The Netherlands - ISE 2014 will see the opening of a third visitor entrance, new attractions to boost attendee footfall throughout its Amsterdam RAI venue and improved navigation to make it easier for those new to the show to find their way around.

Having successfully used Entrances C and K (also known as the Holland and Europa entrances respectively) for the past four years, ISE has experienced year-on-year visitor growth that now necessitates the opening of a third gateway, Entrance F - also known as the Park entrance. This new entrance is particularly convenient for Halls 7 and 8 of the RAI, where the show's new theatre spaces will be located. A new Business Lounge will be located on the bridge between Halls 7 and 8, and there will be a free cart shuttle service between the ent

USA - Rock band Rush just wrapped its Clockwork Angels Tour in the US in support of its eponymous album, and Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures went along for the ride.

Rush began its US tour last September on the heels of a successful European leg. Dates in Phoenix and Dallas were recorded for a DVD release later this year.

"We had 55 Clay Paky Sharpys on the tour for the duration," says Howard Ungerleider, lighting designer for Rush. "Sharpys are one of the most versatile and exciting lighting fixtures I've used in a while. I can really get a lot of looks out of them. I definitely work them without over-using them."

Ungerleider positioned the Sharpys, which were provided by Premier Global and Production Design International, on moving parts of the truss so they could descend at any time for automated moves. He maximized their application, deploying them t

USA - Headlining the Honda Civic Tour with special guest Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5 is taking the stage at amphitheaters across the US. With a vast amount of Martin MAC series lighting fixtures, the summer tour continues through October with its memorizing light show, as part of the production design provided by Demfis Fyssicopulos.

Supplied by Upstaging, the traveling rig includes 64 lightweight and durable Martin MAC III Profiles and 42 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes with scrolling ability.

"I have a lot of video elements in the show and I needed a unit that could stand its own," stated Fyssicopulos. "I didn't want to use monotonous wash units and 8-lighters (I can't believe I actually said 8-lighters) as the outdated easy-way-out norm would dictate. I was after a forward thinking fixture with enough intensity to accommodate the outdoor stage. The MAC III Air FX pro

UK - Manchester-based lighting design and rental specialists dbn provided lighting for the spectacular Weekending at the Whitworth Art Gallery event, an extraordinary weekend of free art, music and performance in Whitworth Park and Gallery, Manchester, which welcomed all in the community to celebrate the last days of the 'old' Whitworth Art Gallery, before the building closed for a historic £18m refurbishment.

dbn has worked on several projects at the Whitworth over a number of years, providing technical consultation and design services, ingenuity and equipment.

dbn Project Manager Nick Todd oversaw the Weekending event, for which several elements were lit, including the impressive front façade of the Whitworth Art Gallery itself.

Overall lighting schemes encompassed a world music stage, trees and art installations, with the visual high-point being Saturday night's li

Germany - The Wolfszeit open-air festival in Crispendorf near Schleiz in Thuringia is one of the few pagan and dark metal festivals in Germany.

After the systems from Villingen had already stood the test in 2012, this year the technical heads decided to realise the entire monitoring with ProAudio Technology, in addition to the main PA.

Mike Berus, graduate audio engineer comments, "The HT16 speakers offer an incredibly high resolution. Brilliant highs and never annoying upper mids. I don't know about any other system with such a great transient behaviour, which stays extremely clean even with high sound pressure levels. Simply top. Used in a cardio array, the SW18 and the SW28 subs delivered very punchy, tight lows, even at a distance of 30m (100 ft.).

"With the cardio I noticed a very good SPL reduction behind the PA. The M20 monitors were awesome. High sound pres

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

UK - The 4th annual PLASA Rigging Conference is proud to announce that it will be supported by major sponsors for the first time, cementing its growing reputation as an essential event for the industry. Unusual Rigging becomes the Platinum sponsor while Outback Rigging is on board as the Gold sponsor. The PLASA Rigging Conference takes place on 7-8 October 2013 at its new home, ExCeL London.

Unusual's managing director, Alan Jacobi, said, "Rigging is a key element of almost every event, with its ever increasing scale, size, weight and complexity making a considerable impact, but the consequences of getting it wrong can be disastrous. Conferences such as this are vital in ensuring we continue to debate and improve working practices and Unusual is proud to be this year's Platinum sponsor."

Robin Elias of Unusual Rigging, one of the rigging industry's leading and longes

South Africa - KwaZulu Natal's most respected art festival, the annual Witness Hilton Arts Festival, turns 21 this year and took place on the beautiful grounds of Hilton College this weekend, from 12 - 15 September 2013. Debuting at this year's festival, was the use of Black Coffee's brand new Prolyte Tunnel Roof, the first of its kind in South Africa, which this rental company erected for the first time.

The Witness Hilton Arts Festival produces a programme of cutting-edge drama, comedy, music and music revue, as well as an impressive array of arts and crafts appealing to all who visit.

This year Dave Whitehouse from DWR Distribution presented a talk on stage lighting, aimed at school pupils and teachers. These presentations, along with many other drama productions, were held in Black Coffee's new Tunnel Roof. For those who attended Mediatech a couple of months ago, it's the

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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.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

Spain - Equipson's WORK has just published its new lighting catalogue 2013/2014, including a selection of professional products for fixed installations and mobile applications.

People in the trade will find in this catalogue the new version of the LightMouse series, which comes with a new design and new models, like the LM 5W (with builtin WiFi access point) or the LM 3R2 (ArtNet node receiving two DMX universes), says the company. SRD 6 is another outstanding product of the lighting catalogue: this is a bidirectional RDM/DMX splitter of six channels.

The catalogue is already available for download from Equipson's website. Additionally, it will be distributed during the international trade show PLASA 2013 where WORK will exhibit its products on booth L 45.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The summer festival season can only mean one thing for Sennheiser UK's artist liaison and technical backup staff - plenty of time spent out in the parks of Britain supporting sound engineers, production teams and artists. 2013 has been no exception, two particular late season highlights being V2013 and the inaugural Fusion festival.

Sennheiser UK has provided an on-site support and repair facility at the V festival's Weston Park site for several years. This allows Sennheiser UK to 'give something back' to the many hire companies, engineers and artists who have put their faith in the company's equipment. With, the additional presence of Tour Supply, a company closely affiliated with Sennheiser, providing a range of Sennheiser equipment available for purchase, both artists and audio companies were assured of comprehensive support.

This year the company's side-stage Portakab

The Netherlands - Networking specialist ELC Lighting is featuring the award winning Green-GO Ethernet intercom system at IBC 2013 this week.

Leveraging the popularity and capacity of Ethernet networking installations to distribute and manage the control and feedback data required for dimmer, automated lighting units and LED video display panels, ELC Lighting have developed the Green-GO digital communications system. Offering many of the features only previously available in expensive matrix systems, Green-GO is an intercom, cue light, show relay and text messaging system all in one package.

ELC has recently announced the completion of its range of Green-GO digital intercom products with the addition of wall panel outstations, a 12-channel 19" rack mounted multichannel unit and 4, 8, 16 and 32 channel desks. Designed to work over any powered Ethernet network, Green-GO has

USA - Concert Systems Production Group, located in Pensacola, Florida, recently added 28 M212 stage monitors to their live event production inventory.

"If you had asked me a few years ago if I would be investing in more stage monitors I would have said you were nuts," explains Randy Frierson, owner of Concert Systems. "With IEMs as the norm and two rider friendly monitor rigs already in inventory, why would I spend money on more stage monitors?"

Needless to say, that is exactly what happened. Frierson found that as the company grew the demands on it grew as well. It became apparent that they needed a world class, high powered monitor system for larger events.

"I decided that I wanted a wedge that would get loud but still be even tempered," Frierson says. "It also needed multiple angles and it would help if it looked cool."

After chec

Italy - 2013 marks the bicentenary of the birth of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, and to honour the occasion, the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice decided to perform Verdi's famous opera Otello in the stunning outdoor environment of the 15th century courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, in the heart of Venice. The event revived a tradition of presenting outdoor performances at the Ducal Palace that ran from 1949-67, and the work itself is a passionate tribute to the city.

In addition to a series of live performances the concerts also needed to be recorded, which gave sound engineer, Antonio Martino of MASclassica a problem in that he required a large number of ultra-reliable, remote-controlled mic pres and audio channels of exceptional quality to be installed unobtrusively, at a significant distance from the recording system. Another challenging requirement was that the setup nee

USA - Founded in 1842, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States playing over 180 concerts per year, but this year they played one programme which was unlike any before. In A Dancer's Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky, Producers Giants Are Small and music director Alan Gilbert combined music, ballet, puppetry, video projection, and theatre, bringing The Fairy's Kiss and Petrushka both to life in one creative and fantastic event.

Working behind the scenes, lighting designer Clifton Taylor was given the challenge to blend all these production elements seamlessly together and to help him accomplish this he put together a comprehensive lighting package from Philips Entertainment which included Showline SL BAR 640, Philips Selecon PLCyc LED, Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Spot, VL1000 ERS and VL5B Wash luminaires.

"For A Dan

Following the success of its appearance at last year's BPM, Sennheiser UK will once again be playing at BPM, billed as 'the world's largest event dedicated to DJing, electronic music production and entertainment technology, which takes place at Birmingham's NEC from 14 to 16 September.

Products from both Sennheiser and Rane's acclaimed ranges are on show on Stand B47, including The Rane 61 and 62 DJ mixers plus the range of Serato Scratch Live Interface units, and demos from renowned DJ's will take place throughout each day.

As well as these familiar lines, Sennheiser is showcasing its special 25th anniversary HD 25 headphones, the HD 25 Aluminiumwhich has become the choice of DJs and music professionals the world over.

(Jim Evans)

South Africa - The Sun City Theatre, better known as the old Extrav Theatre, in the North West Province, South Africa, has invested in two Robert Juliat Victors.

"Actually, we had our eye on Robert Juliat and wanted to get this brand for quite some time now," commented Reg Habib, lighting manager at Sun City. Eventually the need, opportunity and availability came together and the followspots were purchased from DWR Distribution.

"The Robert Juliat Victor is a beautiful looking piece of equipment, excellent in design, and great to operate," said Habib. "Amongst features like hot strike, it has a smooth dimming ability that can be adjusted with one finger, without looking away from the stage or moving a hand."

Habib says a lot can be said for buying brand names. "Obviously quality creates desirability. The expected life and the after sales su

UK - The David Bowie is exhibition was one of the most successful and technically complex shows at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. Opening to rave reviews on 23 March 2013 it was the best selling exhibition in the museum's history. David Bowie is is now on world tour starting at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada this month.

Design and Production company,59 Productions and interiors and exhibition designers Real Studios collaborated on the David Bowie is exhibition design. Expert systems integrator, Sysco AV configured the museum's existing inventory of technology and Dataton Watchout powered the multi-image display and presentation software in two areas of the galleries including a 7m high video wall display and TV displays throughout the exhibition. Sysco AV has worked with the V&A for many years on several exhibitions. Watchouit is support

Switzerland - Robert Juliat has confirmed the latest addition to the Robert Juliat distributor family with the appointment of Electric Claudio Merlo Lighting Equipment SA (ECM) as its new distributor for Switzerland.

From 1 September 2013, ECM will distribute the full range of Robert Juliat lighting equipment and concentrate on developing closer relations with all regions of the diverse Swiss market. In addition to its excellent product knowledge, ECM brings the benefit of its multi-lingual support team which speaks German, Italian and Spanish, as well as French and English.

ECM represents several worldwide brands in Switzerland and specialises in creating theatre and studio lighting systems. The company is constantly looking for environmentally-friendly products and believes in superior quality and optical excellence, like that found in Robert Juliat's new LED Zep and Tibo se

Glastonbury 2014 - Weekend tickets for Glastonbury Festival 2014 will go on sale at 9am on Sunday 6 October. It'll cost £210 to attend but festival-goers will only have to pay a deposit of £50 next month before settling their bill in April. For the first time, coach packages will be available three days before the main ticket sale on Thursday 3 October. No acts have been announced but organiser Michael Eavis says the three headliners are in place already.

Michael Eavis said next year's headliners probably wouldn't surprise people. "There aren't many left [to play here]," he said. "It's the process of elimination isn't it? I think we've got three or four really good ones lined up for next year and we're sorting out 2015 as well."

In The Sale Room - An Essex artist's oil painting of late singer Amy Winehouse has been sold at auction as part

UK - Launched in 1988, Sennheiser's HD 25 has spent 25 years in front and come to define the ultimate DJ headphone. Alongside the launch of a new edition - the HD 25 Aluminium, the anniversary is being marked by 25 of the world's greatest DJs, who wish a Happy Birthday to the iconic headphone and explain its essential role in their music and performance.

Over the past 25 years many of the world's greatest DJs have selected Sennheiser's HD 25 as their first choice of headphone with some using theirs over years and even decades. That enduring appeal is expressed by 25 of the world's leading DJs (and HD 25 fans), who send their birthday wishes in a special film by Sennheiser.

The audio specialist has also conducted interviews exploring the personal stories of star DJs including QBert, Bob Sinclar, and Luciano. They describe how personal the choice of headphone is to them, and how

USA - Having used GLP's impression X4 LED heads in the design of Fleetwood Mac's current touring set, production designer Paul 'Arlo' Guthrie has turned to 16 of the small impression X4S for the current theatre (and festival) shows by veteran rock singer, Chris Isaak. These are mounted on five vertical pipes - four on the centre bar and three each on the others.

With economy at the forefront of his thinking, Guthrie sensed that the new X4S fixtures could not only be rigged quickly, within their own touring structures, but at the same time pack a lot of punch. "We haven't done a 'beamy' show for Chris in a while so I wanted something that was adaptable to the range of venues we were playing, and would provide us with options," he admits. "I also wanted a physically smaller light to fit with the scale of the show."

The venues themselves have varied considerab

UK - XL Video UK have again supplied all video elements to the Icelandic band Sigur Rós for the latest UK and European festival leg of their World tour, supporting their new Kveikur album. XL has been constantly involved with supplying the band's visual requirements for the current 18 month worldwide tour.

Sigur Rós's provocative and interesting live visuals are a collaboration between LX and stage designer Bruno Poet, the band's artistic director Sarah Hopper, Damian Hale the editor for Third Company and video director/Catalyst operator Ray Gwilliams, all working towards creating a visual look that both reflects and adds to their musical style for live shows.

Gwilliams has been supported on the road by Robyn Tearle, the two of them forming the tour's core video crew.

Both of their roles have evolved since starting in May 2012, reflecting the fluidity of the video e

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