Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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UK - The shortlist for the Theatre category of this year's Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards has been announced.
The KOI Awards are dedicated to celebrating British and international lighting and video designers for their work in the UK. The KOI theatre judges, each serving a two-year term, are all leading UK critics. Neil Fisher, deputy arts editor of The Times and Tim Bano, lead critic of The Stage, both made their KOI judging debut. Louise Levene, dance critic for the Financial Times returned for the first year of her second term while Zoë Anderson, dance critic for The Dancing Times, opera critic George Hall and Britain’s longest-serving theatre critic Michael Billington completed the final year of their time on the Theatre panel. The judging was once again

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Tax Relief - Nearly 3,400 productions benefitted from £78m worth of theatre tax relief last year, new statistics show. This represents a £1m increase on the total figure paid out in 2017/18, however the number of individual productions benefitting from tax credits increased by 13% in the same period.
Theatre tax relief, which was introduced in 2014, allows touring shows to claim back 25% on eligible costs. All other productions can be reimbursed for 20%. In the first year of the scheme, £15m was paid out, rising to £46m in the second year and £77m in 2017/18.
Statistics published by HM Revenue and Customs for 2018/19 reveal there were a total of 930 claims, representing 3,380 productions, of which 950 were touring and 2,430 non-touring. A single claim can request tax relief for multiple productions.
Financial secretary to the treasury, Jesse Norman, said:

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UK - The PLASA Show 2019 will see major upgrades to Out Board’s TiMax immersive audio and show control systems, released in 2019 and currently in use on many major productions worldwide.
The new HARDCore FPGA DSP engine for the TiMax Soundhub 3D spatial audio platform adds extended delay-matrix memory and ultra-smooth dynamic delay-morphing algorithms to create totally transparent real-time localisation. HARDCore expands sound designers’ capability to achieve superior panoramic spatial mix reinforcement and immersive 3D soundscapes. HARDCore has also paved the way for a next-generation interactive spatial reverb resource within TiMax.
All-new TiMax TrackerD4 Precision Stagetracking is billed as affordable, dependable and portable, addressing a current price/performance gap in the market with enhanced levels of speed and precision at a range of cost levels offering
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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USA - Rascal Flatts is out headlining the Summer Playlist Tour with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites. With the trio celebrating their 20th anniversary next year, lighting designer Travis Shirley looked to fashion a fresh design that both honoured their two decades of touring and reinvented what audiences expect from a Rascal Flatts performance.
“These guys are legends,” says Shirley. “They have done it all before: arenas, stadiums, gig shows, small shows, etc. They were looking for something fresh; something that brought the Flatts performance a bit more in the ‘spotlight.’”
“It has been an honour to work with Rascal Flatts for almost two decades,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden,” and while I have also known Travis Shirley for that length of time, I had never had the opportunity to work with him until now. From the moment I

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Israel - Avraham Tal is one of the best known contemporary Israeli singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. His 2019 tour takes a more electronic vibe than previously, and with that, he wanted fresh input on the lighting front and a spec including Robe MegaPointes, Spiiders and BMFL Spots.
He wanted this to be achieved without the mechanical precision of timecode but with a more organic process. Co-designers Eran Klein & Omer Israeli of Cochavi and Klein Light Architects proposed a scheme - including Robe moving lights - which was chosen to help explore and develop this idea and these new directions for the stage presentation. Madrix programmer and tour LD / operator, Naor Bonomo also provided input.
A major part of this creative chemistry was focussed on finding a new way of synching lighting and video with elements of the music, utilising MIDI over Ethernet
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ETC Halcyon Silent

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Spain - Catalan singer-songwriter Rosalia is setting festivals worldwide on fire with her signature flamenco-urban fusion style and sold-out shows which feature lighting by Claypaky, represented in Spain by Stonex.
In support of her second studio album El Mal Querer, Rosalia’s eponymous world tour - her first - launched in the spring and has played dates in North America, Latin America and across Europe, including Lollapalooza in Argentina and Chile, Coachella in the US, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, and Gurtenfestival in Switzerland. Engagements will continue through October.
Rosalia enjoys an unprecedented reception whenever she performs. Her show at La Noche Blanca del Flamenco de Cordoba seduced 10,000 fans with her lyrics and flamenco styling enhanced by dynamic lighting design by Isabel de la Mora.
Now, on her world tour, Rosalia is accompanied by

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Belgium - A new chapter was added to the rich and widely heralded tradition of Belgian beer making recently thanks to the discovery of a medieval manuscript. Hidden away by monks of the Grimbergen Abbey in 1798 to avoid advancing French revolutionary troops, the recipe, written in Latin and Old Dutch, was unearthed about four years ago in the monastery’s archives.
This May, after much painstaking research, the monks were ready to release their resurrected brew to the world. Rolling out such a beverage after a 220-year hiatus, calls for a special celebration, which is exactly what the Grimbergen Abby monks created, putting on Grimbergen Experience Days, a debut event for their business partners and beer connoisseurs from around the world.
Adding an appropriate level of visual excitement to the proceedings was a lighting design by Thomas Boets of LDP who was retained
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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

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UK - To demonstrate its support for Leeds Pride, ASDA’s head office in the Leeds city centre came out once again in the movement’s traditional bright rainbow colours, with the help of TechLED and 4-Wall.
To achieve the required look, 4-Wall’s Ben Perrin specified SGM Q7 wide-angled LED flood fixtures to be distributed evenly under the eaves of the building perimeter. For the building entrance, the tighter beam angle of SGM P5 architectural LED wash lights area, highlighted the features of the entryway.
Perrin’s choice was based upon the two-fold suitability of the products to the job, explaining the SGM fixtures are “really wide-angled, really soft, really bright, produce really good pastel colours and because they feature in-built wireless control, they ensure the install and removal was really quick”.
SGM’s Q7 is a multi-function flood light with

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UK - Martin Audio has announced the latest in its series of product open days, which have been running twice a year since 2017 at the company’s High Wycombe HQ.
The latest programme will run over five sessions spread across three days, on 17 September (at 10.00am and 2.00pm), 18 September (at 10.00am and 2.00pm) and 19 September (at 11am).
The event is aimed at existing distributors, dealers, integrators, rental partners and sound engineers as well as potential new customers wishing to gain in-depth understanding of Martin Audio’s platforms and at the same time take advantage of plenty of listening time in relaxed surroundings.
Many new products will be showcased for the very first time and tours of the factory and refreshments will also be provided. The demonstrations will include: the full line up of Wavefront Precision line arrays including the new WPS; s

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France - The Grand Concert de Paris, celebrating the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, takes place every 14 July at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, in the Champ de Mars. This year, a crowd of 300,000 people assembled to listen to the concert live, while a record audience of 3m viewers tuned in to watch the spectacle on television.
Specialising in the delivery of large-scale shows globally, Gilles Bouvard Events and Shows (GB4D) has been working on this event with Radio France since 2015. This year, thanks to a successful experiment, they extended the traditional site wide Optocore redundant optical fibre loop by deploying an additional 152 Optocore X6R preamps.
Explaining the reason, Bouvard said, “We had conducted several experiments with Radio France prior to the event, including the recording and capture of a jazz concert at La Maison de la Radio, with im

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Europe - May saw the launch of Rod Stewart’s new world tour in support of Blood Red Rose, the artist’s 30th solo album and his first release in three years. Itself a product of life on the road, the new album features a string of relaxed recordings made with Stewart’s tour band in hotel rooms and private, post-gig, backstage sessions.
Helping to translate these new songs from ‘after hours’ to ‘centre stage’ is Colonel Tom Touring, who worked with lighting and production designer Mark Cunniffe to deliver a video rig for the full run of the European stadium, arena and outdoor dates.
Created to be easily adaptable for the tour’s various venue types and sizes, the video package includes an impressive architrave of 300 ROE Carbon CB5 LED panels, powered by Brompton Technology Tessera SX40 LED processors, working in tandem with the manufacturer’s XD

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Germany - Parookaville is one of the largest electronic music festivals in the world, and this year attracted around 200,000 visitors over three days to Weeze airport, a former military base in the Lower Rhine region of Germany.
This fifth edition of the event featured multiple stages, one of which was the Desert Valley Stage where Tillmann Stockschläder of service providers Entec, in cooperation with audio specialists Teqsas, deployed a Coda Audio system.
The Desert Valley Stage is one of the largest at the festival, covering an area of more than 5000sq.m and Coda Audio AiRAY was used as the main PA as well as for DJ monitoring. Front-fill was taken care of by Coda Audio APS. Two hangs of 10 x AiRAY were used as a stereo application complemented by 24 Coda Audio SCP sensor-controlled subs in an end-fired cluster. Restrictions on height and load capacity were easily o

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Poland - The Open’er Festival - one of the largest music festivals in Poland - has been an institution since 2002. Having welcomed international names including the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pharrel Williams, Snoop Dogg and Coldplay, it has maintained its status in the Polish festival calendar.
Open’er Festival is held annually in the seaside city of Gdynia. Tasked with overall multimedia support of the five stages was one of Poland’s largest event engineering companies, VES.
Responsible for the overall design and operation of the Beat Stage, Michał ‘Kurczak’ Mazurkiewicz of VES used more than 180 lighting fixtures. Included in the package was the Prolights Arenacob4FC, a full colour LED replacement for a traditional four-cell DWE blinder alongside the Prolights Aar5FAN which stood out as the pixel-FX moving head. It allowed the designer to control the spread

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USA - Elation Professional has extended its popular Fuze series of LED wash luminaires with new profile and spot versions.
Available now is the Fuze Spot and Fuze Profile with framing, both housing full-colour-spectrum RGBMA colour mixing systems. Also available is the cold white Fuze Profile CW with dual colour wheels.
The Fuze Spot and Fuze Profile are designed for a wide array of precision lighting applications, particularly theatre, TV and corporate event applications where high colour quality, colour manipulation and accurate colour reproduction is needed.
Both luminaires house a 305W 92 CRI engine (6,500K) that utilises a five-colour homogenised LED array of red, green, blue, mint and amber sources. The carefully tuned RGBMA LEDs and high CRI ensure accurate colour reproduction while delivering a powerful white output of over 10,000 lumens.
The Fuze

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USA - Sensaphonics has announced the launch of its fully redesigned website. Still located at www.sensaphonics.com, the new site features a modern design with enhanced shopping functionality. Visitors will notice a more streamlined approach, with intuitive navigation, straightforward product information, and fresh graphics throughout the site.
“We have some really exciting new products coming out in the near future and, frankly, our existing website couldn’t really do them justice,” notes Sensaphonics president, Dr. Michael Santucci. “With this new design, our company mission of saving hearing in the music industry is blended seamlessly with clear product information for a much more intuitive user experience.”
(Jim Evans)

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USA - Halsey hit the road in May for a short run of shows in support of a new single release, Nightmare and lighting designer Jose Antunes chose Elation’s Artiste Monet and Rayzor 760 to light the special performances. Lighting vendor was DCR of Nashville.
The festival and specials run included shows at Webster Hall in New York City prior to the single release along with a string of radio performances in California in early June.
Antunes designed the shows around some of Elation Professional’s newest luminaires, the Artiste Monet and Rayzor 760, and was one of the first designers to use the fixtures. “The design for this run was meant to pack a lot of punch with a small compact package that would fit in a small club, but also be able to spread out on a large festival stage and fare well outdoors in regards to output,” says Antunes, who also served as pr

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USA - PixelFLEX has introduced the FLEXUltra XT, LED video display series that benefit from impact- and scratch-resistant COB technology that promises “a dramatic decrease” in pixel failures.
Debuted at InfoComm 2019, FLEXUltra XT series are suitable for any live production thanks to three pixel pitch options – 1.5mm, 1.9mm and 2.5mm – that can reproduce FHD, 2K and 4K content. The panels also offer all-in-one optional ground support system and the PixelShield protective technology for a long-lasting and dynamic LED video experience, says the company.
David Venus, chief marketing officer, PixelFLEX LED, comments: “Understanding the challenges associated with the live production industry and the toll it can take on LED video panels, we are very excited to be releasing the durable and impactful FLEXUltra XT. Now, not only can video designers be sure they have c

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UK - When The Mavericks stopped at the Glastonbury Festival during their 30th Anniversary World Tour, their LD Landon Bloss did what he always does on fly dates: he walked over to look at the lighting rig that he would be running later that day.
Approaching the festival’s Acoustic Stage from a distance, Bloss was impressed with the looks the festival LD was conjuring up with some large spots. “I thought for sure, given how bright their output was, that they were 1700w arc lamp fixtures,” said the Nashville-based designer. “So, I was completely surprised when I learned that these fixtures actually had LED engines.”
The fixtures that astonished Bloss shared the name of the band he lights. They were Mavericks, or more precisely 16 Maverick MK3 Spot and 18 Maverick MK3 Wash fixtures from Chauvet Professional supplied by Fineline Lighting.
For Bloss, his fi

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Europe - This summer, Muse continued their Simulation Theory world tour through the UK and Europe. The successful North American leg of the stadium tour put crew and equipment to the test in 23 cities.
“Jesse Lee Stout, the creative director for the tour, wanted the entire lighting rig and stage to feel like a spaceship straight out of the ‘80s/’90s sci-fi movies we all know and love,” explains tour lighting designer and programmer, Sooner Routhier.
“Making that all-encompassing vision brighter are 176 Solaris Flare LR and 51 Solaris Flare Q+ fixtures. First, neon outlines, comprised of Upstaging Sabers, outline the sides of the truss to help turn the rig into a giant space invader. The Flare LRs provide a thicker, brighter line of light to accentuate the lines of trusses. At the tips of each truss, the structure flips up 45° with three LRs sitting s

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UK - Gatwick-based lighting hire company Fisher Hires has made a significant investment in IP-rated Luxibel B Par 180 RGBW LED fixtures.
Rob Baker, head of hires at Fisher Hires, says the company was looking to upgrade its existing stock of LED pars, but required a cost-effective solution that would fit in with its high-end branded inventory. Fisher Hires, as part of Fisher Productions, is a Royal Warrant business, awarded the accolade in 2000 by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as ‘Suppliers of Lighting and Production Services’.
“The Luxibel B Par 180 ticks all the boxes - IP-rated, bright, simple to use, lightweight and slick enough for the eye,” says Rob. “What sells is reliable kit that can be trusted to do its job, and although Luxibel is not yet the best-known brand, we let the light do the talking. It has paid off as they are now attracting retur

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Ireland - At the start of 2019, one of Ireland’s leading audio hire, sales and installations companies, Acoustik, took delivery of two DiGiCo SD10s to add to its existing stock of mixing consoles and, according to the company’s operations and systems designer Will Fitzpatrick, they are “flying out of the door”.
“For the past couple of years, DiGiCo has been at the top of the list on the riders we recieve and they are our crew’s console of choice, so the decision to invest in the SD10s was without question,” says Fitzpatrick. “We also had the option to upgrade to the new 32-bit cards. They have improved the SD10s already incredible audio quality and everyone is amazed by them.”
One of the Acoustik team’s favourite functions on the consoles is macros, which give “seemingly endless possibilities” according to Fitzpatrick. “And the connectivity b
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