USA - One of the 2000s most successful hard rock bands is Breaking Benjamin, whose guitar heavy sounds and powerful vocals delivered by Benjamin Burnley have endeared them to fans for two decades. The band teamed up recently with Alice in Chains, to co-headline a tour that also saw Bush on the bill as special guests. The 30-city co-headlining tour kicked off on 10 August at The Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania before wrapping up 8 October at the Xfinity Centre in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Ty Veneziano of Bandit Lites designed, programmed and operated lighting for the Breaking Benjamin performance and turned to Elation Professional’s compact Smarty Hybrid moving head to tailor the look and fill out the rig with beam looks. Ty, who has been working with Breaking Benjamin since 2021 after five years working with Chevelle, says that Scott Holthaus (R
Europe - To provide My Chemical Romance with immersive and stylised lighting for their highly anticipated world tour, lighting production house Penlight designed a custom-built rig featuring Martin Professional solutions. After officially disbanding in 2013 and several postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MCR embarked on the tour in May 2022. The band aimed to exceed fans’ lofty expectations with massive, immersive visuals that accentuated their music’s raw energy and adapted to their constantly changing setlists. To meet these requirements, Penlight worked closely with the band to design a detailed and versatile lighting rig featuring Martin MAC Ultra Performance, MAC Quantum Wash, MAC Aura XB and Atomic 3000 fixtures. “For this tour, the band never does the same setlist twice,” said AJ Pen, founder, Penlight. “And by that I don't mean that they swa
Hungary - Művészetek Palotája (MÜPA) – Palace of the Arts – enjoys a commanding position on the shores of the Danube in Budapest and is a powerhouse for high quality arts productions. Its prestigious venues include the 1,700-capacity Bartok National Concert Hall and the festival theatre which accommodates 450 people. The lighting department – comprising 12 people – has recently invested in more Robe moving lights, with 30 x Tarrantulas and 13 x Fortes joining the inventory and now in use, mostly in the Festival Theatre. During the pandemic lockdowns, all MÜPA’s technical staff including the lighting department was kept busy staging streamed shows and they also ran drive-in performances in the car park outside. MÜPA also seized the opportunity of ‘dark’ time during the lockdown to upgrade some of the technology – some of which had been in t
Europe - Prolights has announced the release of the Smart BatPlusG2, a high-end version of the Smart Bat uplighters designed with enhanced output and battery performance, IP65 with a new look. The fixture has four 20W RGB+WW LEDs with high CRI, twice the output on the battery against the previous generation, and nearly three times if connected to the mains. The Smart BatPlusG2 is also ‘Spektra calibrated’, joining a large family of Prolights products that share the same colour calibration standard. The mechanical design allows turning the unit from an uplighter into a spotlight by using the suspension or floor bracket without compromising the aesthetics of the fixture. The Smart BatPlusG2 introduces new features such as interchangeable batteries and easy covers with multiple colours, making it possible to change its look as desired. User-friendly, it can be u
UK – Science Fiction Voyage to the Edge of Imagination is an interactive exhibition of unlimited possibilities at the London Science Museum, which opened this October and runs through May 2023. Designed by Framestore, a Bafta and Oscar winning creative studio in collaboration with P&P Projects, a Dutch scenic design company, the ticketed exhibit draws on a variety of AR and VR tools including a multi-array projection dome featuring a real time Unreal Engine visualisation of extra-terrestrial beings, to immerse visitors in a universe where imagination knows no boundaries Guided by” artificial intelligence of an alien origin,” visitors board a spaceship and explore an unknown planet at this remarkable attraction. Enhancing the transformative journey and deepening the experience of visitors as they leave the familiar behind and enter a new reality is a li
France - With great sadness, the Showlight Committee has announced the postponement of Showlight 2023. The popular quadrennial networking event was due to take place in Fontainebleau, France from 20th – 23rd May 2023. In a statement from Showlight, chairman John Allen explains the reasons behind this decision: “It is after lengthy consideration and with much deliberation that we have decided to postpone Showlight 2023. The plans and preparations for Showlight in Fontainebleau have been underway since 2018 and although the Covid lockdown took two years out of our work, it was always our intention to hold Showlight in 2023 following the lifting of Covid restrictions. “Fontainebleau is a beautiful town with an intimate theatre and a wonderful chateau as well and it is an ideal place for our quadrennial event. Plans progressed with this aim in mind. However, develop
Poland - Multimedia solutions company SQM has recently purchased 54 Prolights EclExpo Flood300WV. The Polish-based company invested in these units as part of a commitment to differentiate itself from other exhibition suppliers: “What attracted us to the EclExpo Flood300VW was the fact we wanted to offer better standards for exhibition stands,” said Jakub Kowala, BDM at SQM. Jakub added: “Other companies are still using halogen flood lights or lights that you can buy in DIY stores. We want to offer more, including features like changeable colour temperature, and individual unit control, so we get the best effects and generally have brighter stands, which will stand out and be more visible than others.” SQM was also driven to these fixtures for practical reasons: “I think the EclExpo Flood300VW will bring new operational standards and simplify our work.
USA - Harman Professional Solutions has introduced the Martin ELP PAR IP static LED wash fixture with IP65-rated outdoor protection. Joining its sibling, the ELP PAR, this fixture features high-intensity zoom, full-gamut color calibration and smart rigging and control functions and is suitable for indoor or outdoor applications with an IP65 rating for protection against dust and water ingress. And its sealed design supports fewer maintenance cycles. The ELP PAR IP and ELP PAR are versatile workhorse lighting solutions for rentals, installs and touring. The ELP PAR IP delivers 3,350 lumens of output thanks to its newly designed 7 x 40W RGBW light engine. It’s designed for covering larger stages that require long throw distances. “The ELP PAR significantly raised the brightness bar in the compact class, producing up to twice the lumen output of its predecessor
USA - The much anticipated Twenty One Pilots Icy tour hit the road this summer, offering lighting designer Tyler ‘Shap’ Shapard the chance to produce an elegant and imaginative lighting design based on atmospherically engineering the mood and vibes. A cornerstone of this design was 80 x Robe MegaPointes explained Shap who collaborated closely on this tour with co-designer and programmer Dayne DeHaven. Their creative process involved Shap producing the essential looks and building blocks for each number and Dayne completing the ‘nuts and bolts’ programming which they finessed together. Shap was also on the road running lighting day-to-day. MegaPointes are a personal favourite fixture of Shap’s and they have featured on the last two Twenty One Pilots tour cycles which included the immediately post Covid Takeover tour earlier in 2022, where the band played four
USA - Claypaky is set to launch new products at LDI in Las Vegas. Making its world premiere will be Volero Wave LED bar, with original and innovative features. It is made up of a system of eight moving heads, each one independently capable of a 220° tilt, thus producing never-seen-before three-dimensional volumetric projections. Each of these heads contains a brand-new mirror-based optical system combined with 40W RGBW LEDs; the innovative concept behind Volero Wave was to be able to move the entire light source on its axis, thus preserving the same intensity of the light flux in any position of the tilt range. The beams always appear extremely sharp and collimated, parallel to each other thanks to the 2.9° projection angle. Their synchronized movement produces an impressive wave of light, all the more overwhelming the more Volero Wave units you seamlessly connect to
Europe - It was a quick sell-out for Ligabue's seven Italian dates at the spectacular Arena di Verona, followed by four more European concerts in Barcelona, Brussels, Paris and London. Ligabue returned to the stage after the great success of his 30 Years in a Day show on 4 June 2022 at the famous Arena in Campovolo, a symbolic venue for the singer who, in 2005, managed to break the European record there for the greatest number of paying spectators for a live show by a single artist. "Guys, I don't know about there...but from here it was beautiful," wrote the singer under a photograph of the live show in Verona. The lighting design for the event was handled by LD Jo Campana, who chose to use 61 Ayrton Domino Profiles. "I have used Ayrton products many times in the past - most recently 120 Magic Panel FX in Ligabue's last stadium tour in 2019,” says Campana. “
Europe - In March 2022, Claypaky launched its CP Green – Spotlight on Sustainabilityinitiative for environmental sustainability. The project was undertaken in cooperation with Spinlife, spin-off of the University of Padova. The Spinlife team provides public and private organisations of all sizes with tailored consulting plans regarding strategic environmental management and sustainability management techniques. Believing that what is not measured cannot be improved, Claypaky took the first step of understanding, quantifying and analysing its current carbon footprint using the ISO 14064-1:2018 norm and achieving certification via a third-party auditing process. Developed by the International Standards Organisation, a non-governmental organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO 14064 offers policy makers and organisations a ready foundation of best practices upon which t
USA - Bandit Lites founder and Chair Michael T. Strickland was honoured with the CMA Foundation Humanitarian Award on 9 November at the 56th Annual CMA Awards live on ABC television. The seldom given award is provided to “an individual who has served as a humanitarian through community leadership, financial support, personal volunteerism and advocacy.” Previous recipients include Kix Brooks, Vince Gill, Randy Owens, Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton. “I am indeed humbled to be honoured in this way,” said Strickland. “To be mentioned in the same group as the previous honourees is amazing. But, at the end of it all, it was not me, but it was the millions of great people in the industry that have listened, acted, and taken the time to effect change and take care of one another. Entertainment is a huge family, and we all pulled together starting in 2020 and I was simply
Belgium - International show, visual and production design studio Painting with Light has enjoyed a busy summer and autumn back to full speed working on a wide range of projects and events embracing theatre, television, and live broadcast. The company is headed by Luc Peumans, who comments, “It was fantastic for our team and all our clients to be back doing live shows with real audiences after two years of pandemic restrictions. While this ‘dark’ period forced us to be imaginative and inventive in creating entertainment and engagement, there is nothing like feeling the buzz and excitement of shows packed with crowds, anticipation, and real human experience.” Tien Om Te Zien, a popular Sunday night VTM music show ran from 1989 – 2008 and was then rebooted in 2014 and 2021. The 2021 was such a success that the broadcaster revived the concept once again to run
Lithuania - Kaunas State Musical Theatre has been under reconstruction. UAB Sonus exsertus in cooperation with AB Light were responsible for the architectural lighting solution for the building's façade. Sonus exsertus deployed a range of the Italian-based DTS Lighting projects for this project. According to the concept designer Arvydas Buinauskas the client's goal was to give liveliness to the theatre and make it more playful during the dark hours of the day. Artistic lighting was designed with the aim of transforming the building to the theme of a certain event. One of the challenges for the designer was to first give the very idea of how lighting a building must be done, highlighting the unique elements of the façade in pastel colours, so that it would not be annoying and that it could blend into the urban landscape environment. With such a structure located in t
USA - Rock the House Entertainment Group is a growing, Cleveland-based entertainment and production company with national reach. They cover several core segments from Fortune 100 company annual meetings, over the top social events such a Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, weddings and high-end celebrity gatherings, as well as national headlining acts and major music festivals. Founded in 1999, the company has expanded into several vertical markets over the course of its history and has consistently relied on Elation lighting the last 15 years to successfully realise all manner of projects. As a company that may design production elements for thousands of youths during school homecoming one day and head to Bonnaroo the next to work with top tier national artists, versatile products that can fulfil roles on an assortment of different projects are preferred. “We like lights that scale w
UK - Creative and technical solutions company, Visual Elements, has added the Prolights StudioCob Plus range, supplied by A.C Entertainment Technologies, (AC-ET) to their inventory. This Kent based business offers a full range of services from the dry hire of equipment to productions of any scale. The scope of their projects meant that they required a more energy efficient solution than the traditional PAR cans. Following discussions with the ACET team, the client decided upon the Prolights StudioCob Plus range, based on versatility and competitive price point. Opting for this range, Visual Elements received powerful units that have a high CRI and the capability to produce beautifully smooth pastels, vivid saturated colours and a full range of flattering white tones. Yvette Pinnington from the Visual Elements team comments, “The Prolights StudioCob plus
The Netherlands - Busy and vibrant live music venue, Doornroosje, in Nijmegen has invested in more Robe moving lights for its two main performance halls, which are action-packed with a full programme – currently staging around double the number of pre-covid shows such is the demand. Doornroosje is run by the local Nijmegen town council and managed by a full-time staff of bookers, admin and technical staff including Robbie Van Reen, who has been head of lighting since 2009. Twenty Robe T1 Profiles, 12 x T2 Profiles 12 x Spiider LED wash beams and eight LEDBeam 350s have recently been added to their house lighting rigs. These were all delivered by Robe’s Benelux distributor, Controllux. The venue’s history with Robe goes back many years. In 2014 when Doornroosje moved to its current site in the city centre the current investments started, initially in MMX Spo
USA - City Theatrical’s Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology is now included as a standard feature in all three new ColorSource V fixtures, launched worldwide via ETC’s launch event on 10 November. The ColorSource V product family provides a range of LED luminaires that bring a richness of colour, increased brightness, and leading technology at an affordable price point to live entertainment lighting professionals. The integration of Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology into these new ColorSource V products comes as part of the strategic direction to make Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology and its benefits, including flexibility, scalability, and ease of use, available to a wider range of live entertainment end users. “Whether you’re making the next blockbuster film or the next middle school theatre production, Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM solves proble
USA - LDI visitors to Chauvet Professional at booth 2243 will have no trouble figuring out where the latest additions to the Maverick Storm series stand when it comes to output and performance. Making their world debut at LDI this year, the Maverick Storm 4 Profile and Storm 2 Profile feature a lumen output of 62,255 and 28,000 respectively. Like their stable mate, the previously introduced Maverick Storm 2 BeamWash, which will also be shown at LDI, the new hard-edged profiles were designed to provide a quieter, more reliable performance in a lighter weight package. “We have been in the forefront of developing IP65 rated fixtures in response to the demand from our customers who want more versatile products that can be used indoors or out,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “However, we’ve always recognised that an IP65 rating alone isn’t enough, which is w
USA – The University of Houston recently took advantage of the University Outreach Programme from Vari-Lite, which enables emerging lighting design students to elevate their production looks and facilitates hands-on professional fixture experience. The latest collaborative project saw Andrew Archer, who is undertaking a BFA in Technical Theatre Production, create an inspired design for the play The Learned Ladies using VL2600 SPOT luminaires. Archer took delivery of six VL2600 SPOT fixtures as part of the programme, working with Bobby Harrell, Vari-Lite sales and applications specialist at Signify, who spearheads the initiative. Archer says he was impressed by the powerful features and capabilities of these luminaires and harnessed their power to design the lighting for the production of The Learned Ladies, adapted from the Molière original. “We upda
USA - When lighting designers are looking for a workhorse washlight but also want something novel to add to their designs they often turn to the Proteus Rayzor 760, Elation’s popular LED wash, mid-air, and specialty effect light in one. Now available and shipping is the Proteus Rayzor 1960, a more powerful big brother that ‘opens up its distinct visual qualities to shows and productions of every scale’. With the power to handle long-throw applications, the Proteus Rayzor 1960 is part of Elation’s Proteus line of IP65 luminaires for use under adverse conditions and in any environment. The Proteus Rayzor 1960 is driven by 19 x 60W RGBW LEDs - all independently controllable. The fixture produces an intense and well-defined beam of over 18000 lumens. It can zoom tight to 5ﹾ for a very narrow collimated beam or spread wide to 55ﹾ for even stage coverage. The Zoom Over
USA - Robe is back at LDI 2022 in Las Vegas, action-packed with a range of new products and lighting technologies on Booth 1943. New products shown at a US expo for the first time will include Robe’s iForte moving light and the iForte FS (follow spot) luminaire - both IP65 versions of the original Forte. Also shown will be the TX1 PosiProfile, which combines the worlds of manual and automated lighting into a single fixture. Robe’s expanding iSeries of weatherized products also includes the iSpiider LED wash beam and iBeam 250TM which will join the iForte on Booth 1943. These iSeries fixtures will be integrated into a vibrant Robe live entertainment concept, the All Environments show, complete with a specially created lightshow presented in a purpose-built area. Other current products presented will be the new Painte and TetraXTM – a 360-
USA - Alice In Chains (AIC) hadn’t performed a live concert in three years when the band took the stage on 10 August at The Star Lake Pavilion in Seattle, but as the fans outside Pittsburgh discovered that night, and as thousands more at 29 other venues would learn over the next three months, it was well worth the wait. Keeping pace with the band’s 15-song set and capturing their sounds visually, was an intense, multi-faceted lighting design by Scott Holthaus with assistance from Cort Lawrence that included over 40 Chauvet Professional fixtures, which like the rest of the rig, was supplied by Bandit Lites. Like the music it supported, the Holthaus-Lawrence lightshow started out with a bang. Moments after AIC walked on to a darkened stage, illuminated only with hints of deep blue light, the rig erupted, led by the five raked LED video fingers over its centre. Rising
