Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

Lighting

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Ireland - Electronic dance music lighting designer Conor Biddle specified an Avolites Sapphire Touch console to power his beat-perfect, immersive design for Winterparty '16, which returned to Dublin's 3Arena in October after a 12-year hiatus.

Inspired by the lighting at Las Vegas super-clubs, Biddle designed an intense, high-production show to celebrate the mammoth dance event's welcome return, which saw an epic line-up including Skream, Matador and Sven Vath.

"I specified the Avolites Sapphire Touch running the latest Titan version 10 because a dance event like this requires plenty of live busking," says Biddle. "The Sapphire Touch's dual screen and abundance of faders and features allowed me to create my ideal layout through using playbacks and macros. This ability is invaluable when putting together fast-paced designs that have to be adaptable."

Biddle worked alongs

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USA - Unlike virtually every state and county fair in the US, which take place in late summer, the Big E (or Eastern States Exposition, as it's also known), doesn't open until fall has begun its descent into winter. The timing is a throwback to the annual event's origins in 1916, when the six New England states joined forces to create an exposition that would showcase their agricultural capabilities near the end of the harvest season.

Agriculture and tradition still reign at the 17-day fair, as evidenced by its many livestock displays and historic replicas, as well as the classic New England cuisine like Vermont Cheddars and Massachusetts clam fritters that it treats over 1.3m visitors to every year.

However, even as it reaches the century mark, the Big E is also serving up sizzling contemporary entertainment with big name acts like George Thorogood and Grammy-nominated el

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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USA - The Moody Blues wrapped another successful run with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites. The British rock band boasts 18 platinum and gold albums with retail sales of more than 70m units, proving that the Moody Blues are one of the longest lasting artists of the famed 'British Invasion'.

Lighting designer Mick Thornton utilized a rig featuring Robe Pointes, Bandit's exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes and Pars, as well as 80 Clay Paky Mirage Panels controlled with a GrandMA1 console.

"I tend to design a show that is very video content orientated and work the colours with the lights and video to create a very Moody Blues feel," said Thornton. "I strongly believe in big focus positions and great timing."

Having worked with The Moody Blues for 14 years, Thornton is afforded creative licence over the look of the lighting, saying, "The set list very rarely changes

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South Africa - The main venue for the massive triannual Every Nation Conference organised by Every Nation Church - at the 5000 capacity Grand West's Grand Arena in Cape Town - provided an ideal opportunity for lighting designer Alan Muller of FX Unlimited to use Robe Spiiders for the first time.

It was in fact the first live show in SA to use Robe's brand new LED washbeam product launched last month.

The 12 Spiiders were part of a rig containing over 100 other Robe fixtures provided by technical suppliers C&S Audio who were working for event technical producers, Bad Weather Productions. Both companies are based in Cape Town.

Alan worked closely with technical production manager Andrew Bosman from Bad Weather who produced the original stage designs and the video content with his team and Pierre Smith, production director of Every Nation Church Somerset West.

The con

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Germany - Philips Lighting has announced entertainment technology supplier cast as the first full distribution partner of its entire entertainment lighting portfolio in Germany.

As official distributor, cast has integrated Philips Vari-Lite moving head luminaires into its stock. The company will also hold a wider range of Philips Selecon LED fixtures, Strand Lighting control consoles and Showline effects lights. This will facilitate faster delivery of units and spare parts within Germany.

General Manager for Philips Lighting's entertainment business Grant Bales-Smith said, "As part of our strategy of being a provider of connected lighting systems, we are establishing partnerships around the world that will offer a total entertainment lighting capability so our customers have a one-stop shop for all their lighting and project needs. We have decided to take this step with ca

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Trumped - Sir Elton John will not perform at Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, a spokeswoman for the singer has said. Anthony Scaramucci, a member of Trump's transition team, had told BBC HARDtalk that Sir Elton would perform in Washington DC in January. "Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall for the inauguration," Mr Scaramucci said. But this was "categorically denied" by Sir Elton's representative in London. "There is no truth in this at all," she told BBC News.

During the election campaign, Sir Elton had expressed support for Mr Trump's opponent, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Performing at a fundraising event for Mrs Clinton in Los Angeles in October, he was reported to have told the crowd, "We need a humanitarian in the White House, not a barbarian."

Mr Trump had used Sir Elton's songs Rocket Man and Tiny Dancer -

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Canada - CAST BlackTrax Ltd has appointed Andrew Gordon as their new director of business development to work exclusively on growing BlackTrax real-time motion tracking system, globally.

Andrew brings over a decade of sales, marketing management and operations experience working formerly as business development director at Freeman Audiovisual, Canada. From 2009 to 2014, he worked with CAST Group as the marketing & communication and business development manager across WYSIWYG, Vivien and BlackTrax early stage products.

Andrew is charged with expanding BlackTrax's business into new markets, increasing market share and presence in entertainment and production markets, instrumental to BlackTrax's success. He will also continue to maintain successful relationships with BlackTrax's established customer base and growing technical expert and support teams. For every BlackTrax proj

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USA - The Eos family of consoles just got bigger - by going smaller. After a successful preview at LDI, ETC has officially launched the Gio @5 console, which brings the professional-grade control of the Eos Ti and Gio consoles within reach of users with tighter spaces - and tighter budgets.

"With the Gio @5, we've given you a little bit of everything," says product manager Anne Valentino. This portable console packs all the control necessities into its narrow, 25.5-inch (641 mm) footprint, making external monitors and accessories optional. The desk includes an articulating, 17-inch, multi-touch LCD display, four encoders with haptic feedback, five definable and page-able motorised faders, a master fader pair and a retractable tray with backlit alpha-numeric keyboard.

The Gio @5 derives its name from the Eos command that sets a level at fifty percent, but don't be fooled by

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USA - On her current tour opening for superstar Chris Young, Cassadee Pope is supported by a Michael Stanley-designed lightshow that's as freewheeling and multi-faceted as her music, thanks in part to some very versatile Rogue R1 FX-B fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by Bandit Lites. Stanley, who is also the programmer and lighting director for Chris Young, used 12 of the rotating Rogue fixtures in his floor package for Pope after consulting with the Bandit Lites team.

"Cassadee and her TM Don Muzquiz showed interest in going for a linear look," he recalled. "Mike Golden, Cassadee's account manager at Bandit, pitched the R1 FX-B to me, and Jake Tickle at Bandit demoed it. After we saw it, we jumped all over the idea. The linear shape of the fixture obviously could give us the orientation we wanted. But beyond that, we knew that all of the angles and effects we coul

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Sweden - The Cirkus venue in Stockholm has just installed a complete new ProLights lighting rig, supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd. (AC-ET), onto the Skandia stage. The multi-functional venue, which opened in October 2015, hosts a diverse range of events including concerts, theatre and conferences.

After having a positive experience when previously working with the AC-ET team, Palle Gustavsson, CEO of Cirkus, didn't think twice before approaching Johan Bertilsson, the distributor's regional sales representative for Sweden, to recommend fixtures for their new rig.

Palle commented, "Johan came in and demonstrated the ProLights fixtures, which I instantly felt were perfect for the job, fulfilling all our wants and needs. "I got my technical team to review them and they immediately fell in love with them."

With so many different performance genres at the Skan

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USA - There aren't many towns of 1,200 that attract over 4m tourists a year, but then few things about Wisconsin Dells are ordinary. Billing itself as the 'Waterpark Capital of the World', this rural hamlet is home to 20 waterparks, including the largest in the United States. For drier fun, there's also go cart racing, safaris, skydiving and similar attractions.

Knuckleheads Bowling and Indoor Amusement Park fits right into the fun-filled spirt of Wisconsin Dells. Measuring 80,000sq.ft, it offers tourists and locals alike a chance to escape, with bumper cars, trampolines, virtual reality games, 4-D movies - and, oh yes, bowling. Ensuring that its bowling lanes keep up with its other attractions, Knuckleheads illuminates them with an ever-changing richly coloured lightshow created by Tracy Roudebush using 80 COLORband H9 USB fixtures from Chauvet DJ.

Roudebush, owner of Cyg

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USA - Surf was up this year at LDI, and the beach could be found at the ENTTEC Americas booth. "The design of the booth was a team effort. The original concept came from our technical director Tim Parrish. Then Jeremy Kumin [ENTTEC Americas general manager], Brandon Mitchell [technical sales and support] and I took the design through its various phases of change and into finalization. Kaitlin Gill was the overall project manager," explains Crystal Lee, business development manager at ENTTEC Americas.

The beach themed booth was also home to Nic's Place, a fully stocked beach style bar that was also a nod to ENTTEC's founder Nic Moreau, who was also in attendance at the booth. o help visitors get into the beach feel, ENTTEC was handing out Pacific blue ENTTEC flip flops and wrap-around sunglasses.

Some LDI exhibitors created a walled off black space to demo their wares; othe

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Europe - Continuing a long working relationship with production executive, Andy Derbyshire, event manager, Maggie Mouzakitis, event production manager, Lisa Shenton, and show lighting designer, Tom Kenny, PRG XL Video has supplied lighting for the 2016 MTV EMA.

This year's event was held on 6 November at the Rotterdam Ahoy and was hosted by US artist Bebe Rexha. The event opened with glamorous red carpet arrivals from the star presenters and performers, hosted by Laura Whitmore and Sway Calloway, and PRG XL also supplied lighting, rigging, and video technology for the red carpet event.

PRG XL's account managers, Kelly Cornfield and Mat Ilott were initially contacted by line producer, Sophie Huda, and Red Carpet event manager, Sean McNally, to supply an outdoor video wall, high impact lighting, and supporting rigging for the red carpet area. Working with set designer, Adam

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USA - The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) chose ArKaos MediaMaster PRO to drive the visual content for its production of Green Day's American Idiot. MediaMaster PRO was chosen for the ease with which it handled the demanding artistic concept, its speed of mapping and its easy-to-understand processes for editing content and operation.

The ArKaos software was supplied by IED, whose principal partner, Jeffrey Brown, is also adjunct instructor for theatre/event media and video at CCM. Brown built three media servers specifically to take advantage of the MediaMaster software. "I have had a relationship with the people at ArKaos for years, and I have been a huge fan of their software since before I knew them personally," says Brown.

"Aubrey Berg, the director for Green Day's American Idiot, had certain desires for this production, most

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New Zealand - A prominent rocky outgroup in Tasman Bay, Nelson's Fifeshire Rock was once known and feared as a shipping hazard. In the years since, it has become one of New Zealand's most treasured national landmarks. Standing some 14m above the high tide mark, it cuts an imposing and beautiful shape in the distant horizon and is often the subject of photography and artworks.

Recently, Nelson's Civic Trust desired to make the rock a round-the-clock attraction by lighting it during the hours of darkness. To illuminate the famous outcrop, MDR Sound & Lighting supplied AV Architects Ltd with a Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrid fixture.

A spot high above the waterfront drive was selected by Nelson's Civic Trust to house the lighting source. However, since this spot was 236 metres from the rock itself, AV Architects Ltd recognized that any fixture placed there would have to

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The Netherlands - The MTV Europe Music Awards delivered another spectacular production 6 November at the Ahoy Rotterdam Arena in The Netherlands, where Europe's favourite artists were honoured and a star-studded line up of today's hottest acts performed on a massive stage lit by top lighting designer Tom Kenny.

This year Kenny had an immense and extremely artful set to light designed by Julio Himende. Included in the correspondingly large visual package was Elation Professional ACL 360 Matrix LED moving head panels, which Kenny employed throughout the show.

As music awards shows go they don't get much bigger than the MTV Awards. Hosted by Bebe Rexha, this year's list of performers was impressive and included top acts Bruno Mars, Green Day, Afrojack, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd and others.

The MTV EMA's has set a high standard of production, performance and excitement, bot

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Bolivia - Rental and production Company Spectrum, based in Cochabamba in the centre of the country nestled in a valley amidst the magnificent peaks of the Andes mountain range has invested in 12 x Robe LEDBeam 1000 fixtures and 16 x Pointe multi-purpose moving lights.

Purchasing a premium brand like Robe helps establish Spectrum as one of the most significant and serious players in the Bolivian production industry.

The company works across all sectors and is particularly well known as a lighting provider for concerts, festivals, tours and live events as well as TV and theatre productions and corporate activations.

Spectrum's owner Gonzalo Hermosa is a well-known singer / songwriter, successful composer and founder of famous Bolivian folk band Los Kjarkas. He has long had a vision of driving the quality of production for shows, tours and events in the country upwards to

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UK - The new musical adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic The Wind in the Willows is bound for London's West End next year following a hugely successful tour. Full service technical production company Hawthorn was called upon by producer Jamie Hendry to provide the lighting equipment for the initial performances of the ambitious production, with the company now supplying kit for the show's London Palladium season.

For the tour, Hawthorn supplied lighting from its extensive hire range to meet the specification of award winning Lighting Designer Howard Harrison. This included 24 Claypaky Sharpy Wash, fifty-two ETC Source 4 LED LUSTR2 Profiles and 28 Martin MAC Viper Performance fixtures. The vast rig also features 20 of Hawthorn's ColorForce 72 LED Battens and sixteen Robe BMFL moving lights.

"It's a big show with a lot of scenery and a large lighting rig" says How

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UK - Rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment made some serious investments for the current Placebo Retrospective arena tour which features a stunning visual design by Jvan Morandi for which the west London company is delivering the full lighting, video and rigging package.

This includes a new Kinesys automation system; new robo and static video cameras and new Robe Spiider WashBeam moving lights amongst several other purchases.

Colour Sound's Haydn "H" Cruickshank says, "We were delighted to win this tour which presented a perfect opportunity for us to expand our video department, invest in comprehensive and sophisticated motion control and expand the extensive moving light stock with the latest Robe technology, together with smoke machines, fans, cabling infrastructure and much more. As always it is a pleasure to work with Jvan and help realise his ambitious and demandi

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USA - Hard rock band Shinedown is out on an epic tour run with a striking lighting package provided by long time vendor Bandit Lites and designed by Sooner Routhier. With more than 10m albums sold, the band is comprised of vocalist Brent Smith, bassist Eric Bass, drummer Barry Kerch and guitarist Zach Meyers.

Bandit supplied Shinedown with a layered lighting rig that consists of VL 3000s for front wash and specials, while Clay Paky B-EYES wash the stage and add powerful accent effects for songs. Phillips Nitros and Chauvet Rogue R1 FX B's placed in ladders provide accent and back light along with Elation ACL 360i fixtures. The ACL 360i are placed behind a diffused plexiglass, giving them different effects.

Bandit recently added Martin Sceptrons that play video content, while Martin MAC Vipers round out design with big beam looks, texture and special effects.

Lighting d

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UK - They seem to have been a part of the Coldplay arsenal of live audience participation forever but in fact the very first Xylobands were used on 6 October 2011 for Coldplay's launch show for Mylo Xyloto in Madrid.

Deanie Thain and Jason Regler were the brains behind the hardware. Thain recalls how it all unfolded, "We have just celebrated our five-year anniversary. The first wristbands had a timer, so each one had to be programmed individually to go off at exactly the same time - quite a challenge and very time-consuming and a lot of friends and family helped to get them done on time.

"The original idea came from Jason Regler seeing Coldplay perform at Glastonbury 2005," continues Thain, "He wanted something to unify the crowd with lights and make them part of the show. After the first trial event, we then had another short time to create a radio-controlled version of t

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Korea - Grammy-nominated, industrial hard-rock legend Marilyn Manson returned to Seoul for the first time in eight years as part of his solo world tour, delivering an energetic show for a legion of ardent fans at the Yes24 Live Hall. Lighting designer Corey Stewart drove the performance's intense lighting using an Avolites Pearl Expert console and wing.

For the South Korean date, Stewart hired the console from Seoul-based rental company TKLS. His dynamic rig consisted of Claypaky Sharpys, Martin MAC Viper Profiles, Martin Viper Wash DXs, Martin Atomics and Fay Blinders.

Stewart is new to the Manson production family, having taken over as lighting designer in the summer for the Slipknot/Marilyn Manson North American tour. Using Avolites consoles since 2011, Stewart has also worked with the likes of Trivium, Misfits frontman Danzig and Of Mice and Men.

"I've been touring

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UK - Over a century ago, northeast England was the crucible of the burgeoning railway industry. Nowhere was this more evident than in Newcastle, where the Robert Stephenson & Co ruled as the pre-eminent maker of locomotive engines.

The rail industry has long since faded into the past, but now the area behind Newcastle's main station, or "Stevenson Quarter" as it is known, has come roaring back as a dynamic, hip multi-use urban space that features upscale hotels, over 340,000sq.ft of office and retail space, and a hot live music and art venue called the Boiler Shop.

Located in the former Boiler Shop of the original Stephenson & Co locomotive works, the new club features a contemporary high-octane lighting system created by Trylight Productions, using a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures.

James Mounsey, project manager at Trylight Productions, and his team posit

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Czech Republic - Robe was a sponsor of the 2016 Signal Festival of Light, staged over four days in and around the city of Prague.

Twenty-three original and innovative pieces of light art drew estimated crowds of up to 400,000 into the city to enjoy the event which started in 2013, and is now recognised as one of the biggest as well as one of Europe's foremost festivals of light.

Robe provided 80 of their Pointe multi-functional moving lights and 40 ColorStrobes for an installation by Russian based collective TUNDRA.

Epicenter v2 was staged at the Palac Narodni, a retail and residential development which is currently still under construction and features with a large cylindrical two storey void right in the centre.

The work was designed especially to fit this space and create an extreme psychological experience with pulsating, flashing and exploding hotspots of ligh

  1. Claypaky at Irish dance music spectacular
  2. Dave Koz and friends celebrate Christmas
  3. Rogues rock Intergalactic Disco
  4. SGM installation nominated for lighting award
  5. Robe on court at WTA Finals in Singapore
  6. AC-SP installation at John Lewis studio
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