Lighting

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15 May 2024

Denmark - Performing arts centre Musikhuset Esbjerg has upgraded with advanced dimming and power management solutions from Australian lighting controls manufacturer LSC Control Systems. The new system has delivered faster workflows, increased flexibility, space-saving, and greater peace of mind to this busy, multi-faceted venue.

Musikhuset Esbjerg serves a broad programme of performing arts to the Danish city – including plays, musicals, opera, comedy, and conferences. (Interestingly, this is not its only link with Australia: architect Jørn Utzon, who oversaw the building’s design along with his son, Jan, back in the late 90s, also designed the Sydney Opera House). Today, the building attracts over 150,000 visitors each year, including 80,000 for cultural events and 30,000 for conference and meetings, the remainder being tourists and visitors to non-pay

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15 May 2024

Italy – Last month, From the Heart to Hands: Dolce&Gabbana opened its doors at Palazzo Reale Milano. Supermodel Naomi Campbell opened the proceedings, inaugurating an evening of celebrations, from a tour of the rooms hosting the display to a fine dining experience.

Every detail of this exhibition has been ‘meticulously orchestrated from ambient and theatrical lighting to scented rooms’.

Produced by IMG, From the Heart to the Hands: Dolce & Gabbana, curated by Florence Müller is an exhibition that pays tribute to the values of Fatto A Mano (hand-made), and delves into the creative imagery and cultural references that underpin the essence of the iconic fashion house that have been essential since its founding.

ERCO helped bring this vision to life, working closely with IMG to provide innovative lighting solution

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15 May 2024

Australia - Tim Goodacre is a busy and in-demand freelance gaffer and lighting specialist based in Sydney and working all over Australia, primarily on TV dramas.

He has invested steadily in Astera to help drive his business over the last two years, most recently purchasing one of the new LeoFresnel products from Astera’s Australian and New Zealand distributor – ULA Group, which is added to his existing stock of AX3 Lightdrop and NYX Bulb kits and workhorse Astera Titan and Helios Tubes.

He immediately utilised the LeoFresnel on season two of the award-winning Netflix Heartbreak High reboot, specifically for a forest night scene shot on location with the students camping out under the moonlight.

In a different scenario, a moving light might conventionally be used, however the practicalities of the location essentially demanded a w

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14 May 2024

UK - GLS Lighting, the Southampton based lighting hire company, has been awarded the ESG Mark, an industry benchmark for companies committed to a sustainable future.

GLS Lighting was founded in 1995, to provide lighting equipment to the concert and theatre industry, working on concert tours and events in the UK and worldwide. Over the past 20 years they have progressively introduced initiatives synonymous with the ESG Mark principles. Through the rigorous assessment process, GLS Lighting demonstrated a high level of performance against environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles and an ongoing commitment to positive change.

Additionally, GLS Lighting has joined over 14,000 businesses in the UK by becoming an accredited Real Living Wage employer. The company aims to guarantee that staff are paid a wage rate that meets the cost of living. The

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14 May 2024

Slovenia - Singer-songwriter Nina Pušlar played a major sold-out show in Ljubljana’s 14,400-capacity Stožice Arena which was recorded for broadcast on national TV and celebrated the release of new music from Nina, for which her team including creative director Anže Škrube wanted a spectacular production.

Lighting designer Amadej Šuperger from design studio Blackout specified large quantities of Robe moving lights which made up 75% of the lighting. The positions were facilitated by an angled triangular truss in the centre with four bracing trusses flanked by raked grids of crisscrossing trusses in the roof above the stage, which brought a structural look and industrial tone to the performance area. It also amplified the depth of the performance space.

Amadej has been working with the artist for some time. He already had a show designed for smal

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14 May 2024

Europe - Ayrton has announced the official launch of Kyalami, its first IP65-rated laser source luminaire in its Creative Solution series.

Kyalami is inspired by the multiple award-winning MagicDot. First released in 2015, MagicDot sold by the thousands within months, and still inspires creativity. Nine years later it has given birth to Kyalami.

Devised for architectural graphic effects, Kyalami is an ultra-compact luminaire with great creative potential. Its essential performance capability is based on its design, extreme miniaturisation, and a minimalist cylindrical footprint that allows multiple luminaires to be installed only a few centimetres apart.

A sphere of just 265mm incorporates Kyalami’s 100W laser module, cooling system and optics, while its 126mm front lens positioned in the continuity of the sphere provides Kyalami with a uni

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13 May 2024

USA - Bandit Lites has added adds Claypaky Sharpy X Frames to its touring arsenal and is the first company in the world to send the Sharpy X Frames on the road.

“I am very excited to have these in our inventory to offer our clients,” said Jake Tickle, Bandit Lites vice president of business and innovation. “Claypaky somehow found a way to create what may be the most complete Hybrid Beam fixture in its category. From smooth, even output to intense beams, the Sharpy X Frame really does it all.”

Bandit wasted no time in getting the Sharpy X Frames out on tour with American blues guitarist and singer Gary Clark, Jr. (lighting design by John Adamo and Robert Fuller), The Used (lighting design by Dillon Pajunas and Joe Nicoletti) and Hardy’s set at Patriot Fest (lighting design by Trevor Drawdy). Other tours are in the planning phase now.

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13 May 2024

USA - Working with lighting designer Roger Gant, Montreal-based visual design company Lüz studio oversaw the lighting design, creative design and video content for Billy Strings’ ongoing US tour and festival dates, which feature Ayrton fixtures, grandMA3 consoles and MDG theONE atmospheric generators provided by Bandit Lites in Nashville.  ACT Entertainment exclusively distributes all three product brands in North America.

The singer, songwriter and bluegrass star’s current tour commenced in Asheville, North Carolina in February. Dates are booked nationwide through April and May, there’s a break in June and July for a trio of festival performances, then the tour resumes for a summer leg that wraps at LA’s Kia Forum. Billy Strings’ 2024 tour is in support of his Grammy-nominated collaborative album with his father, ME/AND/DAD.

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13 May 2024

Canada - For Winnipeg’s large French-speaking community, the Franco-Manitobain Cultural Centre (CCFM) serves as an important cultural gathering spot for events and celebrations. CCFM recently marked its 50th Anniversary in grand fashion with a dazzling show featuring a production design by Red Rover Entertainment and illuminated by Elation lighting.

With two large-scale shows as well as several smaller events on the schedule, the venue’s year-long anniversary celebration commemorates the rich cultural heritage of Winnipeg’s francophone community across five decades. For a special anniversary show that took place 19 April, several francophone artists who have graced the CCFM stage over the past 50 years, old and young talent alike, were invited to perform backed by a house band.

Jon Stanners, who has operated Red Rover Entertainment in Winnipeg

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10 May 2024

UK - Penn Elcom, the manufacturer of flightcase hardware, racking, speaker component, cabling, LED lighting and other related elements, is celebrating 50 years in business. Founded in 1974 by Roger Willems, initially focusing on metals and anodising, the company has expanded and diversified over the five decades and is now producing and supplying an array of vital entertainment industry related infrastructural elements, which are fabricated from bases in the UK, US, Germany and China in a tightly co-ordinated operation involving over 600 full-time employees.

“So many fantastic people have contributed to making Penn Elcom what it is today,” says Roger. “Their collective personalities, foresight and diligence have helped shape the strong brand identity that sees us achieve this landmark anniversary. I want to say a huge and sincere thankyou to each and e

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10 May 2024

USA - Don’s Seafood is an institution around Ascension Parish, famous for its Zydeco Shrimp, Fried Allegator, and other Cajun delicacies. But it’s been a long time since Don’s did the kind of business it did on 5-6 April. According to its owner, the 90-year-old restaurant saw more than $20,000 in additional sales that weekend.

The story at Don’s was repeated throughout Gonzales, a Louisiana town of roughly 13,000 people, as every place from the local hotel to the service station and cowboy boots store did more business. That’s exactly just what the folks at 46 Entertainment and Peach Tree Entertainment were hoping for when they put together Rock The Country, a series of two-day festivals intended to give an economic boost to seven hard-hit small towns across the South.

Appearing at the series inaugural event, which took place just a few mil

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10 May 2024

Italy - After participating in Sanremo 2024, Roman singer-songwriter Gazzelle, exponent of Italian indie pop, left for the Inside X always tour, with a total of 12 dates throughout Italy.

Lighting designer Andrea Arlotti chose to use the innovative and powerful Ayrton Rivale Profile, the most versatile fixture in the Ayrton range, equipped with continuous rotation of the pan and tilt movement.

“I chose Ayrton because it is top of the range equipment, and supplied by Mister X,” he says. “I positioned the Rivale Profile in the hanging trusses and use them mainly for effect lighting during the songs. They have high definition and excellent beam brightness.

“The concept echoes that of Rome’s 2023 Olympic stadium repurposed as a sports hall. A simple but very direct concept, with large screens and linear trusses, to directly convey the e

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10 May 2024

UK - ETC dealer Stage Electrics has supplied ColorSource Spot Jr fixtures to upgrade the lighting in London’s Park Theatre.

Park Theatre is a local venue in north London which houses two performance and rehearsal spaces that showcase a diverse mix of new and emerging productions. The team at the theatre were looking to upgrade the existing lighting rig to LED as part of an initiative to reduce tungsten and also make a more sustainable investment for the future. ETC’s affordable ColorSource Spot Jr was the preferred choice – with 14 of the fixtures being selected for the theatre.

The compact yet powerful nature of ColorSource Spot Jr was just one of the reasons that made it a good solution for the venue as the theatre space features a thrust stage whereby many of the fixtures hang in close proximity to the audience. The fixture’s built-in zoom

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10 May 2024

New Zealand - Lighting designer Jo Kilgour created the lighting design for Hatupatu / Kurungaituku: a forbidden love, a new aerial dance work produced by Aotearoa’s kaupapa Māori theatre company, Taki Rua Productions. The work, written by creative director Tānemahuta Gray and Kapa Haka by Wētini Mītai-Ngātai, premiered at the Tãwhiri Warehouse in Wellington as part of the 2024 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

Eighteen Robe T1 PCs and 10 x LEDWash 600 wash beams made up an integral part of Jo’s lighting rig, which was supplied to this production by Wellington-based rental company, Grouse Lighting, and project managed by Cameron Nicholls with the assistance of Riley Gibson.

The immersive storytelling was presented in traverse, with the audience standing either side of a central 1.5m-high runway stage, relating the tale of w

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10 May 2024

The Netherlands - When Easter is approaching, many people are busy trying to decide how they want to spend their long weekend off, but for the employees at Stagelight, they are already busy working on one of first major music festivals in the Dutch calendar. Paaspop is a three-day festival that takes place in Schijndel on Easter weekend each year, but the build-up starts much earlier.

Each stage at the festival not only has to be built from scratch, but also equipped with sound and lighting equipment worthy of some of the biggest national and international acts. This year’s event saw names like Anouk, Editors and Tiësto among the headliners.

Stagelight has been providing Paaspop with lighting equipment for a long time and this year was no exception. In total, project manager Hermen Klerks selected a grand total of 1,310 light fixtures from Infinit

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10 May 2024

Australia - Seamless AV has chosen Prolights' Astra Wash19PixIP to update its inventory in response to the increased demand for outdoor installations. Alex Moffat, director of Seamless AV, consulted Show Technology, the Prolights distributor in Australia, for the selection of new IP projectors to be included in the inventory.

The choice fell on Prolights' Astra Wash19PixIP. The Astra Wash19PixIP was designed to be a workhorse for any large, outdoor stage or installation, offering a robust and sealed mechanical assembly but keeping the same features and performance as its indoor version.

"We have found the units to be robust for outdoor work and they have not missed a beat,” commented Moffat. "They are amazing as a wash unit and having the LED outer ring makes them look stunning as eye candy for back-of-stage looks. The four to 54-degree zoom makes

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09 May 2024

UK – The Profile Awards, dedicated to TV and theatre lighting design, will take place on 6 June at Alexandra Palace. In the run up to the inaugural ceremony, the judging teams are hard at work whittling down the many shows and productions they have seen to select their winners.

Theatre Awards chair, David Benedict explains the process: “The theatre section of The Profile Awards is judged by eight of the UK’s leading theatre, dance and opera critics. Every single new production we see is automatically eligible for consideration.”

He continues: “At our lengthy judging session, we drew up a long list of 30 pieces of outstanding lighting design from the literally hundreds of productions we saw in person across the year. That list was then whittled down to a shortlist of 18. From there, we chose to salute the work of eight of the most exciting t

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08 May 2024

Europe - Berlin-based Kontra K, the rapper who tops the German hip-hop scene, has toured arenas across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg throughout February and March.

Lighting designer, Marcus Herzog, specified 112 Ayrton Eurus Profile fixtures for his lighting design on a stage designed by Kriss Hinrichsen for this tour. The Eurus Profiles were provided by the tour’s lighting supplier, BBM Clair.

Herzog explain why they chose the Eurus Profile for his very unusual design which involved a number of automated overhead lighting pods and video walls, as well as more conventional lighting positions: “We decided on the Eurus because of the exceptionally high light output and the flexibility of the lamp,” he explains.

“The majority of the fixtures are installed in six pods, which are arranged in a semi-circular arch above the st

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08 May 2024

USA - Three lighting design students from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) recently had the opportunity to work with Elation Proteus Lucius and Fuze Wash Z350 moving head luminaires on Winter Works, a dance production featuring three original works by three professional choreographers from the UCSD dance faculty.

Produced yearly by the school’s Theatre & Dance Department, Winter Works specialises in dance repertory production. This year, Taylor Olson, Elba Emicente, and Vida Huang collaborated with choreographers Kara Mack, Ana María Álvarez, and Dr. Grace Shinhae Jun, respectively, on the performances. The productions, which involved a large cast of student performers, were showcased from 15-17 March at the 400-seat Mandell Weiss Forum on the UCSD campus.

Taylor Olson, an MFA lighting designer at UCSD, who lit

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08 May 2024

Canada - The Big Air Show ski/snowboarding event at the Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood, Ontario, featured a fast moving and colourful lighting design created with Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Production Service Industries (PSI).

Lighting designer Andrew Dawson and production manager/co-designer Matt Chambers lined each side of the 200ft landing with five towers, separated by about 50ft. Each tower had three Color STRIKE M motorized wash-strobes and a single Rogue Outcast 2X Wash on top.

Drawing on the intense output and colour rendering prowess of these fixtures, the designers created a series of distinct and colourful looks for the 20-to-30 skier and snowboarder jumpers who participated every night.

“We broke our colour combinations down into a few segments,” said Dawson. “This year's show featured a ‘competition mo

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08 May 2024

Germany - The Hannover State Opera selected Prolights Astra Hybrid330 to light up the 2024 Opera Ball, held under the theme Let the Sunshine In. The event drew over 3,330 guests and showcased a range of musical performances, from classical to modern, necessitating a flexible and adaptable lighting system.

The Astra Hybrid330 proved to be up to the challenge with their hybrid design, which includes both beam and spot capabilities, a wide zoom range, and CMY colour mixing, enabling seamless transitions between different styles of performance.

Positioned 12m above the main stage, these spotlights provided an exceptional performance under the direction of lighting designer Fabian Grohmann who shared his enthusiasm for the Astra Hybrid330: "I was truly amazed by their capability. Despite their compact size, the Astra Hybrid330 spotlights are incr

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07 May 2024

USA - Light Action of Wilmington, Delaware, acknowledges that they have one of the best gigs in the industry. Each year for more than a decade, they’ve provided full-service production for a string of legacy acts on Rock Legends Cruise, a floating rock festival with a cause that sails the Caribbean every February. For years they have relied on Elation lighting to illuminate multiple stages and this year turned to newly acquired Proteus Lucius LED profile fixtures to raise the production even further.

“Gigs don’t get much better than this one,” stated Brian Market, COO at Light Action. “We have a great client in the Native American Heritage Association, it’s a great cause, and there is literally a boatload of rock talent on board. People love it so much they come year after year, and we help keep it exciting for them with top level production on t

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07 May 2024

Poland - Robe supported the 2024 Scena Jutra (Stage of Tomorrow) two-day symposium in Warsaw, which this year changed up to a new venue inside the city’s Palace of Culture & Science in downtown, one of Europe’s tallest buildings.

The sixth edition of this growing two-day event featured over 120 speakers, both international and from across Poland, who gave a series of presentations or joined lively panel discussions. These embraced an eclectic variety of topics all related to production design, visual and sonic art also embracing architecture and built spaces, plus several more esoteric but related subjects.

While the designated exhibition area provided a backdrop for Robe to showcase some of its latest tech, the vibe was more about stimulating ideas and exploring the adventure of possibilities that might be achieved now and in the future thro

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03 May 2024

USA - The promoters of the 27th Arizona Bike week billed their event as a ‘five-day celebration of motorcycles and music’. Half a million visitors attended the event at Westworld of Scottsdale in early April.

John Garberson and his team at Creative Backstage designed the stage using fixtures from their own inventory as well as gear supplied by LIT Lighting. The production team’s effort provided a vast and supportive canvas for LDs from Godsmack, Yelawolf, Brantley Gilber, Everclear, and George Thorogood & The Destroyers.

As part of their plan to create a larger impression during the festival, Arizona Bike Week organisers asked Garberson to have larger IMAG Side screens. At the same time the bands had their own requests. As Garberson recalls it: “Our client wanted to beef up the side screens from last year, while the production teams from