popular gel sets with a daylight or tungsten source. Version 2 managing director Nick Edwards comments: “We’ve been looking into purchasing a perfect soft light solution for some time. I believe we now have the workhorse our indust
UK - Following the re-boot of Top Gear, the team behind the series are back in the driving seat for another round of the high-octane motoring magazine show. Filmed in front of a live studio audience at the show’s studio home at Dunsfold Park, Top Gear features a high-tech, semi-industrial installation by designer Rudi Thackray, lit by award winning lighting director Gurdip Mahal. Encircling the studio floor with crisp, bright lines and bold, vibrant colours, the set uses the audience as an integral part of the design and features a selection of carefully highlighted classic cars with a giant illuminated Top Gear logo framing the main presenting area. In creating the show’s look, the lighting crew, headed up by gaffer James Tinsley and including long time Top Gear collaborator Paul Tibbles, used a number of lo
UK - ProLights LED fixtures are helping shows to shine at the Elgiva Theatre in Buckinghamshire, with the venue recently upgrading their house lighting rig from the brand's extensive range to cover the diverse day to day production needs of their lighting rig. Located in southeast England, The Elgiva presents a wide-ranging programme of professional and amateur productions, top comedy, musicals, ballet/dance, one night shows, professional pantomime, movies, and private events. Initially the theatre invested in ProLights' StudioCOB FC LED PARs and later decided to further upgrade their house rig with ProLights Eclipse FC LED ellipsoidals and Luma 700 LED moving spots. All fixtures were supplied by ProLights’ UK dealer A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET). Elgiva Theatre's technical manager, Tristan Collett, comments: "After searching for years we have finally
UK - Paul Heaton’s lighting designer on his current UK tour, Patrick Sollitt has over 70 tunes on his current song page, with new ones being added all the time. “With such a large back catalogue going back 20-plus years ago to Paul’s days with the Housemartins, onto The Beautiful South and his current hits, we draw on a wide range of music,” says Sollitt. “It’s a nice challenge to have to create unique looks for so many songs.” Sollitt is meeting this challenge with a robust, fast-moving and very flexible six universe lightshow that features 34 wash, 24 spot and six beam fixtures run on a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 Stadium. “I would describe the lightshow as ‘big,’” explains Sollitt. “We put a lot of brightness out there and change things up quite a bit as the music goes from full on pop to delicate ballads. Paul conveys a range of emotions and mixe
UK - From 2 April, Stage Electrics will become the exclusive distributor of Strand Lighting TV, studio & location lighting in the UK. The Stage Electrics team have already received training from Philips Entertainment Lighting and the distributor is expected to soon be offering product demonstrations to customers nationwide. Shaun Robertshaw, key account manager at Philips Entertainment Lighting, comments: “The decision to make Stage Electrics the sole distributor, has been made to help best serve the marketplace. This arrangement will bring many bonuses, including demonstration product being held at Stage Electrics in the UK”. Anna Western, sales director of Stage Electrics, adds: “We are increasingly operating in broadcast sales, installation, system testing and maintenance. Partnering with Philips to become their Broadcast Lighting’s sole distribu
USA - From today (15 March), Strong Lighting assumes sales, servicing and manufacturing duties for the full line of Phoebus followspots and searchlights. Omaha-based Strong Lighting, which manufactures the Strong followspot, Syncrolite and SkyTracker ranges, will now add the Ultra Quartz II, Ultra Arc II, i-Marc, i-Chip, Titan and various searchlight models to its production line. Phoebus product support, repairs will be provided by Strong Lighting’s team of lighting experts while parts and replacement lamps will also be shipped from its facility. Paul Rabinovitz, president of Strong Lighting, comments: “The Phoebus name is familiar to everyone in the entertainment lighting industry and Strong Lighting is proud to be in a position to carry that tradition forward and take Phoebus products to the next level. Our deep knowledge of followspots and searchlights a
USA - City Theatrical (booth 231) will take part in this year's USITT Conference & Stage expo to be held at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from 15-17 March. The company will demonstrate its latest wireless DMX technology and software solutions and also present its range of LED products. City Theatrical president and founder Gary Fails will demonstrate the Multiverse wireless DMX technology at the Innovation Stage on Friday, 16 March at 12pm EST. The demo will highlight City Theatrical’s vision of a lighting setup in which every DMX device contains a Multiverse Module (and where legacy lighting products have a Multiverse Node near them), allowing entire productions containing hundreds of fixtures and dozens of universes to be operated wirelessly. John McKernon will showcase his multi award-winning Lightwr
USA - ETC has released Unison Paradigm 4.0, the latest version of its lighting control system. Paradigm 4.0 incorporates energy monitoring options, including Demand Response integration, improved support for tunable white and colour-changing fixtures, extended support for Paradigm Inspire stations, including faders, and many software optimisations to simplify the system’s programming and customisation. Individual channels, groups of channels or whole spaces can be set to shed load when the system receives a demand response command from the utility company. Standard actions are defined in Paradigm and can be executed from contact closures, UDP, RS232, or BACnet. Paradigm 4.0 also features reporting options to help keep track of energy usage. Load Schedule import and export functions make it easy to enter load information, and Paradigm’s software automaticall
USA - Some of the biggest names in Latin music landed in Las Vegas in January for a night to remember at the Calibash mega-concert. Held at the 20,000-capacity T-Mobile Arena, the spectacular staging featured an array of 18 LED screens with content fed from by Avolites Ai Infinity RX8 Media Servers. YC3 Lighting Design supplied the Ai servers to VJ director Richard Vicens, who oversaw the visuals for Latin/Urban music stars including Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Ozuna, Maluma and Bad Bunny. "All of the artists wanted to give their audiences an awesome show," says Vicens. "As VJ director, it was vital for me to be able to design and create pixel maps and LED processing that worked for everybody and be ready to backup all of them with Ai media Servers. "The show's size meant it was certainly a challenge - I have to go through every detail to make sure the audience
USA/Europe - Marilyn Manson and his band embarked on a series of pan-European arena and theatre shows at the end of last year followed by a US tour with French LD Nicolas Riot of Chirac Design. Riot, also known for his work with French metal band Gojira, has been using LED fixtures from GLP, including 15 x JDC1 hybrid strobes and 35 of the award-winning X4 Bar 20 battens in the set design. All inventory was supplied by the band’s regular vendor, experienced UK rental company Entec Sound & Light, while North American supplier Delicate Productions provided the gear for the US leg of the tour. Entec’s MD (and head of lighting) Noreen O’Riordan confirmed that while this was the first time Entec has worked with the lighting designer, they have a long-standing relationship with Manson’s production manager Matt Doherty. They purchased the X4 Bars in response to th
USA - When Justin Preston was called upon to provide lighting for Budweiser Live during NBA All-Star Weekend, it really represented two projects in one. The brewing giant’s pop-up entertainment centre for the big game was the first event ever hosted at City Market Social House, a restored 16,000sq.ft industrial space opened in the Fashion District of downtown Los Angeles. Preston not only put together the ground package for the weekend extravaganza, he also created the permanent lighting system for the new event facility, loading in both rigs simultaneously in advance of the NBA’s big weekend. Meshing his own permanent design for the venue with a carefully chosen ground package for the event, Preston created a dazzling display for the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities, using over 400 Chauvet Professional fixtures. “I was super excited when VOX Productions, the AV
USA - Elation Professional has acquired the M-Series range of entertainment lighting controllers from Harman Professional Denmark ApS, formerly Martin Professional ApS. The asset-based acquisition, set to be completed before the end of Q1, will include a limited-term licence agreement to distribute current controller products using the name M-Series and provide continued technical support and warranty service for prior Martin M-Series sales. Elation already has in place key personnel with expertise in M-Series technology in order to provide on-going support and development of new products. This will ensure a seamless transition for the already established M-Series customer base, offering continuity and continued support by Elation on past sales of M-Series controllers by Harman Professional Solutions. Toby Velazquez, president of Elation Lighting, comments: “W
USA - Chauvet DJ has released BTAir, a free iOS and Android app that allows smart devices to control lights wirelessly via Bluetooth. Users can create, store and recall scenes, control colour fades, chases and more. SlimPAR T12 BT makes remote light control easy with its on-board Bluetooth wireless technology. SlimPAR T12 BT has 12 tri-color (RGB) LEDs, and its compact design easily fits inside sticks of truss. An optional IRC-6 remote can also be used for control, as well as DMX, automated and sound-activated programmes. In addition to Bluetooth wireless technology compatibility, SlimPAR Q12 BT features 12 quad-colour (RGBA) LEDs that generate a broad spectrum of colors and achieve natural-looking colour temperatures. Easily set static colours or automated programmes with the optional IRC-6 remote, or create eye-catching effects with sound-activated and automate
USA - Rock band Halestorm is gearing up for a huge year, kicking off 2018 with a tour across North America with a lighting package supplied by Bandit Lites. The Grammy Award-winning band comprised of guitarist and vocalist Lzzy Hale, drummer and percussionist Arejay Hale, guitarist Joe Hottinger and bassist Josh Smith are also wrapping up recording their next studio album and have already announced another tour for this spring. The expansive design by lighting designer Craig Richter features towers equipped with ClayPaky Sharpys and GLP X4S fixtures, offering versatile looks and striking beams. Bandit Lites also supplied Martin Atomic 3000 LED Strobes, Ayrton MagicBlade-R fixtures, Elation CuePix WW2 Blinders, Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids, ClayPaky B-EYE K20 fixtures and a grandMA 2 lite console for control. “The system performed really well and under extreme cond
UK - The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) commissioned West Midlands-based Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) to design and deliver all the technical elements for their 2018 annual staff conference and awards, inclduing sound, lighting, video, staging and rigging. The high-profile event for 400 delegates was staged in Warwick Hall at the NAEC, Stanleigh and comprised a seated conference presentation that was transformed into a glamorous setting for the evening’s dinner and awards. The client wanted to use the width-ways orientation of the venue for sightlines, so CPL’s project manager Lee Gruszeckyj proposed a widescreen video blend as a striking visual starting point to align with the geometry of the space. The 30ft wide by 10ft high upstage projection screen was flanked by gauze panels designed to take lighting nicely and elongate the spac
UK - Working with lighting designer Stuart Pring, illumination rental and installation specialists LED Creative provided their Sigma Pulse Wand fixtures to add some neon colour to the BRITs Official After Party held at the O2 InterContinental in London. Pring artfully suspended a number of Pulse Wands to create a layered look to the ceiling at the venue. Talking about the installation, he comments: “For The Brits Official After Party we used around 170 Pulse Wands built into frames and hung over the stage and dance floor area. This created a ‘big’ look which was particularly effective during the ‘club’ part of the night, helping bring a wonderful dynamic to the room.” Pring continues: “The Wands offer lots of chase possibilities via their in-built effects. The range of colour possibilities are great too; especially the cold daylight and tungsten
South Africa - The new 8,500 capacity Sun Arena in Pretoria features a house moving light rig of 90 dynamic Robe fixtures. The multi-purpose venue is part of Sun International’s Time Square development and entertainment complex (read the report in LSi March 2018). The Robe units are integral to a complete turnkey technical package specified and supplied to the venue by Robe’s South African distributor DWR to operators Sun International. This encompasses a rider-friendly lighting system, trussing, rigging, follow spots and power distribution. The backbone of the lighting rig is 12 x BMFL Spots, six BMFL Blades, 24 x Spiider LED wash beams, 24 x Pointes and 24
UK - Dr James Green, former head of intellectual property at specialist technology development business Ilika, has joined Flare Audio in the same role. Dr Green has over 45 years’ experience in international technology commercialisation, having negotiated numerous agreements and licences with major corporations including US and Japanese multinationals. His new role includes managing and progressing Flare’s portfolio of patents, designs and trademarks, and advising management on competitive threats or potential patent infringements. Flare’s Davies Roberts comments: “Dr Green has an extraordinary wealth of experience and will play a key role in ensuring Flare’s proprietary technologies are recognised throughout the world.” “When I met Flare CEO Davies Roberts, I was very impressed with what he had created,” says Dr Green. “I like working with i
UK - Sound Technology, the exclusive UK distributor for Martin by Harman, has announced the addition of key personnel to its dedicated Martin UK team. Ritchie Reed (business development manager, professional lighting) heads up the sales and application team and is joined by Rob Beamer and Lauren Drinkwater as area sales managers for the north and south respectively, while Chris Hale joins as product and application specialist, professional lighting. Ritchie Reed has worked in the entertainment lighting world for over 20 years, including positions as key account manager for theatre and subsequently UK sales director at Martin Professional until April 2016. Lauren Drinkwater worked at City Theatrical for seven years and most recently was UK channel manager at Martin Professional specialising in theatre. Rob Beamer has been working in the entertainment industr
