Lighting

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14 March 2016

wysiwyg - 'What You See Is What You Get' - is an award-winning software suite that is the graphic application tool used by production professionals to create stunning pre-visualisations of lighting and video designs at home or in a studio, without having to spend time and money programming at the actual venue. The software gets its name from its ability to deliver renders that are identical to what the designer can expect to see at the event itself, helping users become more

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14 March 2016

Elton John's lighting designer Kevin 'Stick' Bye, a former Vari-Lite technician, prefers to use Vari-Lites and for this run he preferred to have around 52 VL3000 and 12 VL2000 washes. Lighting was supplied by PRG.

Nickleback's lighting designer Butch Allen also used PRG's Vari-Lite 3000 fixtures as well as six VL2500 washes with Chris Maeder in control.

The most talked about concert was Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto World Tour where lighting designer Paul Normandale used Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX units to create a lighting experience to perfectly complement the band's ultraviolet spectacular.

"The band wanted a vivid ultraviolet feel, with a sphere of energy that could transform from small to massive," explained

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14 March 2016

John, from Woolwich Arsenal, South East London, has many years' experience in technical and specification sales, with a broad range of customers up to board level.

With a track record that includes experience in the lighting sector, he will lead on technical specification for 8point3, which manufactures and installs LED lighting systems, predominantly for industrial and commercial clients.

"LED lighting makes perfect commercial sense for businesses as it brings with it energy savings of up to 80 per cent, cost savings and a reduced carbon footprint," said John.

"More and more businesses are waking up to this and it is a real growth industry. Just as importantly, LED offers the lighting designer a real opportunity to produce innovative

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14 March 2016

A classic rock 'n' roll show it is, complete with guitar and drum solos and row of on-stage Marshall amps. Once recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as 'The globe's loudest band', Deep Purple can still put on a powerful, energy-filled show, and that goes for the lighting rig as well.

Deep Purple's latest tour may not be as ear-splittingly loud as year's past thanks to sound exposure limits but there are no limits on how bright or active a lighting rig can be. And Louis Ball takes full advantage.

"They really take a hammering," he says of the 1500-watt moving head fixtures, supplied for the tour by TDA Rental. "The show is evolving ev

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14 March 2016

Collison commented: "The biggest advantage of the grandMA2 platform on this project was the simplicity of the networking. Being able to have a control surface on the floor and one in the arena grandstand really helped manage the plotting. The show is viewed around 270° and covering the riders evenly from both sides on the ramps was of paramount importance. Having control surfaces on both sides of the arena also really helped with achieving this in the short timeframe. The show producers wanted a really simplistic lo

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14 March 2016

The popular talent show was produced by Schwartzkopff TV Productions GmbH & Co KG and Talpa Distribution B.V. and recorded in Am Studio 20 of Studio Berlin. It was broadcast on ProSieben and SAT.1, and featured a live audience of 1200.

Da Costa also lit the first TVOG series in 2011, for which he also used Robe fixtures at the heart of his design. He had a relatively open brief on lighting this one, and had to fulfil all the main criteria of a high profile TV show - being flexible enough to give each artist an individual look for their different performances and to ensure it worked well on camera and looked good to the studio audiences.

Also, there needed to be a visual harmony with Florian Wieder's impressive mode

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14 March 2016

"I am extremely excited about working as part of the well-established team at Flashlight. The company has a fantastic reputation for providing excellent levels of customer service and support, things which are crucial to any business," says Manister.

Providing sales and distribution of a wide range of the latest lighting equipment and consumable from the industry's leading manufacturers from their base in Heywood, Greater Manchester, Flashlight Ltd has enjoyed significant success in the film, TV and theatre sectors.

"Flashlight are extremely pleased to have someone of David's calibre joining the company, he won't be the only addition in 2013 as we continue to gr

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14 March 2016

A colourful character, known equally for salesmanship and his cheeky, humorous, bluntly honest (and occasionally profane) manner, Volver joined Martin Professional in 1994. His tenure as managing director of Martin Singapore, beginning in 1996, provided a showcase for his abilities. He took over Martin's US office in 1998, tripling sales there in the process.

Volver left Martin, and the lighting industry in 2005; he returned in 2011, joining SGM, the Italian lighting manufacturer, which had been purchased by Peter Johansen, the founder and former managing director of Martin Professional. At SGM, Volver served as export manager, North America and Asia Pacific.

Volver's years at Martin coincided with a period of transf

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14 March 2016

For Lighting Designer Howard Harrison, it has provided a glorious opportunity to juxtapose almost every conceivable genre of performance lighting in one show. Choosing to use two grandMA2 consoles to programme the lights and AV elements was a first for him. "The only restriction to programming with these consoles is your own imagination. As an end user, I have nothing but praise for the possibilities that the grandMA2 provides and that extends to the support we received from Ambersphere's sales director, Phil Norfolk, who has been incredibly helpful in facilitating all this. It's been a great experience - I get exactly what I want from the design."

M

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14 March 2016

LumenRadio's long-term Finnish distributor Sun Effects together with lighting designer Jari Vuorinen from Olof Granlund Oy, installed 82 Traxon Wall Washers and an e:cue control system with eight CRMX Slim receivers and one double universe CRMX Nova transmitter to light up a special oval-shaped suspended ceiling in the main corridors. Sun Effects also installed an extensive wireless CRMX system, containing one CRMX Slim and multiple CRMX Nova receivers on an advertisement tower located just right outside the shopping centre.

The barrier-free shopping centre is 48,000 m² and has stores from over 80 companies.

"A public project of this magnitude in the presence of thousands of visitors on

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14 March 2016

The Source Four Fresnel combines ETC's HPL lamp technology with the special optics of a traditional Fresnel for far better light output and energy efficiencies than other-brand products. "We were impressed not only by the quality of the lighting provided but with the product itself," says Saint Pern. "It was immensely practical."

Working with ETC distributor Avab Transtechnik France, S Group of Paris installed the 100 ETC fixtures at the

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14 March 2016

Meanwhile, the Unsung Hero award returned this year with two winners. Anne McNulty was recognised for her work as casting director of the Donmar Warehouse, while Chris Isherman was recognised for his work as theatre manager at the West End's Duchess Theatre. The awards will be presented later this month.

Old Gold - Unpublished colour photographs of The Beatles during their first tour of the US are to be auctioned. The 65 slides include many stage shots, including George Harrison with his red R

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14 March 2016

For the show in St. Petersburg, Euroshow changed the preliminary specification to 1500 W MAC III Profiles and 1000 W MAC Viper Profiles (instead of 1200 W moving heads), as well as MAC 2000 Wash XBs and MAC Auras.

Burke got the chance to test the MAC Viper Profile for the first time, using them as main top beam effects and for side wash and audience work. He comments, "When we worked with Euroshow on the advance for the show they told me they had recently acquired some MAC Vipers. I'd not used them before b

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14 March 2016

Adrian Sterritt, head of lighting at the Melbourne venue, says his team chose the VLX Wash luminaires following a shoot-out between the Vari-Lite fixtures and other brands.

"We were looking for a number of aspects from the lighting fixtures; speed, quality of light, operation modes," says Sterritt. "The VLX Wash zoom was better, its quality of light was similar to what we were used to, and in terms of colours we wanted to produce, it was more suited to our desired colour palette. There was also an environmental aspect to the project so 'green' products were favourable."

Harmer Hall is used for a wide variety of events from rock-and-roll concerts to orchestral and theatrical shows, and the VLX Wash lumin

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14 March 2016

First up for Aurora was C4's Alan Carr's New Years Eve Specstacular. Aurora supplied LD Chris Rigby with moving lights, set LED and crew. Warming up for the midnight hour, Rigby was back in action this time for the BBC's Graham Norton Show, Aurora was again on hand providing moving lights and crew to this New Year's special.

Completing a trio for Rigby, New Year's Eve finished for him with the end of an era. Aurora supplied an extensive moving light rig to BBC's Jools Annual Hootenanny, the last time this legendary show will be recorded at the BBC Television Centre.

Finishing off the festivities was C4's Hou

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14 March 2016

This was staged in studio TC1 and the BBC TV Centre, Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush, London.

The additional Pea Lights brought the total for the Final to around 21,000. S+H regularly supplied about 6000 Pea Lights to each show in the series which were integrated into the set walls of Patrick Doherty's impressive ballroom design.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Working with Accept Management who provided tour and production

management, OBS designed and supplied the scalable set, LED video / mixing, LX and control and mic / IEM packs, along with techs and operators.

The show's format was very much in keeping with the style of the breakfast show and so every night varied in content. Combined with the diversity in in-house

specifications, this ensured that flexibility was a necessity both in pre-production and on the road.

Amongst the production supplied by OBS, and making its UK debut, was the new Chauvet 7mm PVP SMD LED Panels [12m2 4: 3 format] fed with a Roland V800HD Vision Mixer. Other rental

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14 March 2016

The latest addition to ALE's Rack Pack range, dVnet is aimed squarely at retail and architectural applications in which a media facade or light sculpture is to be controlled by video, and the complexity of a media server is not required.

dVnet is all a user needs to convert a video creation to light, says ALE. The digital video input is in HDMI format. "Configuration is simplicity itself, with less than ten mouse-clicks required to render video to a media wall."

dVnet can also play-back video clips manually loaded onto its internal hard drive, or via the incor

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14 March 2016

This reflects a busy autumn and run-up to Christmas for the company, which provided technical production for a full range of shows and events.

Thirty CP units were purchased in total - 16 Spots, eight in each colour - and 12 washes, eight in black and four white. They are the first white versions of both types of fixtures in the UK.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

The unit is fitted with 18x 8W quadcolour LEDs, PowerCon in and out connectors, five-pin XLRs and a versatile hanging bracket. A selection of operating modes allows options from simple four-channel control up to full pixelmapping of each LED for stunning visual effects. In addition, a barndoor type reflector allows the Batten2 to be used as a cyclorama wash up to 6m plus.

Thirty-six of the battens were used by Blinding Light for set lighting on the Proms in the Park concert as part of th

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14 March 2016

On New Year's Eve the sold-out UKF Bass Culture by Lock & Loaded welcomed 2013, and on New Year's Day ... after a few hours break, the celebrations kicked in again, this time with Colour Sound working for the Circo Loco Coalition.

CSE's Haydn Cruickshank and Steve Marley designed a production rig that took into account the main requirements for both events. CSE was able to offer a versatile, dynamic and cost-efficient visuals package for both events.

UKF Bass Culture was headlined by a DJ set from Chase & Status and also featured some of the UK's best bass artists including DJ Fresh, Foreign Beggars, Shy FX & B-Traits, MistaJam, KOAN Sound and Delta Heavy ... while Circo Lo

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14 March 2016

Expo International is the mining industry's premier showcase for companies specialising in every facet of mining - open pit, underground, processing and preparation, mine site development, exploration and surveying, smelting and refining and reclamation. VR Steel is a global leader in the manufacture of cutting-edge products for dragline mining.

Dunn took a brief from VR Steel's CEO John van Reenen and created a radically elegant new stand for the South African company which will tour to international mining expos worldwide over the next two years.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

While New Year's Eve is typically a night of expectancy for the coming year, lighting designer Paul Hoffman had a different kind of anticipation at the event: the set list selection. With a repertoire of over 350 songs, Widespread Panic's concerts can go many different directions musically.

"I don't get a set list until maybe five minutes beforehand, so I have to interpret the music in real time and set the lighting to it on the fly," said Hoffman. "It is kind of an unusual way to run lights. The material ranges from dark and moody, to ballad-like, to whimsical, to full on raging rock - and sometimes those transitions happen very fast - so you need lots

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14 March 2016

Michael Hughes, senior lighting operator at the BCEC, took delight in taking the grandMA2 out for its inaugural run and he was thrilled with its performance. "I've used the classic randma light for many years but the grandMA2 light is great," he said. "I found the transaction between the randma 'series 1' and the grandMA2 very easy. After a few hours on the new board I knew I was going to be confident using it for the first time on one of our larger shows for the year.

"I really like the layout of it: a screen that's stacked vertically, flat fader