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Australia - Circus Under My Bed, performed by the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, presented at The Sydney Opera House as part of the Summer At The House season, was lit in style by Sian James-Holland and programmed by Matt Tweddle on a grandMA2 full-size.

Circus Under My Bed provided family entertainment in a linear narrative, following the simple storyline of a young girl preparing to move away the next day. Adventures ensue when magical imaginary friends with an amazing range of physical skills visit her to help pack.

The lighting design was delivered on a tight deadline and had to share a lighting rig with another circus company who use the space in a completely different way with a very different style of show. The production was playing in repertory in the studio theatre with La Soiree performing in the evening. Repertory poses difficulties for many producti

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Belgium - Belgium based entertainment engineering specialists Wicreations combined their expertise and skills to develop and build a dynamic and sophisticated special performance structure, complete with a full motion control solution, to facilitate a spectacular show featuring 37 international artists including 11 aerial performers.

The show, Odyseo, was devised by artistic director Pascal Jacob to commemorate the 150th anniversary of world leasing Belgian chemicals and plastics manufacturer Solvay. Fifteen performances took place over 10 days in a special tented venue installed at the Solvay Campus HQ in Brussels.

Brussels based Y. Services handled all the artistic, technical and show production and scenography under the direction of Yvon van Lancker, well known for his work with Cirque du Soleil founder Franco Dragone in Las Vegas.

Wicreations was approached by Yvo

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - London's Royal Albert Hall used their Jands Vista T4 console to provide thrilling lighting for Christmas Spectacular - a festive show collaboration with classic music promoter, Raymond Gubbay.

Christmas Spectacular featured a combination of favourite music classics, breathtaking dance, thrilling lights, sensational lasers and a fantastic indoor firework finale. Special guests included West End star Kerry Ellis and chorister Jack Topping.

Royal Albert Hall (RAH) lighting design and systems manager, Richard Thomas utilised the venue's Jands Vista T4 console to control the ambitious lighting production.

"The vision for my design was to produce an exciting and dynamic light show in conjunction with lasers and pyrotechnic effects, to complement the music, dance, ballet, and vocal performances," says Richard. "The music programme was quite varied,

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USA - What's Thanksgiving without The Muppets? Or Lady Gaga? Or all of them appearing together in ABC's Lady Gaga & The Muppets Holiday Spectacular with guests Sir Elton John, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ru Paul. It was definitely an occasion to roll out Clay Paky Sharpys and Sharpy Washes.

Lighting designer Tom Beck got a call for the show the Monday before the Friday load in as Lady Gaga was finishing her latest album and time was running short.

"I really wanted to use Sharpys and Sharpy Washes," says Beck who grabbed 20 of the former and 23 of the latter from the inventory of ELS. "It was the first time I had the chance to use the Washes, which I really love. I wouldn't mind trying a whole rig of just Sharpy units."

The set designed by Tom Lenz featured "a lot of curves and arches - it was beautiful," Beck reports. "I put up an arche

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Dubai / Qatar - With three spectacular events, A&O Technology in the role of general contractor, along with its in-house creative department under the leadership of the lighting designer Jerry P. Appelt, was able to close out the year 2013 in style and hit the ground running in 2014.

At the end of November, the lighting specialist bathed the Burj Khalifa in light to mark the announcement that the city had been chosen to host Expo 2020. On 18 December, a magnificent light show in Doha followed to mark National Day 2013, and a further superb lighting spectacle that included a record-breaking firework display on 31 December at the Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai heralded the advent of 2014.

"A&O Technology is now excellently placed in terms of ideas and expertise to participate in shaping the future of the lighting sector," says Marco Niedermeier, CEO.

It began with the n

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USA - Lighting Designer Justin Townsend (Here Lies Love and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) specified Elation Platinum Beam 5R moving heads for the Broadway musical A Night with Janis Joplin playing at the Lyceum Theatre in New York and was delighted with the fixtures.

A Night with Janis Joplin is a musical journey celebrating the legacy and unmistakable voice of '60s rock legend Janis Joplin. "It's rock 'n' roll so I wanted a lighting fixture that could be featured visibly, as well as one that projects a nice beam," Justin says, who acts as both set and lighting designer on the show.

"It's my first time using Elation and I'm really happy with them. They are bright, have great articulation and the price point is nice; just perfect when you have to watch the budget. They project a great, sharp beam and are really dynamic. They made for a nice a

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UK - The Kings Theatre in Southsea, Portsmouth is one of those Edwardian treasures that are fast becoming a rarity in the provinces. This exquisite example, with its Italian Renaissance style of décor and façade, first opened its doors in 1907 and has seen the likes of Sarah Bernhardt, Noel Coward and Ivor Novello grace the stage. As a centre for arts and entertainment, it has served the audiences of Portsmouth and Southsea faithfully ever since.

Fast forward to 2013 and the Kings has successfully moved with the times, upgrading and modernising its facilities without losing any of its original charm and theatrical heritage, not always an easy balancing act as technical manager, Nick Benjamin explains. "The time had come to replace our house followspots - the inclusion of new moving light fixtures on our rig meant our old models were simply not bright enough to do th

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Brazil - DJ David Guetta completed an incendiary nine-date Brazilian tour in January, which saw Robe moving lights on the spec for most of the shows.

Guetta's lighting is designed by Jonathan 'Leggy' Armstrong - well known for his imaginative and stylish shows which have graced several leading dance acts including Basement Jaxx. The touring team works with entirely locally sourced productions wherever they play, and lighting on the road for this leg of the ongoing world tour was overseen and operated by two lighting directors - Alex 'Junior' Cerio of Smash Productions and Sam MacLaren of LightLab - both also LDs in their own right.

Between them and the video visuals produced by Ben Brett's Pilot video control system, operated by Nick Briggs, Guetta gets a dynamic world class show wherever he plays.

This is also a very exciting and refreshing way to work, fusing structured el

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Denmark - Globally renowned chef Claus Meyer has recently opened The Standard, a live jazz and restaurant venue in Copenhagen, Denmark. The jazz club features a compact, self-powered Meyer Sound UltraSeries loudspeaker system installed by Kastrup, Denmark-based Stouenborg.

"The Standard has a small, powerful, and flexible system that offers excellent dispersion and reproduces sound perfectly," says Anders J°rgensen, project manager and sound designer for Stouenborg.

The installation in the 68-seat club combines two UPJ-1P VariO and three UPM-1P loudspeakers with one UMS-1P subwoofer. Performances are mixed on a Roland V-Mixer mixing console, and musicians use DPA microphones.

"We considered a number of options, but the combination of UPJ-1P and UPM-1P loudspeakers best provided the necessary audio fidelity and visual unobtrusiveness," says J°rgens

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Russia - Reminiscent of one of the lighter scenes in Taratino's classic Pulp Fiction, the Pink Cadillac restaurant in Moscow city centre has exactly that, a beautiful nineteen fifties model, all fins and chrome, sat right in the middle of the room. This is the real deal; dancing, singing waiter bring burgers and milkshakes to your table in this immersive retro dining experience. Yet for all this glamour the building used to be a garage so when AE Consulting first came to remodel the room the acoustic environment was one of their primary concerns.

"We faced a real challenge," said Alexander Evstratov, AE Consulting director general. "In our line of work we focus on quality rather than quantity, so to neutralise the reverberation of the room and other unwanted acoustic artefacts, required the lightest of touches architecturally speaking. To complete the fifti

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Sheffield triumphs - Sheffield Theatres has been named the best regional theatre for the second year running at the Stage Awards. The organisation, which runs the Crucible and Lyceum venues, was recognised for its range of new shows in the past season, such as its stage adaptation of The Full Monty.

The entertainment industry newspaper's 2014 awards also saw Hampstead Theatre named London theatre of the year. Michael Grandage's company was named producer of the year. The Donmar Warehouse's former artistic director was praised for his inaugural West End season, which featured the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Jude Law and Dame Judi Dench and offered £10 tickets.

The prize for school of the year went to the National Youth Theatre, which provided free training to young people in 2013. London's Southwark Playhouse was named best fringe theatre, while the annual &q

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UK - Building on the success of previous years, Paradigm AV report an outstanding response to their high-brightness screen technology, geared specifically for the educational segment, at this year's BETT Show 2014.

According to sales manager, Dave Stephen, a more minimalist approach this time out paid dividends, resulting in a more direct communication with the customer and clear, unambiguous messaging.

Attention was mainly focused on the dnp 92in STS Ultra Short Throw, in 16:10 aspect ratio, used in conjunction with a super widescreen Epson EB485W projector (0.27:1 throw ratio), and 100in Supernova Core 2 display.

Here, the permanently packed stand gave visitors the opportunity to see a split screen, comparing standard screen resolution in daylight conditions, with the high visual acuity of the award-winning Supernova technology.

"As a result, we received a very good

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UK - SGM's versatile and compact LD-5 light domes are increasingly finding favour in some of the UK's key late night entertainment venues.

Having been plunged into paper lanterns for Wonderland in Maidstone, and featured in a giant immersive display at Sanctuary in Glasgow, they are now being put to equally innovative use by two installation specialists, Andy Pound, operations director of Technical Arts Ltd, as part of Luminar Leisure's Oceana nightclub conversions into Pryzm, and by Sound Power director David Ridout as a standard fit in the large Australian outback themed Walkabout Inns.

These LED domes, with an outer diameter of just 80mm, can be used in any orientation, with a maximum number of 35 domes in a single chain. They can also be custom designed to fit any housing, and are controlled via three-channel DMX.

An example of their adaptability was shown by Pound in Pr

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UK - 2014 looks set to be the year of the B-EYE, the latest innovation from the Clay Paky stable of moving light fixtures. The design and effect possibilities of the K20 and its smaller sibling, the K10 are best seen when the lights are in action; even a thorough study of the written documentation doesn't really seem to quite do them justice.

Exclusive UK and ROI distributors, Ambersphere Solutions were on hand to provide support and service at one of the B-EYE's latest outings - the recordings of the Jonathan Ross Show for production company, Hot Sauce and at the Graham Norton Show for So Television. All the fixtures for these recordings were supplied by Aurora Lighting Hire who have a well-established reputation in television lighting and know exactly what works best on camera.

Lee House from Ambersphere's technical sales was enthused by the B-EYE's reception.

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USA - Luke Bryan has rolled out his That's My Kind of Night Tour, and Elite Multimedia Productions in Nashville is providing grandMA2 consoles as Bryan once again takes to the road. The popular country artist's new tour is named after his latest single, which has catapulted to # 1 in the country charts.

"We just concluded the Dirt Road Diaries Tour with Luke; his new tour will run from January 2014 to the end of October", says Tom Wilson, vice president of event productions at Elite Multimedia Productions.

Lighting designer Justin Kitchenman of Fade Up Design Group points out that Bryan "wants all of his productions to be big, ambitious and with lots of bells and whistles. When someone walks into this show they're walking into a party."

Bryan is at the centre of the action figuratively and literally. "We designed a 42-foot wide circle stage th

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India - India commemorated the remarkable milestone of three years with zero polio cases in January 2014 with the 'India is Polio Free 'campaign, staging seven special events in major cities across the country - Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jodhpur and Bikaner - on the same day.

In each of these cities, prime historical monuments were projected on to and lit using Robe moving lights and LED fixtures.

These included Agra Fort in Agra; India Gate and the Red Fort in Delhi; Hyderabad Public School in Hyderabad; the Teeli Wali Mosque in Lucknow; the Sojati Gate in Jodhpur and the Junagarh Fort in Bikaner, together with the key commercial landmark Air India Building in Mumbai.

All installations were designed by Rasesh Parekh from Mumbai based lighting company (MIET) Maya Intelligent Entertainment Technologies in conjunction with its sister company IES (Integrated Ente

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Vietnam - Continuing to expand the successful Vuvuzela Beer Club brand in Vietnam, the Golden Gate Group recently held a grand opening for another Vuvuzela Beer Club on Truong Son Street, the gateway to the heart of Saigon from Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

As with the other Vuvuzela Beer Clubs, audio specialists and Van Damme cable exponents, QV Sound, designed the sound system to meet the critical demands of the Golden Gate Group's management. The sound system needed to achieve high sound pressure levels, high quality sound, and enough bass to "rock" the crowd. To achieve this QV sound used high quality Neutrik connectors and Van Damme cabling throughout.

QV's business development manager Mr Quoc Nguyen said, "We always use Van Damme cables and fittings from VDC Trading wherever possible because they are trouble free, they represent excellent value and f

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UK - Following a rigorous competitive tendering process, Star Events Group has announced a three-year contract to supply all of the East Ringside Hospitality Facility requirements for the Royal Windsor Horse Show (RWHS) at Windsor Castle, for the period 2014 to 2016.

Tez Sheals-Barrett, project manager and bid team leader for this contract for Star Events said that the news is perfectly timed, as the centre-piece of the contract is the company's new VISTA corporate viewing system, which is being officially launched at the Event Production Show. Star's delivery team includes their regular VISTA partner, Centre Stage, who manufacture and install the Xenia suite system and TT Tents, who themselves have a long history with the RWHS.

Michael Shephard, MD of HPower Group, organisers of the RWHS, said, "Our brief was very challenging and Star proposed the best use of space with

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USA - For the third consecutive year, all of the artists and bands who performed using in-ear monitors during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards used the Shure PSM 1000 Personal Monitor System.

Highlights from the evening included a number of Grammys presented to Shure endorsers. From Imagine Dragons' victory in the "Best Rock Performance" category and Kacey Musgraves' double win for "Best Country Song" and "Best Country Album" to Black Sabbath's success in the "Best Metal Performance" category, Shure endorsers were celebrated throughout the night by The Recording Academy.

In addition to the exclusive in-ear use of PSM 1000 for live performances, a combination of Shure SM58, BETA 58A, and KSM9 microphones were also selected by artists for their performances.

"It's always great to see so much Shure equipment on a big production like the

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UK - The Lights, a contemporary venue in the heart of Andover in Hampshire, recently underwent a renovation project to improve health and safety for stage light rigging, and called upon one of Doughty Engineering's main UK distributors, Hawthorn Theatrical Ltd, who knew exactly what kit to install.

Mark Lambert, property services manager for The Lights, which is owned and managed by Test Valley Borough Council, explained, "Reducing the need to work at height was our main objective with this project, and although safety was the number one priority for us, we also needed to be cost conscious. Following agreement on a suitable and affordable system with Hawthorn Theatrical, the company was appointed as the main contractor. Hawthorn subsequently specified Doughty Engineering as their hoist supplier."

Alan Jackson, Hawthorns said, "Following an initial site visit by

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UK - With just a week to go until Earls Court 2 opens its doors to the Event Production Show (11-12 February), organiser, Mash Media has confirmed an exciting and extensive line-up for the inaugural Event Technology Theatre.

Designed to offer event organisers, brand managers and experiential marketers a snapshot of how digital technology is influencing the delivery of live events, the Event Technology Theatre will play host to 10 speakers across the two day show in a series of informative and inspirational workshops.

Experts from some of the world's leading experiential marketing agencies including George P Johnson, Imagination and Wasserman to name a few, will lead 45 minute sessions showcasing the latest innovations and trends in digital technology together with hints, tips and case studies on integrating it with small and large scale events. Topics covered include:

Using

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UK - Ilfracombe, Devon based drapes, starcloth, LED and visual effects specialist S+H has taken delivery of its first batch of 100sq.m of Glux's new 3.9 IDsnC high definition LED screen modules, which will join its existing extensive inventory of LED technologies and special effects available for rental and all types of special project installations.

The physical dimensions of each panel of Glux 3.9 are a handy 500 x 500 mm at 45mm deep, offering an impressively light weight of just 3Kg each or 12Kgs per square metre, making it one of the lightest HD LED screens currently on the market.

It is also around 70% lighter than most 'lightweight' competitor products.

S+H's MD Terry Murtha confirms that the company will be making further investments in LED screen later this year to keep up with the demand from all types of productions especially television, theatre and special event

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Europe - Only a few days after its official launch, everyone is already talking about it! The video of the Clay Paky demo show at PLASA London 2013 clocked up over 10,000 views in the first twenty-four hours. Curiosity for the new B-EYE was huge, also thanks to the engaging advertising campaign that accompanied the launch with its "bee-concept" look. Lighting professionals recognize a really innovative product when they see one and immediately catch on to the wide range of new creative possibilities it offers for their projects.

After only one month, the B-EYE had already won prizes at PLASA and LDI, the two biggest world awards in our industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Comments on forums, Facebook and YouTube were rife, creating expectations for a debut fit for a true star.

And its stage debut shortly followed. In January 2014, B-EYEs were installed on the ligh

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The Netherlands - As ISE 2014 prepared to open its doors, over 950 exhibitors were putting the finishing touches to their stands, helping to ensure that the 11th Integrated Systems Europe will be not just the largest tradeshow for professional AV and systems integration ever held in Europe, but also the brightest and the busiest, say the organisers.

The 2014 total of 952 exhibiting companies represents an increase of more than 6% on last year's figure, and over 200 of those companies are completely new to ISE, giving visitors a wealth of new business opportunities in every technology sector served by the event. The show will occupy more than 36,000 net square metres for the first time, while pre-registration also reached record levels.

Yet Mike Blackman, the event's managing director, believes the real story of ISE 2014 lies behind these impressive numbers. "This week we'

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  4. Chauvet lights new Dubai nightspot
  5. Allen & Heath digital mixers for London's QEII
  6. AVA Lights chosen for Virgin Trains
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