Belgium - LumenRadio and Controllux have confirmed a partnership where Controllux will now distribute LumenRadio's wireless lighting controls products in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Commenting on the partnership, LumenRadio's sales & marketing manager Jessica Björk says, "We are delighted to partner with Controllux, a company that shares our strong commitment to providing the best technology, the best support and stands by their customers all the way. Controllux are also a highly respected company within their territories. Their extensive experience both in live productions and installations will be invaluable to growing our business in Belgium."

For more than 45 years, Controllux has played a very active role within the lighting industry. Based in Meerhout, Belgium, Controllux has an impressive distribution portfolio of leading premium brands such as Robe Lighting, ADB

South Africa - LD Renaldo van den Berg and production manager Victor Vermaak from Johannesburg based design and technical production specialist AV Unlimited created a spectacular lighting scheme utilising Robe moving lights for the South African leg of the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone launch.

The VIP gala dinner event was staged in a special Super Dome structure built by In2structures and erected adjacent to the Wanderers Cricket Stadium in Illovo, Johannesburg. AV Unlimited was brought on-board to create the technical production design by event producers Mela Events, and Robe moving lights were right at the heart of the lighting concept.

AV Unlimited has worked on several Samsung launches for Mela Events in recent years. However in terms of format, look and feel, this one took a departure from previous ones, and instead of being styled around a DJ / party atmosphere, the ente

USA - PLASA will host the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour, a pre-LDI party with music, food and drinks from 6pm-8pm on Thursday, 20 November 2014 at The Las Vegas Hotel.

The goal of Behind the Scenes Happy Hour is not only to throw a great party but also to raise money for Behind the Scenes, which provides financial support to entertainment technology professionals when they are ill or injured or to their surviving family members. Funds are granted which can be used towards medical care, basic living costs and funeral expenses. Behind the Scenes, an initiative of the PLASA Foundation (formerly the ESTA Foundation) brings help and hope in times of great need. At this time, it will replace the Rock Our World Awards and Cocktail Reception, as that program is being evaluated and updated for the future.

Current sponsors include Altman Lighting (Diamond). Sponsorship opportunities are

UK - Much to the relief of many a discerning punter, there are some artists who simply do not need the bling that blights so many stage show these days. Gary Barlow is certainly one; his recent outing, an exercise in restraint, saw him sell out 17 arenas around the UK with a presentation that was all about class and refinement.

"Before the tour we did a one off with Gary at Westminster Hall in London where there is a curved house stage," explained Production Manager Chris Vaughan. "Lighting designer Tim Routledge and I got together with Kim Gavin our show director afterwards and we all agreed, this is the style that suits Gary's performance and we set about designing to that template for this arena tour. It's not complex, in fact it's very simple really, but it's the clean look that defines the show."

Vaughan selected Total Solutions Group (TSG) to build th

UK - The State and Orpheum Theatres in Minneapolis, part of the Historic Theatre Group/Broadway Across America have installed Lycian 1295 ELT followspots. A total of 7 were sold by Monkey Wrench Productions, serving the Twin Cities.

According to the Orpheum's Head Electrician Bill Devins: "Lycian 1295s are considered the theatrical industry standard. We are a Broadway touring house, and are happy to have a product that touring and local personnel will be both be familiar with and be bright enough at 3Kw with our other gear."

Seth Scott of Monkey Wrench Productions says: "Lycian's quality of light and service is unparalleled in our industry. For the demanding needs of road houses there is little competition for Lycian follow spots"

"We're proud that our products were chosen to be used in these wonderful, historic venues. Great Broadway road shows will

Turkey - Clay Paky has announced a partnership with Asimetrik Sound, Light and Display Systems. The Turkish company, which specializes in the marketing and installation of technology and systems for show, corporate and architectural environments, said it was delighted to forge a partnership that involves marketing and providing technical assistance for all Clay Paky products.

Asimetrik is based in Ankara and Istanbul and can count on a close network of partners throughout Turkey, with branches in Antalya and Izmir.

This partnership replaces the previous contract between Clay Paky and Samim Mutluer's SF Ses ve I??k Sistemleri A.?., considering the existing agreements between SF and the Harman Group.

Alberico D'Amato, Clay Paky's sales manager, said,"Asimetrik is a solid and dynamic company with a strong presence throughout the country, and we are sure it will be able to

Germany - Fohhn Audio's Focus Modular electronically steerable line array systems will ensure that audiences at the Redoutensaal Erlangen don't miss a word during the 32nd Bavarian Theatre Festival (32. Bayerischen Theatertage). The Redoutensaal is one of many venues for the 16-day annual festival, which celebrates the quality and diversity of Bavarian theatre culture.

Fohhn Audio has supported the festival by providing a Focus Modular system comprising two FM-400 low-mid and two FM-100 high-frequency modules. The flagship modular systems, featuring state-of-the-art beam steering technology, have been used in a range of outdoor and indoor theatre productions since their release in 2013, including the Festival Theatre in Recklinghausen, Opera Schenkenberg's open-air production of Il Trovatore and the spectacular Great World Theatre production in Einsiedeln, Switzerland.

Australia - Robe is supporting UK based light artist and creative director of Dark Art London, Simon Brockwell at the 2014 Vivid Festival of Music, Light & Ideas in Sydney, Australia, in the realisation of his bold and innovative light sculpture, Sky Flower.

Robe is working in close collaboration with its Australian distributor The ULA Group and leading Australian Robe rental partner Elite Sound & Lighting from Canberra to supply and coordinate the equipment for Simon's interactive installation which can be experienced live between 23 May and 9 June.

Sky Flower is one of two installations at a new site for the festival in Martin Place, right at the core of Sydney's buzzing CBD, adjacent to the Cenotaph and also near to Channel 7's downtown TV studio, so it will attract a huge amount of attention.

The equipment being utilised by Simon includes one Robe MMX Blade, four 600E Be

Australia - TDC - The Technical Direction Company is deploying the full range of its professional and technical expertise in providing core technology and services to Destination NSW for the sixth annual Vivid Sydney festival.

Running from 23 May to 9 June, Vivid Sydney is a celebration of light, music and ideas that will see the centre of New South Wales' vibrant capital transformed by a series of state-of-the-art visual and creative art installations.

"This is our third year of working with Destination NSW on Vivid Sydney, providing a huge range of technologies including 3D media servers, 3D mapping, video projection equipment, projection tower infrastructure and sound installations, not to mention our highly skilled crews to manage the technology," comments Kain Jones, special projects manager at TDC. "We have used our experience of working on Vivid Sydney fo

Recently held in London at the CocknBull Gallery, Tripping the Light Fantastic was a multi-sensory gallery installation by the artist Rupert Newman. Curated by Aretha Campbell, the exhibition showcased Newman's geometric, kinetic and colourful projection artworks complemented by soundscapes created by Sarah Warne, a film and arts composer signed to Faber Music. The sonic elements of the show were played through a pair of Genelec 8040s.

Rupert Newman is known for his painting and textiles pieces as well as event installations. His work focuses on the relationship between light and surfaces and includes architecture, sculpture and canvas works. This aesthetic approach is frequently from a cross-platform perspective and his shows usually feature a sonic element. Tripping the Light Fantastic is the tenth collaboration between the pair since 2010 and one of several interactive, set piece mu

The Netherlands - With immediate effect, dealers in the Benelux territory can get the full range of Audient products from M Works, from the flagship ASP8024 right through to the latest additions to the range: USB interface - iD22 and 8-channel mic pre and ADC - ASP880.

Sales manager Okke van Dijk is very pleased at the agreement. "Audient is a great brand with passion for designing excellent sounding products. With their expertise and deep understanding of demands in the pro audio market, the people at Audient know how to create the right quality and product mix," he says.

"High quality comes as standard," confirms Luke Baldry, sales and marketing director at Audient, highlighting the fact that "...all products feature the renowned console mic pres designed by the company's co-founder David Dearden." He adds, "I'm delighted that we have Okke

USA - Devoted 311 fans swarmed to New Orleans this year for the ultimate celebratory concert experience on 11March, better known as 311 Day. Showcasing a culmination of eleven albums, including their most recent studio album released earlier this year, titled Stereolithic, Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes (10) and M6 lighting console were deployed by Joe Paradise, lighting designer.

311, an American rock band from Omaha, Nebraska formed in 1988, created 311 Day in 2000 when the band played 47 songs straight. Since then, the band has consistently increased its set list, including over five-and-a-half hours of music this year.

"The biggest challenge is being able to programme at a high rate of speed and to be able to have most of the songs programmed 'cue to cue'," Paradise said about the M6 console. "I have used Martin consoles since the Maxxyz

UK - Adlib's busy audio division renewed their working relationship with Las Vegas alt rockers Panic! At The Disco for their recent UK and European live shows. This dates back to 2006 when Adlib hooked up with them for the first time in Manchester. The Liverpool based technical production company have worked with the band on their various UK shows ever since.

Tour manager / tour director Tony Marino, production manager / FOH engineer Spencer Jones and monitor engineer Jeremy "Spud" Groshong returned to the UK to share more stories and good service from Adlib.

They took a Coda Audio sound system from Adlib into their three largest UK shows at Manchester O2 Apollo, London's Eventim Apollo Hammersmith and Wolverhampton Civic Hall. A basic lighting package for LD Alex Specht was also sourced from Adlib to add to their touring lighting and visuals package.

The audio ele

Australia - The annual Entech & Entech Connect Riggers' Forum has secured Australia's Pollard Productions as a key sponsor for the first time, further enhancing the programme's reputation as the only one of its type in the Asia-Pacific region.

The two day programme, which offers attendees to the opportunity to workshop with key industry leaders whilst exploring and debating this specialist section of the industry, will take place on the 23 -24 July at the at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne Australia.

James D Ring, managing director of Pollard Productions said, "Pollard Productions are very proud and pleased to be the Riggers' Forum Sponsor for Entech Connect. The Forum sessions are important because they help spread the word on safety and share knowledge and experience with others leading to a better and safer industry."

Stephen Dallimore Entech Connect ev

UK - Relationships that have had a big influence on Gary Barlow's latest tour. Barlow is a master of his genre, as he has amply demonstrated by selling out all 17venues around the UK. His first solo outing onto the arena circuit, show director Kim Gavin along with designer Tim Routledge and production director Chris Vaughan, elected for a minimalist approach to staging, but with an emphatic widescreen approach to video.

Tim Routledge comments, "Gary wanted to keep as close to his audience as he had on last year's theatre outing. At the same time we needed a bigger show to suit the scale of venue. Kim is the show producer, he and Chris Vaughan set the guidelines; the resultant stage design has barely changed from my first renderings. The stage is a neatly defined smooth oval with the band wrapped around one step up behind Gary. An über-wide 100 foot screen forms the back wa

Austria - The legendary Top of the Mountain concert brought two new stars to the alpine resort of Ischgl this year: Robbie Williams and Nexo STM.

Held each May at an altitude of 2,300m, Top of the Mountain rounds off the ski season in fine style. Robbie and his Big Band scaled the heights this year to perform their entire Swings Both Ways album, marking the event's 20th anniversary.

The STM modular line array PA system had to cope with the biggest-ever audience at the Silvretta Arena, a crowd of 30,000 people, but it also had to score in another crucial area. All equipment is brought into the resort by snow gondola, with snowploughs handling on-site transport and the crew flown in by helicopter. Here, STM's ability to break down into smaller elements proved invaluable, allowing for ease of transport to the arena.

All technical production was supplied by Austria's Fant

USA - Alternative rock band The Pixies have made quite the comeback after their revival 10 years ago, and are now on a worldwide tour with a full lighting rig from Martin Professional.

Full service lighting, sound and rigging rental company based in New York, See Factor, worked with Myles Mangino, lighting designer for The Pixies, to create a rig featuring 15 MAC Viper Profiles, 12 MAC Auras, four RUSH MH3s and three Jem K1 Hazers.

The Pixies, who recently stopped at the renowned Coachella Music Festival after their reunion tour began nearly 10 years ago, needed a versatile lighting solution designed for different venues, stages and festivals.

"The real challenge was to have a show that could be as closely as possible duplicated in markets across the world," stated Mangino. "Having a kit that was small enough to fit in a container, and also using fixtures that

UK - Bath City Church, which has recently benefitted from a major audio systems upgrade by Autograph Sales & Installations, has the distinction of being located in a truly unusual venue. The Forum first opened its doors in 1934 as a cinema which operated until 1969, after which it housed a bingo hall and a dance school until Bath City Church took it over in 1989. A gem of art deco architecture and furnishings, the building had fallen into a sad state of disrepair until it was lovingly restored by the church. With a capacity of 1600, today The Forum is not just a church, but also Bath's biggest venue and the third largest seated auditorium in the south west of England.

Now that the fabric of the building had been restored to its former glory, it was the turn of the audio infrastructure to receive a similar overhaul in order to bring the systems up to the high standards demanded b

Denmark - On 10 May, the final of the 59th Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast live to an audience of approximately 125m in the Eurovision countries and Australia. The world's biggest live music contest was a spectacle, with imaginative introductions for each country that competed and many musical highlights among the 26 songs of the final.

The host broadcaster for the event was Danmarks Radio (DR) which relied on Sennheiser's Digital 9000 for the audio transmission of the show. 96 channels of this digital wireless microphone system were deployed for the contest, the VIP area and the press centre which included part of DR's own 24-channel Digital 9000 system. Then added to this were 28 channels of the 2000 Series for the artists' wireless monitoring.

"Join Us" was this year's motto for the Eurovision Song Contest, which was hosted on Refshaleøen island in th

Sweden - Over 150 Clay Paky fixtures were used on this year's popular Melodifestivalen tour with the Sharpy Wash 330 being singled out as a 'mind-blowing' fixture by lighting designer Fredrik Jönsson.

The Melodifestivalen tour is part of Sweden's national competition to find out who will be representing the country in Europe's annual Eurovision Song Contest. Jönsson had to create a high-spec touring lighting design that captured the imaginations of the contest's live and at-home audiences.

"The brief for the show was to create a visually stunning environment for the performance of the 32 songs," explains Jönsson. "I went for a 'Metal meets Eurovision' look with an old-school 'ACL-look' lighting rig but with ultramodern technology. My first inspiration for the look of the rig was actually an old Def Leppard logo since the first drafts of the stage and set remi

France - Opened at the beginning of the year, the Le Platinium bowling and bar complex in Andrézieux, France, is already a major focal point of the community for both young and old. Yamaha CIS series loudspeakers supply the soundtrack.

The venue's sound reinforcement system needed to deliver high quality background music, but also be loud enough for announcements and for the music to be turned up so that youngsters can enjoy a night of high-spirited fun and dancing as they bowl.

Supplied by local Yamaha dealer Radio2/XL Sono, six pairs of VXC6W full range ceiling loudspeakers plus two VXS10S and two VXS10ST dual coil, floor-mounted subs deliver the audio.

"The venue's owners needed high quality, reliable loudspeakers, but they were on an extremely tight budget," says Stephane Brocard of Yamaha France. "It was exactly the kind of installation that the CI

Denmark - When Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst was crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, it brought to the end a spectacular show, in which SGM's pioneering LED lighting was a clear highlight of the rig.

In a groundbreaking design, the show's creative director, Per Zachariassen and lighting designer Kasper Lange (with whom he has worked for ten years) ensured that content throughout the 26 artistes performing could be delivered to four different surfaces, allowing the stage to be transformed from act to act. This included the huge, classic SGM LED back wall - measuring 110m wide by 13m high - and it was here that over 350 SixPack blinders were used to such dramatic effect.

Once again, SGM had been appointed an official technical event supplier as the evergreen event arrived in the company's own back yard, tak

Denmark - 46,320 parameters, 138 universes 1,380 moving lights, 1,500 spot (conventional, LED, effect), 10kms of data cable, 12kms of power multicore cable, 6kms of power cable - numbers like these hint ... that it was Eurovision Song Contest time again.

The 2014 event took place in an old shipyard at Refshaleøen, Copenhagen, Denmark and once again set new standards for production technology and as an eye opener.

Danish lighting designer Kasper Lange relied on seven grandMA2 full-size and two grandMA2 light consoles, 19 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) and 9 x MA 8Port Node for control.

Amongst numerous Martin Moving Lights and PRG Bad Boys, 178 x Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330, 32 x Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500, 30 x Philips Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot, 24 x Philips Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash and 212 x Philips Vari*Lite VL5 were in the lighting rig. Furthermore six Robert Juliat Cyra

USA - Moogfest, the annual electronic technology, art, science and music festival celebrating the creative vision of analogue synth pioneer Bob Moog, expanded its festivities in downtown Asheville, North Carolina this year to five days in late April and more than 10 venues. For audio reinforcement at US Cellular Centre's 2,431-seat Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, which served as the festival's primary stage, Thunder Audio specified the use of its new L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system.

The loudspeaker complement for Moogfest 2014's main stage included left and right arrays of nine K2, plus eight SB28 subs and three ARCS II out-fills per side. Two additional K2 and two K1-SB subs per side were utilized as side fills, while six Kara enclosures were spread out across the stage lip for front-fill. Ten LA-RAK touring racks, each loaded with three LA8 amplified controllers, delivered the powe

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