UK - Filmed in front of a live studio audience at a purpose built arena in Glasgow, the team at the all new Robot Wars have brought a total 'rock and roll' feel to the cult classic.

Working alongside lighting designer Gurdip Mahal, in close conjunction with Gaffer James Tinsley, Aurora supplied the crew with an extensive lighting list, featuring over 200 automated heads plus an assortment of low energy LED fixtures provide maximum flexibility in helping bring the high octane action to life.

The popular Clay Paky Mythos fixtures were in abundance for their excellent beam qualities, with an array of Martin heads, including MAC Aura and Quantums providing intense colour washes throughout the arena.

A healthy selection of LED was added, including over 50 SGM P5s and 70 Martin Rush Pars, allowing moving light op Ross Williams to maximize colour/movement using a varie

USA - To a professional symphony orchestra, being able to clearly read their sheet music is the only way to put on a performance worthy of a standing ovation. Sheet music poorly lit by troublesome incandescent lighting simply won't due; especially for the best of the best.

The members of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra had to deal with inefficient incandescent lights in their musician stand lights. After they switched to LEDtronics Right-angle LED T10 Lamps, the Orchestra no longer has to worry about bad lighting holding back their performance.

In order to perform, musicians are required to read very small black notes on sheet music, most of the time in dimly lit venues. Musicians usually come from out of college, but they often continue to perform into their 70s and 80s when eyesight tends to weaken. "The ability to read music with good lighting is essential to their job

UK - Production specialist Bright collaborated again with technical solutions experts Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) who delivered full technical design and production for a live hair styling and catwalk presentation event in Manchester for cult hair brand, Fudge Professional.

The event - celebrating the Fudge Professional Core Collective - was staged in Studio 12 of the Old Granada Studios in the city which offered up a totally bare space, so everything - staging, set, lighting, sound and video - had to be built and installed from scratch to realise the Fudge team's original concept.

CPL's crew was led by Mike Radford, who commented, "The vibe of the event was energetic and lively, Fudge is a leading brand known for its alternative and 'out-of-the-box' approach to hair styling, so everything we were doing on the technical front had to help create this impression."

He

Denmark - Sound and Light is a busy rental company based in the bustling port and university town of Aalborg on the edge of the gently rolling, lush countryside of Jutland, north Denmark, and a recent investor in Robe's BMFL Spot moving light fixtures.

Focused on servicing the top end of the entertainment lighting market - incorporating TV productions, corporate events and industrials plus installations - Sound and Light was founded in the 1980s by Jess Otzen.

Due to its reputation for excellence and incredibly well maintained stock, looked after with much love and attention in their pristine warehouse on the outskirts of the city, Sound and Light also engage in a healthy cross-hire business to most other major rental players in Denmark.

Sound and Light's 16 x new BMFL Spots were added to their existing stock of Robe Pointes, also delivered by Robe's Danish distributor

UK / China - Global event supplier, Arena Group, has bought Hong Kong-based event production company Ironmonger Marquees, to create Arena Hong Kong, extending its Asian capabilities with a new office and hub in Northern Asia.

Ironmonger Marquees was introduced to Arena Group in 2015, when the companies collaborated on the Art Central project in Hong Kong. Tom Evans, managing director of Arena Asia explains, "We worked very well together, identifying a shared ethos of giving our clients the best possible event space. Arena Middle East and Asia Tents Arena work hand in glove serving the growing events market in North Asia and identified Ironmonger as an ideal acquisition to help grow the Arena brand in the region."

Key Ironmonger Marquee contracts that have been delivered recently include the Cathay Pacific HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, European Tour (HK Golf Open), IMG's Taste Foo

UK - Zero 88 has launched a competition offering one of its powerful and flexible FLX lighting consoles as a prize.

The competition is open to anyone actively using or owning a Zero 88 lighting control product - desks or dimmers - or anyone even thinking about it.

Entrants are required to take a photo of their Zero 88 product in action in a real lighting environment - at a gig, a show, a festival, a studio, a theatre, etc., and those who don't own or use a Zero 88 product right now, but who are interested in or advocates of the brand and still keen to take part can snap an image of themselves with a Zero 88 product at an exhibition or a Zero 88 training event.

The image must be accompanied by a description of where the product is, what it's doing plus some other basic details, and a caption starting "Zero 88 in control at ...." must be finished to complete the entry.

UK - In response to increasing market interest in the Sony DWX Wireless Microphone System: Autograph Sound, Stage Sound Services and new UK distributor Sound Network held a 'hands on' seminar for sound designers and theatre technicians at the National Theatre on 12 July.

The focus of the event was the use of the equipment in a live theatre environment with a comprehensive range of Sony wireless systems and a variety of microphones for attendees to appraise and experience.

Assisted by a team of professional actors the system was put through its paces with a series of duologues and songs, from whispers to high volume singing, exemplifying the accuracy and sound pressure handling of the microphones and wireless pre-amps. Industry standard DPA Microphones were used, including head worn, boom mics and handheld microphones.

A technical team made up of Autograph, Stage Sound

UK - The Mary Rose museum has re-opened with a full uninterrupted view, after a £5.4m revamp. Since being raised from the Solent in 1982, the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship has undergone 34 years of conservation and can now be viewed through floor-to ceiling windows and an air-locked viewing balcony at the purpose built museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Originally opening doors to visitors in May 2013 the museum has been closed from public view since November 2015 whilst the latest development works, to allow full height viewing of the ship from three separate viewing angles, were undertaken. The new look Mary Rose Museum now provides stunning panoramic views of the ship from all nine galleries through floor to ceiling glazing on the lower and main decks. On the upper deck visitors enter the Weston Ship Hall via an airlock and are separated from the ship only by

UK - ModTruss has been used for the first time in the UK as a structural piece of scenery at Sheffield's Crucible theatre.

At the end of June, a team from Triple E travelled up to The Crucible to support the installation of ModTruss for the Sheffield People's Theatre production of A Dream, described as a 'modern-day mash up of Shakespearan romance'. The structure was a 37' x 19' (11.27m x 5.7m) platform on 8' (2.4m) uprights made up of the three available sizes of aluminium ModTruss - 3", 6" and 12".

"The front span is 5.5m and had to be supported between two pillars. Achieving this with standard scaffold is do-able but would mean that we'd end up with a massive frontage to the set which wasn't desirable for the designer," Stuart West, technical manager for Sheffield Theatres, explains.

"However, a 12" box of ModTruss could do the span with no problems at all; w

UK - In what is being regarded as one of the biggest productions in West End history, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child recently opened at the Palace Theatre to rave reviews. The play is the eighth story set in the Harry Potter universe and takes place 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. WL was approached to provide the lighting for this much-anticipated production.

The lighting designer for the show is Tony Award and Olivier Award-winner Neil Austin who comments, "My main aim for the show was to create something magical. With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the primary desire from everyone involved was to use traditional theatre craft and techniques but push the boundaries as to what we thought was possible. We needed to produce something mesmerising and create the world of illusion that the audience would expect from Har

UK - Richard Martin Lighting reports that the GLP Impression X4 has been added to its already extensive range of products and is now available to hire.

Featuring 19 high power RGBW LEDs, each rated at 15W with a 7-50° zoom range in a slimline body with no base unit and weighing just 8kg, the GLP Impression X4 packs a big punch with a small footprint.

With a brand new optical system, it has a well-defined beam complete with hard edges in the lower zoom range and soft edges at wider angles. Fill colour mixing including CTC and customizable pixel patterns across its front face completes the package on this impressive unit.

(Jim Evans)

UK - PRG XL Video was contracted by Imagination to supply technology for Make the Future London and Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2016.

Working closely with Imagination's production director Matt Rose and production manager Matt Francis, PRG XL Video supplied a range of key event technology including video screens and control systems, lighting and rigging, for Make the Future London incorporating Shell Eco-marathon Europe, which took place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, UK.

The annual Shell Eco-marathon events take place across Asia, the Americas and Europe. This year the European event was part of Make the Future London - a festival of ideas and innovation. The events challenge young engineers to design, build and drive energy efficient vehicles that go as far as possible on the least amount of fuel. The student teams compete in a number of categories on

UK - On behalf of Festival Republic, Dick Tee of 'enteetainment Ltd', was asked to look after the technical production management of the recent EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) show in Milton Keynes Bowl, working alongside his counterpart, production manager Jake Berry, who was representing Los Angeles-based Festival producer, Insomniac.

Electric Daisy Carnival UK returned to Milton Keynes Bowl for a one-day electronic dance music party. The main stage built by Serious Stages was some 70m wide and incorporated a huge Owl, a Dragon and two 'Guardians' as well as a massive 400m2 LED screen and a fully functioning 'waterfall'.

"It was a great challenge to be able to combine such a huge stage based construction with so much creativity and artistic design," said Tee. "Unlike conventional stages which offer complete weather protection to the performance area, the only 'on stage roo

UK - The Milton Keynes Bowl was once again the venue for the Electric Daisy Carnival this summer that attracted over 55,000 passionate EDM aficionados.

For the fourth year running it was Britannia Row Productions that supplied all four stages: the main bowl arena with delays and also the three tent stages - the circuitGROUND, the cosmicMEADOW and the neonGARDEN. Each stage was rigged with an L-Acoustics loudspeaker system, predominantly K1s on the main stage with K2s being the main component at the circuitGROUND, the cosmicMEADOW and the neonGARDEN.

For project manager Lez Dwight and his crew this year's game-changer proved to be the presence of the new L-Acoustic KS28 Subs and LA12X amplifiers that graced the main stage.

Officially unveiled and delivered for use in May, this was a significant enough opportunity for L-Acoustics application engineer, Dan Orton to visit

UK - Manchester-based event supply company Mainline Show Productions has recently invested in an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system for its hire stock. The dLive S5000 surface with DM48 MixRack and DX32 Expander (fitted with analogue and digital inputs and outputs) have already had their first outings with Mainline clients and the company is set to also take delivery of a further S3000 surface and DM32 MixRack.

Supplied by Wigwam (one of Audio-Technica's network of dLive specialist resellers), the dLive system was chosen both for its feature set and usability, as Mainline's Rob Lorton explains: "We were early adopters of Allen & Heath's iLive T series, recognising its power and features were unbeatable for the price at that time. Clearly, dLive has been built and developed from those principles - it's a great mixing system with a top sound and flexibility. Again, this s

World - The spectacular stage set for Coldplay's 2016 A Head Full of Dreams Tour is highlighted by the new, bright, RGB Firefly FloppyFlex flexible LED neon. Currently on a seven-city US stadium run, the tour began early this year in South America, then went to Europe, and will continue to Australia and New Zealand.

"We outline the active stage surface to highlight its shape and show the stage edge," says the tour's lighting and production designer Paul Normandale of Lite Alternative.

"This provides an artistic effect for the audience as well as a safety edge light for the artist. We're using the large dome version which fits easily and quickly into a channel routed in the stage decks. The system is circuited into various sections of the stage - main, walkway, wings, etc - and also outlines the flower-shaped video screens. FloppyFlex is proving reliable and very bright." N

UAE - David Dohrmann, Adamson Systems Engineering's technical director, Asia Pacific, is scheduled to present a Thomsun sponsored two-day technical training seminar and S-Series product demonstration in Dubai on 30-31 August 2016. The announcement was made by Alok Ghurde from Thomsun.

"Providing sound reinforcement professionals with a free, instructional training seminar is invaluable in our region," explains Ghurde. "David not only demonstrates Adamson products but also covers a lot of the basics of system design and rigging that is extremely helpful. We are looking forward to a huge turnout."

Dohrmann, who has delivered Adamson training throughout the region for the last five years, provides consulting firms, integrators and sound engineers with an extensive overview of Adamson Blueprint AV simulation software, Lake processing as well as a hands-on rigging and alignment

UK - On Thursday, 23 June, the Queen Mary 2 returned to Southampton, remastered. Over the course of the luxury liner's refit, the interior and exterior had been fully transformed, offering those who step on board a first class experience at sea, where guests are treated to the very best in accommodation, dining and entertainment.

As part of the grand refurbishment, multi award winning piano dealership Chris Venables Pianos, was contracted to supply a premium hand crafted Yamaha CF6 recital grand piano for one of the entertainment spaces.

Will Venables, partner at the company, which is based in Ringwood, Hampshire, explained: "The new piano was not only a much better instrument than their existing model, but also significantly bigger in size. This might not sound like much of a problem, but when you realise that the piano has to fit under the stage, then the challenge becom

UK - After six years of negotiation, Jorge Otero Pailos' artwork, The Ethics of Dust: Westminster Hall was unveiled to the public on 29 June. The artwork, commissioned and produced by Artangel for Westminster Hall, is a 50m long translucent cast of the Hall's internal east wall, revealing how the dust and pollution which have gathered over hundreds of years register a broader environmental history.

To exhibit a piece of such scale in such a precious and delicate building, Artangel contacted Unusual Rigging for advice and expertise in suspending the piece from the Hall's 28m high hammer beam roof without damaging the building in any way.

Michael Morris, co-director at Artangel explained: "Westminster Hall is the oldest part of the Houses of Parliament and has been in continuous use for nearly a thousand years. Its walls have seen many political events - from the trials of G

South Africa - The 2016 South African Music Awards (SAMAs), one of the highest profile events on the SA music calendar, was again staged at the Durban ICC Arena, broadcast live on SABC1 and enjoyed by an audience of 3000. For the first time, lighting was designed by Robert Grobler, who incorporated over 200 Robe fixtures on the rig which was supplied by Gearhouse South Africa.

The set was designed by Michael Gill from MGD and based on a collection of different sized LED screens, shaped into a multi-media environment giving everyone, wherever they happened to be seated in the auditorium, a clear and three-dimensional view of the stage.

Robert's challenge was to light all these different sections of stage separately so they could work as stand-alone elements and punctuate the overall sight lines or work together as one large overall set piece.

The Robe elements included

USA - The latest addition to the Hakkasan Group, JEWEL Nightclub inside ARIA Resort & Casino, has raised the Las Vegas entertainment bar once again, with an interactive lighting design controlled by a custom Avolites system of integrated control desks and Ai media servers.

JEWEL opened in May with a superstar-studded launch hosted by Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, hip-hop heavyweight Drake, electro turntable stars The Chainsmokers and reality television sensation Kourtney Kardashian. To reinforce the luxury party vibe, Hakkasan Group commissioned international sound, lighting and visual design company AudioTek to "push the boundaries of technology" and create the ultimate nightclub environment for Sin City's elite.

The result is a high-impact, multi-sourced display based around the DJ's moving back wall of Ayrton Dream Panels, with both video and DMX surfaces, and Magic Dot fixt

France - UrbanVoices has been held in the French city of Nantes each July for the past six years and this year features a 1000-strong choir of Nantes singers from seven to 89 years old. This is spectacular in itself, but the audience experience was further enhanced with the use of L-ISA Live, the latest sound reinforcement concept introduced by L-Acoustics founder Christian Heil.

UrbanVoices is a multifaceted project organised by the association of the Cité Monde [World City] which takes place over several months and is open to the entire city of Nantes. Karim Ammour is artistic director and creator of the project, entitled The City is Beautiful, and also its composer and conductor. It is an eclectic programme which honours mankind and nature and features compositions that range from reggae, soul, pop and gospel to rhythm and blues, with the thousand singers acco

UK - Creative Technology (CT) has announced the acquisition of The Wireless Works, a specialist event service business based in Godalming, UK, delivering radio communications, intercom and data services to the broadcast and live event markets.

Founded in 2002 by Tristian Bickerton, The Wireless Works operates alongside CT at many prestigious events including Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the Olympic Games. The two businesses also service many common clients in the wider corporate events market and have a shared ethos of delivering high end specialist technical services, driven by innovative people and best in class technology.

The development and recent launch of CT's Integrated Networks division has created new synergies and opportunities in an increasingly complex and core area of technical event delivery. In the immediate future, the business will continue to operate just

Poland - Billed as the biggest event in the world, two and a half million people are believed to have flocked to the 2016 World Youth Day (WYD), an international Catholic event focused on faith and youth, which this year took place at two sites in Krak

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