Israel - Lighting designer Martin Adin of Pyromania presented his stunning Photographia - Painting with Light installation at the 2016 Light in Jerusalem festival of light, which involved projecting onto and lighting a large section of the city's famous 'Old City of Jerusalem' close to Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to the old city.

Martin used 12 x BMFL Blades, eight BMFL Spots and 12 x Pointes for the lighting element of his piece, which mixed the mediums of lighting and monumental projection to illuminate a section of the wall approximately 100m long.

The idea was to build a 10-minute animated show that painted the wall with light ... examining the connection between the ancient stone wall and the cutting-edge technology of the lighting fixtures that are bringing it to life in multiple layers. Using this "magnificent historical heirloom as a canvas

UK - Moving light rental specialists, Richard Martin Lighting are going virtual with lighting designer Roger Williams for Go 8 Bit, the UK's next video game TV show from Dave.

Filmed at Fountain Studios and based on a live Edinburgh show, this new series hosted by Dara O'Briain sees team captains Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon compete in five rounds of hilarious gaming contests to be crowned the 8 Bit Champion. In each episode they'll each be joined by as celebrity guest with names such as Bob Mortimer, Russell Howard, Rachel Riley and Gina Yashere taking part throughout the run. They'll be competing in video games both retro and current and it'll be up to the live audience and resident gaming expert Ellie Gibson to decide who will come up trumps in the battle for gaming glory.

For this vibrant set, Roger has employed VL1000TS, VL3000 Spots and Robin 600 LED Wash. A

UK - The third and final category shortlist for this year's prestigious Knight of Illumination Awards has been revealed.

The announcement of the TV shortlist follows Theatre and Concert Touring and Events which were disclosed earlier this month. The 2016 TV judging panel is made up of Stuart Gain (chairperson) and STLD committee members John O'Brien, Andrew Dixon and Alan Luxford. The shortlist is as follows:

THE PHILIPS VARI-LITE AWARD FOR DRAMA - Sue Gibson for Death in Paradise, Martin Kempton for Upstart Crow and John Sorapure for Hunderby

THE LIGHT INITIATIVE AWARD FOR EVENTS - Nigel Catmur for Tom Jones and Rob Brydon: One Big Night, Bernie Davis for BBC Proms Season 2015/2016 and Roger Williams and Zac Nicholson for The Sound of Music Live

THE PRG XL VIDEO AWARD FOR LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT - Philip Brines for B

UK - The Warehouse Sound Services helped this year's Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) achieve high end sound across the summer season after designing, installing and engineering the sound for over 30 different shows across the festival. The Warehouse Sound Services, once again ensured the festival's various sound reinforcement requirements were comprehensively covered.

Over 500 loudspeakers, 20 digital mixing desks and 100 radio microphones were used to provide stunning sound on a range of high profile shows. The Warehouse provided a range of diverse audio solutions for the spectacular opening & closing shows at the EIF as well as a diverse range of shows across the Festival's calendar from 5-29 August 2016.

As a lead partner supplier to the EIF, the company provided the audio solutions for Alan Cumming's residency at The Hub, Sigur Ros at the Edinburgh Playhouse, Ba

World - This year's Queen + Adam Lambert Summer Festival tour began in Europe and will wrap up in Asia at the end of September. For the tour, lighting designer Rob Sinclair and scenic designer Ric Lipson of Stufish Entertainment Architecture utilized Firefly FloppyFlex LED Neon and Solaris SoLED strobes to accent their cutting-edge stage design.

"FloppyFlex is working out great," says Rob Sinclair. "I particularly like the brightness, smoothness and vibrancy of the colours, as well as its versatility. We have about 100m of the RGB FloppyFlex for the stage and backdrop, all driven by ProPlex RGB Drives. Built into individual stage sections and backdrop, it's easy to set up and break down and the system is very reliable. I intend to use FloppyFlex again and am recommending it to other designers."

Brilliant Stages of the UK supplied the lighting gear for the tour, which also

Germany - Robe moving lights - including 65 DL4 series luminaires in the form of 50 x DL4F LED washes and 15 x DL4S Profiles - were again selected as flagship fixtures for the four major entertainment areas aboard Mein Schiff 5, the latest cruise ship to be launched by German based operator TUI Cruises.

These were specified by Chris Moylan of Berlin based Optikalusion, who was the lighting designer and programmer for all the entertainment spaces, amounting to the theatre, AbtanzBar nightclub, the Studio and pool deck stage. This follows up his very successful Robe installation on Mein Schiff 3 in 2014 and Mein Schiff 4 in 2015.

For this latest vessel built in Meyer Turku Shipyard in Finland, explained Chris, the entertainment areas have been expanded. Klanghaus which was previously a very basic 'music chamber' has evolved into a full Studio performance space staging numero

UK - There is something completely different about to happen at PLASA 2016... A new experiment, The Exploratorium, is a maze where the participants show off both their technical expertise and their imaginations.

The simple, interactive, entertaining and educational experiments contained within The Exploratorium prove a concept, demonstrate a principle and wow visitors with a bit of science. There will be axe heads and horns, Virtual Reality and prisms, experiments on perception and even a 'Brain Transfer Machine'.

One highlight of The Exploratorium is The Sideshow, a bit of virtual and magical fun, hosted by Ryan Metcalfe from PreeVue, producers of photo-realistic 3D models for theatre productions and live events using the latest CAD and VR technology. "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate this brand new technology in a way that allows vi

The Netherlands - Community Professional Loudspeakers has announced the appointment of Tau Audio Solutions as its distributor for The Netherlands. Started in 1997, Tau is a leading distributor with an established portfolio of quality audio brands, including Ashly, Clockaudio, Audix Microphones, Contacta and Baldwin Boxall Communications.

Arjen Bezemer, sales engineer for Tau Audio Solutions, said, "We are very pleased to be distributing Community. The brand has an excellent reputation for quality and reliability and its wide range of outdoor, distributed and engineered systems greatly enhances the solutions we can provide to our customers. We see great potential for the products in The Netherlands and look forward to working with the team at Community."

Community's EMEA sales manager Jamie Ward added, "Tau is a really strong fit for Community as they focus purely on supply

UK - Music, owner of Tannoy, has stated that it remains committed to Scotland and will continue to build the Tannoy Prestige as well as other high-end loudspeakers in the country. The company which already builds current Prestige models at its manufacturing plant in Coatbridge, is considering to relocate to a new plant following large investment from parent company Music.

The new facility will also see substantial investment in innovation and production, as well as a museum and show room for the brand's 90-year heritage. Tannoy will celebrate its 90th anniversary this year and has been based in Scotland since the 1970's.

Uli Behringer, head of Music, commented, "We are excited about the future of Tannoy and we believe we have developed a sound strategic direction to protect its rich history and heritage. Tannoy was facing great economic pressures and we believe that our pl

UK - Shure Audio Institute UK is hosting a Digital Wireless Seminar at two of the UK's leading audio trade shows, PLASA and BPM Pro. The seminar will cover recent changes to the RF landscape and explain how digital wireless systems help to secure a positive future for wireless microphones.

Entitled "Wireless Mastered - RF & Digital 2016" the seminar also features a digital wireless question and answer session. By tackling common digital myths, Shure will establish fact from fiction in what has become one of the pro audio industry's most misunderstood topics.

Tuomo Tolonen, Shure Pro Audio Group Manager comments: "RF spectrum for use by wireless microphone operators has changed a lot over recent years. From the digital TV switchover to the rise of mobile phone ownership - demand for clean spectrum is greater than ever. Digital wireless systems have a lot to offer in

USA - EMC Corporation has joined AIMS, aligning itself with the vision of an open standards approach that broadcast and media companies can use to move from legacy SDI systems to a virtualized, IP-based future - quickly and profitably.

The U.S. multinational corporation is a market-leader in data storage systems, and a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations; delivering information technology as a service (ITaaS), cloud computing, and management and storage of big data.

Commenting for AIMS, Chairman Michael Cronk stated, "There is considerable significance in a global IT corporation like EMC aligning itself with the open standards approach to the transition to IP workflows in television and video production. Storage plays an important role in production and playout workflows that are undergoing the transition to all-IP file-

USA - American rock band Chevelle, comprised of Dean Bernardini and brothers Pete and Sam Loeffler, have been making music and touring for more than two decades, but they aren't kicking back and looking towards slowing down. Rather than rest on their laurels, the band released their eighth studio album The North Corridor this July and have been touring the country with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites.

Lighting designer Craig Richter shared the band was looking to change up their look this year, with more set pieces and lighting fixtures, a challenge he was certainly up to accomplishing. "Nothing on the main set piece is symmetrical, so it makes it harder to make your generic positions," he said. "I really had to switch my way of thinking come programming time."

GLP X4s are placed on top of the set pieces to provide the main source of lighting and eye cat

UK - Sector-6 was a substantial new stage and performance area at the 2016 Boomtown Festival in the UK. A brainchild of Dan Borg, the crazy set design was created from several tonnes of reconditioned scrap metal and much ingenuity as a living, moving, breathing industrial sculpture inspired by structural components from steel works, power stations, nuclear reactors, etc. all united in "a post-apocalyptic masterpiece of madness".

Dan and Boomtown's production manager Robin Collins asked Dave Whiteoak of Video Illusions to be visual production manager and video designer and to co-ordinate the visual production elements including lighting and video content creation. Dave commissioned lighting designer Sam Tozer from Vision Factory - a regular LD on Video Illusions projects - to add some original lighting magic to Sector 6.

Video Illusions, who work closely with leading UK lig

Chile - A new world record was set for the Guinness Book of Records at the La Florida stadium in Santiago, Chile, on Sunday 22 May. A total of 2,357 players took part in a 120-hour soccer match and broke the previous record held by England, where a non-stop 105-hour game was played.

The match, which was organized by Entel and Huaweii, deserved an equally great closing show, and Clay Paky lights were used under the supervision of local producer Real Audio Sistemas.

At around 7 pm the cup was raised to celebrate the new record, and the show started, which lit up the sky over La Florida. Twenty-four Sharpy Wash 330s were more than enough to colour the entire stage. Despite this, the power of six Alpha Spot HPE 1500s was also added, each with their own visual effects that harmonized with the colours of singer Américo's show. The lighting was handled by Chilean li

UK - In a crowded festival season, trying to establish a new concept within a relatively untested site in central London can prove hazardous.

But in initiating the new Sunfall Festival at Brockwell Park, promoters NVS called on the tried and trusted triumvirate of sound engineering specialists RG Jones Sound Engineering, their premium Martin Audio MLA Multi-cellular Loudspeaker PA system and experienced production company, Whole Nine Yards.

It is a team that for the past five years has serviced the two other events in the NVS Promotions portfolio - the back-to-back Dimensions Festival and Outlook Festival in Pula, Croatia. And once again, the result was an outright success.

According to RG Jones' crew chief and project manager, Steve Carr, the underlying idea at Brockwell Park was to run the festival until 9pm (the "Sun" element) and then decant the crowds into surroun

UK - Singer/songwriter Gladys Knight recently toured the UK and Blackburn based HSL delighted lighting equipment and crew to the production which was co-ordinated on the road for HSL by Lester Cobrin and designed by UK and Nashville based LD, Neil Scrivener.

Neil has been working for the artist for about two years. Knight tours the U.S. extensively, having previously had a five-year residency in Las Vegas and usually visits the UK and Europe each summer. This year, a high profile appearance at London's Royal Albert Hall was one of the highlights on the itinerary for the seven times Grammy and multi award winning artist.

The PAR can rig used by Knight in the U.S. provided a starting point for Neil's design this year. Taking into account the 13 people who needed to be lit, Neil decided that PAR cans were once again a good base option for the rig as well as adding a touch of

UK - The M Series developed by console manufacturer Midas, is experiencing a flood in popularity amongst audio professionals in the UK. As a result, Midas has revealed plans to rocket availability of the series by appointing Electrovision as an additional UK dealer.

Based in Merseyside, Electrovision has a long-standing relationship with Midas' parent company Music and now adds to an already impressive line-up of products from Turbosound, TC Electronic, TC Helicon, Behringer and Bugera.

"Midas' expertise in making affordable, rock-solid and reliable consoles is unrivalled, so having the M Series is very important to us and will allow our customers to enjoy the ultimate mixing console experience," commented Kevin Roche of Electrovision.

"Midas' success is in its award-winning PRO Series preamplifiers, advanced digital technology and industry-leading ADC and DAC converte

USA - Bandit Lites is once again supplying the lighting for The Band Perry as they tour the nation. The country music super group recently released The Comeback Kid, the latest single off their upcoming album Heart + Beat.

Lighting designer Jay Waddell based the design around an LED neon outlined heart shape, which had originally been a piece of artwork the band had used for branding. LED neon was also placed into stair treads that run the length of the risers for the band, with three steps high and eight sections across of neon in the stairs for 24 controllable steps.

"I love the looks of all the neon; there are really cool FX to run through the heart and stairs," said Waddell of the design. "I also love the backlit looks from the Nitro Strobes; I have two lines of nine units: one at the top of the cart and one at the bottom. The bottom line hits the band ri

UK - Entertainment engineering specialist WIcreations was asked to create an innovative solution for the current Massive Attack tour.

The video design, created by United Visual Artists (UVA) - needed a full horizontal section in the middle of a 14.4m wide by 6m high flown Roe MC7 LED screen - to protrude from the rest of the surface by half a metre.

This was to make specific text statements, facts and figures being displayed really stand out.

Massive Attack are known for their political conviction, raw, visceral lyrics, provocative subject matter and dedication to producing cerebral and thought-provoking shows exposing official lies, twists and economies of the truth ... wrapping it up in an entertaining and emotive live experience.

Their specific text-orientated video content has become a unique aesthetic signature for their performances, and making the lines of t

UK - For Biffy Clyro's headlining appearances at Leeds and Reading this Bank Holiday weekend, set designer Misty Buckley established a new benchmark to what is possible with transformative stage sets on festival stages.

"The stage is a square walled tunnel, a series of four portals of LED that enclose the full stage, each smaller than the next as you move upstage, and with a large landscape LED screen across the back," was how video director Jack Banks described it.

"Looking at what Misty has come up with you can't just put flat pictures behind the band. This is something entirely different to work with, it was great to get away from the classic 'big slab of telly' look. The portal screens introduce an amazing perspective to the video element and it was a chance to really think about how I could make content travel in and out of the set."

The portals, rear screen, d3 s

Spain - Sonobalance dealt with lighting the all-nighter that Nikki Beach Marbella threw to celebrate the arrival of the summer season. They used 12 Clay Paky Mythos units and an MA Lighting grandMA2 ultra-light desk.

David Calero Vioque was in charge of managing the event lighting and accompanying the festive atmosphere the party-goers enjoyed. He used 12 Clay Paky Mythos units as spotlights and beam lights in his design. The Mythos is the first 470W light with this option in a single device: it produces a well-defined light beam with a 4°-50° zoom. Its optical unit allows you to switch from spotlight to beam light mode with a beam angle of only 0.5°.

All the equipment was supplied by rental company Sonobalance, which provided the Clay Paky Mythos units and the MA Lighting GrandMA2 Ultra-light desk, distributed in Spain by Stonex.

(Jim Evans)

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.

White Light was approached to provide the lighting for this hugely-anticipated production and this included premium products from GLP.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his younger son Albus Severus Potter. The lighting designer for the show is Tony Award and Olivier Award-winner Neil Austin.

He comments, "My main aim for the show was to create something magical. With Ha

UK - A huge display featuring Christie award-winning Boxer 4K30 projectors was the impressive visual centre-piece of the Co-op's AGM in Manchester. Spanning a full 55m in width and 8m in height delivering stunning HD images and video during the event, the curved display was designed and installed by AtoV, an integration company specialising in live events.

The 2016 Co-op AGM was a particularly special occasion as it saw the launch of their brand identity including a revamp for its traditional logo as they go 'Back to being Co-op'. The event bought together 700 members from across the organisation's various business areas, and was held in Manchester's vast Central Station conference centre (MCR Central).

AtoV has a long-standing relationship with the Co-op, and Jim Hadfield, one of the company's engineers, has been working on the Co-op's AGMs for 18 years. As he relates, fo

Australia - Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett has just finished a solo tour of the country in support of his new album A Version of Now. On the East Coast, JPJ Audio supplied a FOH control and monitor set up as well as some extra wedges for a couple of gigs.

FOH engineer Colin Ellis mixed for Midnight Oil in the nineties, returning to mix for them at a couple of large charity events. With the band expected to reform and tour in 2017, this tour could be described as a bit of a warm up.

"I believe that Peter Garrett wanted me to do the tour," commented Colin. "We had production rehearsals in Sydney including a small show for friends and family. For the tour, we decided to use in house PA's which worked alright. However, none of the systems were amazing and it was the first time in many years that I used non line array systems!"

At Canberra Theatre, Peter's home

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