USA - Theatre audiences today are accustomed to seeing musicals where songs and dances are woven into a well-crafted dramatic storyline, but that was rarely the case prior to the 1943 Broadway debut of Oklahoma!. The Rogers and Hammerstein classic’s smashing success (it ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances) marked the beginning of a new era, one that would ultimately see the songs and dances in a musical go from being mere entertainment numbers to vital parts of the unfolding narrative.
Lighting designer Zach Blane did justice to this “Book Musical” tradition in a recently concluded, Igor Goldin directed, revival of Oklahoma! at the John W. Engeman Theatre. Drawing on a collection of Ovation, COLORdash and Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional, Blane conveyed key dramatic elements of the play in light, particularly during pivotal scenes, such as

UK - Tony Kushner’s multi-award-winning play, Angels in America has made a triumphant return to the National Theatre, marking 25 years since its UK debut. This technology-laden production of the two-part epic features innovative ways of working with ETC’s Eos family of lighting control desks.
Dubbed "a gay fantasia on national themes" by Kushner, Angels in America concerns a group of interconnected New Yorkers in the mid-1980s, when the world was in the grip of the AIDs crisis and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. This new staging of the play is directed by Marianne Elliott, complemented by lighting design from Paule Constable and a set designed by Ian MacNeil, who takes advantage of the moving parts afforded by the National’s Lyttelton stage to blend reality and fantasy for the multi-faceted story.
To transport the audience from New York, to Sa

UK - Glastonbury Festival’s new look Other Stage was designed and manufactured by Serious Stages’, who also installed the system along with the main stages across the site.
Dedicated to improving the festival experience for artists and fans, the organisers long term relationship with Serious Stages made them the obvious choice of contractor to create a new look Other Stage to accommodate the large scale incoming band productions form the likes of Stormzy, Major Lazer and Boy Better Know.
This four tower 25m TZ roof featured a sloped back, to give extra on-stage storage for artists and production, along with clear-span wings creating a much-improved working area with increased space for the incoming productions. An offset leg design on the rear of the goalpost created the space for the side-shed. The main deck, rear shed, side wings, ramps and underworld also offere

World - Known for their very intricate stadium shows, U2 honours the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, by taking a robust, cinematic set and the albums legacy hits on the road for a stadium tour across North America and Europe.
After reuniting with their fans at iHeartRadio’s Music Festival and Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference, the Irish rockers cemented the idea to celebrate the Joshua Tree album with the Joshua Tree Tour, making it the first time the band has ever taken an entire album from their back catalogue on tour.
In a Rolling Stone interview, Bono speaks about tour, stating, "It's so not like us to throw ourselves a birthday party. We didn't know if we could pull off a tour that honours The Joshua Tree without it being nostalgic. That's an oxymoron."
In order to showcase the album to its fullest

UAE - Dubai Festival City is a 1300 acre, waterfront urban community that has been designed to reflect the 21st century spirit of Dubai. It offers visitors a shopping, dining and entertainment experience but is also home to a residential community, two international schools, hotels and commercial offices.
Deco Emirates LLC was recently brought on board to oversee a complete interior fit out of the Robinsons department store for Al Futtaim Sons. Contracts manager Chris George was responsible for ensuring the works were undertaken according to the design from HMKM London and to successfully hand over within a 10 month period. Chris, in turn, contacted Unusual Rigging and Engineering LLC to help Deco Emirates understand the complexities and challenges of the project.
Chris explained: "We knew from the offset that the installation of an overhead gantry within the escalator

Italy - A good example of “calm before the storm” can be found on the Rimini beach in Italy, where Litec is constructing a sophisticated Libera series Alusfera II roof for upcoming concerts to be held during the Summer Beach Arena event.
Running from 24 June – 30 July, the Summer Beach Arena concert series features live and DJ sets by national and international artists from sunset until late in the evening.
(Jim Evans)

Belgium - For almost 30 years, the municipality of Ingelmunster in the Belgian province of West Flanders has played host to the Labadoux festival. Now as much a part of the Belgian cultural fabric as the region’s chocolate and beer delights, the 'Music with Roots' festival blends a wide variety of folk and other genres, and serves as a key platform for both established and up and coming acts.
For this year’s festival, organisers wanted to up the visual ante for headliners including The European Pink Floyd Show and Levellers. To this end, LD Vincent de Schinckel specified a number of Chauvet fixtures for the festival’s main stage, including 12 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 spots, 16 Maverick MK2 washes and 16 Chauvet DJ Intimidator 140SR hybrids.
Wanting to give the impression of visual depth from the audience perspective on the main stage, De Schinkel positio

UK - Creative technical event production company Hawthorn brought the bright lights of Las Vegas to Battersea Evolution for the Waitrose Supplier Gala Dinner 2017 on 19 May 2017. Following a Vintage Vegas theme, Hawthorn worked with client Entertee Events to transform the venue into a show-stopping party venue.
Not only providing an opportunity for the company’s suppliers to network with the executive board, commercial directors, category directors, and senior traders, the evening also raised vital funds for the charity GroceryAid.
With 1,500 guests seated across 147 tables, Entertee made the most of Battersea’s large versatile space. Decorated with crystal chandeliers, entrance tunnels made from Hawthorn’s lavish blue velvet drape and thirty-two palm trees wrapped in fairy lights, guests were transported back to the golden age of Vegas. Hawthorn also created ten

The Netherlands - Philips Lighting’s new lighting fixture, the Philips Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam, featured prominently in the lighting design from specialists Light-H-Art for the finals of The Voice Kids Holland, broadcast on RTL 4.
Bas de Vries, lighting designer at Light-H-Art, had just two days of camera rehearsals to create distinctive looks for 18 different acts on the show, so needed a lighting rig that would give him a range of options. The Philips VL6000 Beam, introduced to the market earlier this year, drew his attention and Philips Entertainment Lighting worked with Dutch distributor FACE to provide Light-H-Art with the units for the show.
De Vries employed six of the Philips VL6000 beams on the set, mounted on moving trusses arrayed above mid-stage. This allowed him to vary the visual framing of the performance, bringing the six wide beams into play to

China - A range of Claypaky moving head fixtures created the responsive theatrical lighting for immersive Chinese theatre production Encore Dunhuang, a 'walk-in' theatre show that debuted at the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo.
The event's theatrical lighting design was created by lighting designer Mr Wang Yugang, who specified the Claypaky Scenius Profile, Claypaky Alpha Profile 1200s and Claypaky Sharpy Wash 330s to meet the demands and the scale of the production. Mr Wang Yugang singled out the Scenius Profile for its superior colour rendering.
"In the flying scenes, I chose to base the look around the Scenius Profile," says Mr Wang Yugang. "The colour reproduction on clothing and characters is extremely good, and the consistency of light is far more than the other brands of fixtures available."
The 90-minute performance guided audi

UK - Imelda May’s latest album Life Love Flesh Blood has seen a marked change of direction, with the Irish singer replacing her earlier rockabilly romps with a more country/soul ballad approach.
She also has a new FOH sound team, with Nick Ingram following a line of experienced sound engineers that have included Trevor Gilligan and Gerry Wilkes - both of whom have used Capital Sound as their equipment vendor.
With a classical musician’s background, Ingram was an appropriate choice to reinforce sound in the series of concert hall and theatre venues around which the tour is based; and he is delighted he took up the recommendation from Capital’s Paul Timmins to use the Martin Audio MLA Compact PA to support one of their long term accounts.
Although this was the first time Nick had taken the system out following three days’ production rehearsals at Mus

UK - Academy Music Group (AMG) has once again enlisted Liverpool based Adlib to design and deliver a completely new, full touring specification, audio system for its most recent venue acquisition, O2 Forum Kentish Town in North London. The 2,300-capacity venue is one of the most popular live music destinations in the capital.
The brief was to future-proof the venue’s technical infrastructure, bring it up-to-date and give incoming productions the flexibility and facilities they need to stage world class performances with the convenience of using the house system.
Adlib’s experience in live touring and venue installations coupled with detailed research of current rider information drove the specification of an L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system, DiGiCo consoles and Adlib’s latest proprietary MP5 wedges and side-fills for the monitor system.
Adlib’s MD Andy

UK - Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a truly global university. Boasting a strong and internationally recognised research status, NTU offers one of the best employability records in the country, with 94% of students progressing to full-time employment or further education within six months of graduation.
One of the UK's leading new universities, since 2004, NTU has invested more than £350m across its three campuses, developing world class teaching and learning facilities. A stated goal of the university is that its teaching estate and the technical support behind it, should be first class. NTU's investment in state-of-the-art AV systems reflects this commitment and Polar Integrated Solutions has co-operated with the university's AV Team Leader, Stuart Loughran, on a number of projects designed to meet the highest standards.
A feature of modern educational practic

UK - Midas was the power behind Stonehenge last week as druids, pagans, tourists and locals saw sunup ahead of 16 hours 38 minutes of scorching daylight on 21 June.
The summer solstice is one of just two occasions the public can get full access to the stone circle free of charge.
Working for Sygma Safety in the second of a three-year contract, Midas supplied site power and sourced an ambient lighting wash for the monuments, together with tower lights for the car park and exits.
The site is open to the paying public until 8pm on 20 June and from 4pm on the 21st, with English Heritage watching the clock. So it was crucial the Midas generators, run with 100 per cent HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), and the lighting and plant it provided, moved quickly and efficiently.
Andy Dann, operations director at Midas, comments: “We learned a lot about the process i

UK - Depeche Mode’s career spans four decades and a reputation for musical originality has kept them relevant and at the cutting edge in delivering one visually and sonically inspiring performance after another.
Blackburn lighting rental specialist HSL is the main lighting and video contractor worldwide for the current Spirit tour. They are partnering with CT to deliver the video package.
The raw, stylish, industrial production design is by creative director Anton Corbijn, who has always pioneered video as an essential vehicle of live production. Lighting has been designed by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of SRae Productions and is being directed on the road by their associate LD, Manny Conde.
The Spirit tour is being production managed by Tony Gittins and plays a mix of stadiums and arenas. HSL’s project manager Jordan Hanson is working closely with CT’s

South Africa - As the Naledi Award winners of the night thanked their mothers, their fathers, their oumas (grandmothers) and life partners, as tears flowed, speeches were read and the audience cheered and rose to their feet, it was clear that the ceremony hosted at the Lyric Theatre in Johannesburg on 5 June 2017, held great substance to the victors of the night.
With sponsorship and finances bleak, an act of kindness and financial support saw various local and international companies rallying alongside founders Dawn and Des Lindberg, to ensure the 13th Naledi Awards would take place. To top it off, Haccius Mokopakasi, who has been in the industry for 40 years and works in the Market Technical Department, received the Lifetime Achievement Award while Hlomohang Mothetho and Wesley France were the winners in the Best Lighting Design category.
Many people are unaware that

USA - After 12 years, 19 Number One singles and untold touring miles, AMC Entertainer of the Year Jason Aldean isn’t about to take his foot off the pedal. The dust had barely settled from his 2016 We Are Here tour back in January, when he announced plans for his current 33-city They Don’t Know road show. At the time, the country superstar promised that his new tour would be bigger, bolder and brasher than anything he’d ever done before.
Rolling through a 90-minute, 22-song set of old and new hits, Aldean has sold-out crowds on their feet, with his animated stage presence and rip-roaring mix of hard-driving music. Supporting his performance and lending extra visual pop to the proceedings is a brawny and colourful Chris Lisle-designed lightshow, anchored by 118 Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrid moving fixtures supplied by Bandit Lites.
Lisle posit

Italy - Singer songwriter Davide Van De Sfroos has brought the picturesque stories spoken in the ‘laghèe’ dialect, which is spoken in the northern areas of Lecco and Como, to one of the most important stages in Italy - the San Siro in Milan.
More than 20,000 people attended his concert, exactly the goal that the artist (real name Davide Bernasconi) had been hoping for - and hugely impressive considering he was using a language very difficult to understand for anyone not from that area of Northern Italy.
The sound reinforcement was provided by Martin Audio partners, All Access, and they fielded their premium and award-winning MLA PA. The hangs comprised no fewer than 22 MLA and an MLD Downfill on each side of the stage, underpinned by 36 MLX subs. For side-fills they added a further 11 MLA on each flank, while front-fills were made up of four further MLD Downfills

USA - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary tour has been thrilling TP fans across the USA since April, and the show’s visuals are the handiwork of lighting designer / director Stanley Green and co-visual designer Kevin Cassidy. To augment his potent arena lighting package, Green specified 30 High End Systems SolaSpot 1500s as the ‘workhorse’ hard edge fixtures for the tour.
Green prepared a total of six complete lighting and set designs for the 40th anniversary tour for Tom to choose from. He comments: “Our technical director Kevin Cassidy had lots of creative input, and was instrumental in bringing it all together. Also, Tom asked for some things which changed the original look somewhat.
“I'm using 30 SolaSpot 1500s sprinkled throughout the rig; in fact there are 1500s on every single truss. They are my work horse hard edge fixture for this to

Europe - When Elation Professional launched the Fuze series at last year’s PLASA show, the company filled a niche in the market for dynamic LED wash luminaires with a line of modern PAR lights that project a high-quality flat field of light yet emulate the classic lens look of a traditional Fresnel.
Now, Elation is expanding the series with the addition of the new Fuze PAR Z175, a full-colour LED PAR light designed for use in all types of stage wash applications from theatre, TV studio and HoW environments to touring and special events.
With the Fuze series, Elation chose to improve upon the pixelated lens face of ordinary LED PAR fixtures by replicating the classic look of old-school pars and moving wash fixtures that so many designers and artists prefer. Like other lights in the Fuze series, the Fuze PAR Z175 uses single-lens RGBW COB LEDs to project a single homo

UK - The British Museum Experience (BME), a new museum dedicated to popular music honouring the global influence and history of British music and artists, is now open and in full swing at the Grade-II listed Cunard Building in Liverpool.
At the heart of the attraction, the main stage show is powered by a 7thSense Nano-SDI media server featuring a specially produced digitally-projected performance by music legend Boy George, and a large-scale stage hologram – all integrated by DJ Willrich.
The BME was originally housed inside London’s O2 venue between 2009 and 2014 – while a few items from the original site were recyclable, the new permanent home and themed zones of the BME have seen a full technology and content refresh.
Visitors are taken on a chronological journey of British music history from 1945 to the present day as told in eight state-of-the-art inte

USA - Awe-struck. That sums up the feeling that visitors experience when they step into The National Building Museum. Located a short distance from the U.S. Capitol, the stately Italian Renaissance Revival structure that was built in 1887 is breathtaking in its scope and elegance. Its vast central hall has housed presidential inaugural balls from the time of Benjamin Harrison through Barack Obama. The Corinthian columns that line its great room are among the tallest in the world.
The Bozzuto Management Company recently held an employee award ceremony at the museum. Bozzuto Management focuses on creating extraordinary experiences for their residents and wanted to provide that same level of detail and care for their employees. To create this upbeat atmosphere, while accenting the building’s impressive architectural features, a multi-faceted lighting design by Brett Angstadt

The Netherlands - Ampco Flashlight Rental selected Allen & Heath’s dLive S Class system for an annual concert at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijf Arena for renowned pop group, Toppers.
Formed by Dutch singers, René Froger, Gerard Joling, Jeroen van der Boom and Jan Smit, the band performed in the round on two consecutive nights, in a sing-along event that has been staged every year since they formed in 2005.
This year, the band’s long-standing FOH engineer, John Kriek, selected a dLive system for the first time, comprising two S7000 and a S3000 Surface with three DM64 MixRacks and two DX32 Expander racks for FOH, fitted with several gigaACE and Waves3 network cards. The gigaACE cards were used to create digital audio splits between the three systems and the Waves3 modules were used for live recording, backing track/click playback and plugin processing.
“dLiv

USA - Multiple Grammy Award winning singer songwriter Sheryl Crow is on the road with her new Be Myself album, together with a new lighting & scenic concept created by LD Jeremy Roth which includes Robe Spiider and BMFL Spot moving lights.
Jeremy landed the gig after production manager Rick Purcell saw his designs for the current tour by Chicago alt-rockers Wilco and made Sheryl aware of his work. They and her management team all wanted a more theatrical presentation that was based on soft scenic elements.
This provided the starting point for the design, together with extensive discussions between Jeremy and the artist about how stage aesthetics related to the vibe and direction of her album. Lyrically, the new songs deal with a disconnect in relationships fuelled by excessive electronic communications and over-exposure through social and other media distrac

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