USA - Bandit Lites has opened its newest office in Charlotte, North Carolina, with the office focusing primarily on fixed installation projects.

"Because of our proximity to North Carolina, we had already done a number of projects in the area, so the opening of our office simply makes it easier to continue those relationships and support those projects," explained Chris Barbee, Bandit's national director of sales.

Senior system integrator Andrew Fisher, who joined the Bandit Lites sales team in 2013, brings his extensive knowledge of both lighting design and system installations to the growing Charlotte market.

Bandit also recently hired Emily Eudy as the installation project manager. Eudy's background in theatre lighting design and her decade in the industry working at Barbizon and Rosco LA makes her an invaluable addition to the team, where she will be assisting with

Mexico - Just opened, My Way has become one of the most prestigious clubs in Mexico City, and a reference for the sophisticated level of audio, video and lighting systems installed.

The My Way project undertaken by Ricardo Flores, director of Leds4Skys company, integrates five zones - the bar, the 'cube', the disco, the terraces and the VIP area, each with its own distinct 'personality' and specific lighting equipment.

A wide range of DTS moving heads is used in the dynamic lighting of the main areas - 30 JACK are fixed to the wall along the perimeter of the so-called 'cube' and allow to create with their projections a series of luminous geometries of great effectiveness.

Twenty-three MAX and 10 NICK NRG 1201, hanging above the discotheque, colour the entire area and the dancefloor below.

(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - When the local zoo in Emmen, the Netherlands, closed at the end of 2015 it wasn't long before animal lovers in the area had a renewed and even better animal theme park to visit. Inspired by Disney's Animal Kingdom and SeaWorld Orlando, Wildlands Adventure Zoo opened its doors on 25 March, 2016 as the area's new must-visit theme attraction.

Emmen's former zoo required a complete renovation so Wildlands contacted leading theming company Jora Entertainment to develop modern storytelling themed areas and the entertainment technology systems needed to help bring them to life. An important aspect was dynamic, decorative lighting schemes that could live up to the standard of its mentor attractions across the Atlantic.

Jora Entertainment subsequently developed a sensory scheme for the various themed areas of the newly built park, installing lighting, sound and sp

Spain - Wholesaler Monacor Iberia, which supplies professionals in the field of security and event equipment, has taken on the exclusive distribution of GLP products in Spain, with immediate effect.

GLP managing director, Udo K

UK - To support its continuing development, White Light has appointed Tom Wilkes as business development manager.

In this role, Tom will focus predominantly on managing the hire aspects of the various markets in which WL works. He comments, "I am absolutely delighted to be joining WL at such an exciting time. Whether it's corporate events, broadcast, education, trade, retail, or themed attractions, we have a strong reputation in each of these fields and this is something I will be looking to further strengthen."

Tom joins from Vision SL, a technical production company that he founded in 2009. A technical solutions company, Vision SL began by supplying lighting and audio to various bars and clubs. It then progressed into supplying events and festivals before the company began to specialise in video projection and LED mapping. As part of Tom's involvement, Vision SL will bec

UK - After a highly successful year with their new product portfolio - notably on the London West End stage - GLP's inventive solutions continue to evolve, as will be evidenced at this year's PLASA Show at London Olympia.

Visitors to their booth (#E60) will see the new GT-1 hybrid, which has been causing such a stir on the international circuit in 2016 - although this will be its first appearance at the London show.

Functioning as both a spot and a beam, the combination of a high powered 470W discharge lamp and advanced optical system has resulted in a high performance beam with an enormous 22:1 ratio zoom range (from 2.5° to 55°).

Easy to accommodate, with its unique baseless design, the GT-1 also features inbuilt wireless DMX control, full 16-bit pan and tilt movement, full range dimming and shuttering capability, an in-built battery for fixture setup, an aut

UK - ETC's 40th anniversary celebrations continue, and the next stop on the global tour is London for the annual PLASA Show, at Olympia, 18-20 September.

On stand J40, ETC will debut a brand new product, the ColorSource Linear. Like the popular ColorSource Spot and ColorSource PAR fixtures, this new batten-style addition to the range uses a proportionate recipe of red, green, blue, with a twist of lime and an extra dash of red. This gives a richness only possible from ETC LED luminaires. With no difficult setup and round-the-clock support from ETC's technical services department, it's the right fit for any small or medium venue.

Visitors to the show will have the opportunity to meet the rest of ETC's budget-friendly ColorSource family, the complete, high-quality LED system for venues on a budget. ColorSource Spot and PAR luminaires create bright light with better colour th

China - The lighting for the meeting in Hangzhou which will take place on September 4 and 5 will feature Osram spotlights, lamps and LEDs in various lighting projects.

High-quality lighting solutions from the Munich-based lighting specialist will be in use in the Congress Hall where representatives of the 20 most important industrial and emerging nations will be meeting. They will also be used to illuminate various outdoor areas.

Osram has supplied the hosts with several hundred spotlights and spotlight lamps. High, mid and low-power LEDs from Osram Opto Semiconductors are integrated in luminaires from the Chinese manufacturer Roleds.

To ensure optimum illumination for the Congress Hall at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Osram has supplied around 400 Kreios PAR units and more than 200 spotlights from its Italian subsidiary Clay Paky.

The innovative Clay Paky spotlights

UK - Hawthorn is currently on the road with Jamie Wilson Productions for the Curve Theatre production of Sister Act as it starts a year-long national tour. Hawthorn has drawn from its extensive hire range to provide lighting equipment for the production, including their new-to-stock Martin MAC Viper Performance, MAC Aura XB and Chroma Q Colour Force 72 fixtures.

Based on the hit movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Maggie Smith, Sister Act tells the story of Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva whose life takes a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder. Under protective custody she is hidden in the one place she won't be found - a convent. Disguised as a nun and under the suspicious watch of Mother Superior, Deloris helps her fellow sisters find their voices as she unexpectedly rediscovers her own.

Directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood, the product

UK - For its sixth year supplying the immersive metropolis, BoomTown Fair, Utopium provided lighting and rigging equipment to 12 stages and venues, 11-14 August 2016.

This summer's BoomTown Fair saw the introduction of over 80 street venues and an increased capacity of 60,000, making it the biggest year to date. The fully immersive festival features nine individually themed districts, impressive main stages and an eclectic line up of music and entertainment with the introduction of Sector 6, a brand new district and witnessed performances from Madness, Damian 'Jr Gong' Marley and Fat Freddy's Drop.

Utopium provided festival lighting and rigging to 12 main stages and venues, which included the Town Centre, The Lion's Den, The Jolly Dodger, The Old Mines, The Ballroom, Rusty Spurs and Tangled Roots.

To illuminate The Lion's Den stage, which is the largest reggae stage in

USA - It is somehow altogether fitting that Shinedown begins their set on the Carnival of Madness Tour with their raging rock anthem Adrenaline. An adrenaline rush is precisely what the hard rock icons have been serving up to fans on this festival tour with their cranked-up amps, ferocious riffs and frontman Brent Smith's nonstop stage prowls.

Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of SRae Productions have created a lightshow that does more than keep pace with the group's supercharged performance, they've also added an immersive sense of depth and drama to the Carnival of Madness stage with help from Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 FX-B fixtures, supplied by Bandit Lites.

Routhier and Long, who are the scenic as well as the lighting designers for the Shinedown tour, position the five-headed moving Rogue fixtures on seven ladders located upstage behind the set. This arrangeme

South Africa - DWR Distribution has added new members to the team - JP de Vernon and Kevin Stannett.

JP de Vernon has come on board as the sales representative for Africa and started at the company a month ago. He takes over Johnny Scholtz' position who will now handle architectural sales at DWR. Initially JP will have the hardest task, travelling to Africa and dealing with new clients and people he has never met before.

With Dave Whitehouse relocating to the UK, Kevin Stannett joins the team to handle sales in theatres, schools, broadcast, television studios and casinos. "When Dave told me he was leaving DWR and moving back to the UK it broke me," said Duncan. "One evening I phoned Kevin and asked if he would be interested in joining us. I think what is good is that Kevin, a talented lighting designer, has a background to Back of House so he is not trying to sell a produc

UK - Bridge Street Community Church in Leeds, UK, has opened up a new worship building and outfitted the space with Elation Professional stage and broadcast lighting, designed, supplied and installed by Wigwam Acoustics.

The new purpose-built Bridge Community Church is a multipurpose building catering for conferences and live events, as well as weekly church services. The newly completed development provides the church with a comprehensive community centre that includes a 1000-capacity auditorium, café and other facilities.

"We use Elation products on all of our lighting installations due to the finished result and also the price of the units compared to similar products," stated Tim Mortimer, installations manager at Wigwam Acoustics. Wigwam has a well established reputation for work in churches and cathedrals, so was well placed to design, supply and install a com

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

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

UK - The Prolight Concepts Group has released the eLumen8 CYC 500. A powerful 150W quad-colour COB LED (RGBW) allows this Cyclorama wash the ability to deliver rich, even tones across large areas, whilst ensuring perfect colour mixing without any multi-coloured shadows, the company says.

"The CYC 500 is an ideal colour changing flood for studios, stages and theatres that fits within anyone's budget. The flicker free operation and long LED life ensure years of faultless operation," said Andrew Jeffrey, managing director of The Prolight Concepts Group. "The unit comes loaded with features including 5-Pin DMX & PowerCON inputs/outputs and has a built-in four-button control panel with an intuitive, full colour, 180° reversible menu display for easy navigation."

Adding to the CYC 500s multitude of features is the fixtures stand-alone mode: RGBW colour mixing, LEE compatible

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 - 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

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