UK - Working to support government officials in understanding the unique issues facing the events industry due to COVID-19, PLASA has produced two infographics illustrating how the events supply chain will be impacted without further government support.
The graphics reflect the number of people it takes to deliver just one performance - on average 443 professionals, spanning planning, design, preparation, warehouse and venue staff. Additionally, the graphics show how valuable the sector is, delivering £100 billion to the UK economy and employing approx. 589,000 people.
It is hoped that information contained in the graphics will help highlight to government officials how many jobs are at risk in the events industry without support beyond October.
PLASA says in a statement: “Whilst many industries will be looking to return to some normality from July onwards, ex

USA - Four draft standards have been posted for public review on ESTA's Technical Standards Programme website. Materially affected parties are invited to review them at http://estalink.us/pr.
BSR E1.6-1, Powered Rigging Systems. ANSI E1.6-1 – 2019 is being opened for limited revision, with the scope of revisions applying only to section 6.6 of the standard. The revisions are necessary to correct errata in that section only. No other revisions will be considered or made at this time. Comments are due no later than 28 June.
BSR E1.39, Entertainment Technology - Selection and Use of Personal Fall Arrest Systems on Portable Structures Used in the Entertainment Industry. This standard establishes minimum requirements for the selection and use of personal fall arrest systems (PFAS) on portable structures in the entertainment industry. In addition, the standar

USA - The weather in eastern Maryland never got much past 70° on 23 May, but the vibe in the improvised studio at Showtime Sound’s Baltimore warehouse was decidedly tropical.
Aaron Kovelman, the company’s director of design and production, saw to that by creating breezy, colourful, beach-like visuals for its one-hour Virtual Island Festival featuring Jah Works.
“From a design perspective, it was very important for me to consider the audience point of view given the platform they would be watching the performance on,” explains Kovelman. “I wanted to give viewers the feeling of an intimate performance, as if this stream was being done straight for them. Yet, at the same time, I wanted to deliver large enough landscapes through the video looks and depth of lighting to make the audience feel as if they were outside on lawns listening to music amidst summe

Belgium - Creative director and lighting designer Koert Vermeulen wanted to do something extra special to celebrate 25 years of his Belgian-based creative design practice ACTLD, so he and his team crafted ‘a fluid and mesmeric large scale spectacle of lighting art’ - A2C5T - which was presented to the public for three weeks at the See U event space in Brussels.
The 45,000sq.m former police barracks provided an atmospheric backdrop for this multi-level light art experience, which was inspired by the core tenets at the heart of ACT - Art, Concept and Technology.
Within the installation, these three values were represented by three abstract intersecting works of creative lighting, carefully curated by Koert to offer a different but equally compelling immersive experience for guests. The three elements could be enjoyed individually or as one, or as a user-definable mi

USA - Lighting for comedy has its own special characteristics and lighting designer Marc Janowitz, who recently lit comedian Jimmy O. Yang’s debut stand-up comedy special on Amazon Prime - Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal - using Elation Rayzor 760 and Fuze Z350 LED wash lights, knows all about them.
“In the concert industry, you can end up with a thousand different ways to use a light in a single show but in comedy you work hard to come up with a perfect look that stays throughout the entire show and needs to look right from a multitude of camera angles.”
Recorded last fall at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle and aired in early May on Amazon’s paid subscription service, the Silicon Valley and Crazy Rich Asians star laid down a hilarious hour of comedy in a blossoming career as a stand-up comedian.
“When lighting a comedy special, there is typically an int

USA - Eric Cathcart begins the design process by forming an idea for a distinct look in his head. Then he goes to his rental company contacts, does his best to describe his vision down to the smallest detail, and asks which fixtures in their inventory can help him achieve it.
This sums up what happened late last year when Cathcart envisioned expanding the look of his show to better reflect the free-flowing sound of Silversun Pickups. Understanding Cathcart’s inspiration as they did, his contacts at Upstaging recommended the COLORband PiX from CHAUVET DJ.
“I have been working with Silversun off and on since 2016,” said Cathcart, owner of Bigtime Lighting Design. “The album cycle started June of 2019 with a very minimal floor package, consisting of strobes and small movers. For the new year, I wanted to create a wall of light to close the gap between the floor pa

USA - Over the last two months, Stage Right Lighting of Virginia Beach has been hosting a 6 Feet Together livestream concert series that has put some much needed joy and optimism into the live event community. Stage Right’s final livestream concert was held Saturday, 6 June and featured Celtic-inspired rock band The Fighting Jamesons.
The 6 Feet Together benefit concerts are streamed live from Stage Right Lighting's own studio and are decked out using their extensive inventory of lighting gear including Elation Proteus Rayzor 760 moving heads, Seven Batten 72 linear lights, ZW37 II moving heads, Cuepix 16IP matrix panels and Protron Eclypse multi-effect lights.
The 6 Feet Together benefit concerts raise money for out-of-work musicians and crews with donations going to Hampton Roads musicians and local stage technicians, as well as the technicians that make the 6 Fe

France - Robert Juliat has launched a new range of luminaires – and the latest introduction to its LED lines – Sully.
Sully is a new family of LED products based around the same exclusive 115W white LED engine, with an output that equals or exceeds that of a traditional 1kW tungsten fixture.
Robert Juliat has developed a new LED compartment which will enable customers to upgrade current traditional profile installations to LED by simply swapping the tungsten lamp base on their existing RJ 600SX Series for the new T650SX LED module. The new accessory is also compatible with Robert Juliat’s Aledin Series, Figaro, and Quincy, and with its tungsten Cricket and MSD Buxie followspots.
This new development is kinder to the planet as well as your budget. Any 600SX Series profiles can be transformed from tungsten to LED sources whilst retaining the iconic, ergonomic

UK - Event production specialist Leisuretec UK, headed by Phil Jameson, has utilised imagination and resources to light up Wigan’s DW Stadium in a variety of vibrant colour combinations, showing support for the National Health Service (NHS), essential workers and various community initiatives as everyone pulls together to beat the coronavirus pandemic.
The venue is used by both Wigan Athletic football club and Wigan Warriors rugby league club, and Leisuretec UK is the preferred event technical supplier, which entails providing kit, services and crew for numerous corporate activities happening there – around two to three a week for most of the year.
With all that and other work on hold, the idea of firing up some lights started at the Leisuretec UK warehouse in support the UK’s weekly Thursday night Clap For Carers action which Phil illuminated with their 12 x Rob

Belarus - Ayrton has announced A17 Stage Systems as its new, exclusive distributor for Belarus with immediate effect.
A17 Stage Systems was established in 2019 with the mission to service its customers’ projects from concept to completion using only the best, most reliable brands in the industry. The company is composed of experienced technicians with many years of expertise in the lighting, sound, rigging, staging, conferencing and video markets. Its customer base includes VVIP and government organisations.
“From the very beginning, A17 Stage Systems has hunted out the best brands in all areas of its activity,” says A17’s engineering director, Vitaly Kazakevich. “We look for future leaders, not just current brands, and see that Ayrton is a fast-growing company with interesting new technologies, and a very good, professional team.
“The Ayrton product

Europe - With fellow General Device Type Format (GDTF) founders MA Lighting and Robe lighting, global design and BIM software provider Vectorworks reports that DIN SPEC 15800 officially recognises the GDTF as an open standard for the entertainment industry worldwide.
"With this latest accomplishment of DIN SPEC 15800, GDTF will continue its growth and see even greater success now that it is recognised as a standard way of communicating controllable characteristics of lighting fixtures,” said Vectorworks CEO Dr. Biplab Sarkar.
“GDTF has covered a lot of ground in the two short years since inception. We already have 35 manufacturers signed on to support the open standard and are grateful for their contributions to help build a solid basis for a standardized format that will advance the industry in new ways. I look forward to seeing more manufacturers, as well as more

USA - The concept was key to everyone behind Keith Urban’s Nashville drive-in concert on 14 May, not just for the Vanderbilt University Hospital medical heroes, in whose honour the event was held, but also for the team that managed to create an immersive stage setting for the one-hour show on short notice.
“The paramount thing about this gig for Keith and everyone else was being socially distant and as safe as possible,” said Brent Maxon, Urban’s lighting director. “Our goal was to involve the fewest people possible in setup, while still putting together a quality show for this very important audience of special guests.”
Maxon and the rest of the team began working on a plan to achieve this goal only five days before the surprise show was scheduled to begin. They had no precedent to draw ideas from, since this was the first drive-in theatre concert by a maj

UK - Stage Electrics has announced that it has won a contract for the design, supply, and installation of specialist production lighting, sound & video projection systems to the new Nottingham College, City Hub facility at a value of over £200,000.
This new building will offer students a modern facility including a large performance hall and drama studio, both of which will feature new lighting fixtures including the Chauvet Professional Ovation E-910FC and CYC 1 FC units.
Stage Electrics worked closely with both the main contractor Wates Construction and Nottingham College to develop a specification that was within budget and met all the technical requirements whilst utilising the colleges existing sound equipment. Work commenced on site in May and is anticipated to be completed in early August.

Australia - Lighting designer Brenton Slattery from Scene Change Brisbane chose Astera AX1 and Titan Tube wireless battery-powered LED fixtures to create a memorable light sculpture and high-impact messaging for the 2020 Anzac Day commemorations.
The sign spelt out ‘LEST WE FORGET’ in bold, bright, positive letters and was highly visible on the waterside lawn at Howard Smith Wharfs in the Queensland state capital.
Brenton is based at the Howard Smith Wharfs multi-venue site comprising a series of regenerated – and now heritage-listed – riverfront buildings on the Brisbane River, overlooked by Story Bridge which was constructed around the same time, between 1934 and 1940.
He took up his post in February after three years of freelancing, and now he and his team coordinate technical requirements for Scene Change Brisbane’s diverse events schedule that incl

Israel - A star-studded line of music stars and artists performed during a protest concert in Charles Clore Park, Tel Aviv, titled Behind The Scenes: An Assembly of Solidarity to draw attention to the plight of freelancers, backstage technicians and all the zero-hours contract workers in the Israeli event industry whose livelihoods have been decimated as the music and live event industry has been paused in the fight to control COVID-19.
This solidarity rally was initiated and produced by Tali Yaacobi Events Production and backed by Inbar and Marius Nacht – an Israeli entrepreneur, social activist, and philanthropist – who made a generous donation to all the crew working on the show.
The lighting and audio were supplied by Argaman Systems – including a large Robe moving light rig which was designed by Cochavi & Klein and operated by two of Israel’s b

USA - Altman Lighting has announced release of the new PHX3 LED Profile and PHX3 LED Zoom luminaires. Designed for theatres, special events, television studios, or ‘any location where superior, energy-efficient lighting performance is required’, the 340W PHX3 LED ellipsoidals ‘enhance your design versatility and efficiency without sacrificing performance’.
“Wanting to make sure that we implemented the most robust technology possible into our next-generation LED ellipsoidals, the PHX3 Profile and Zoom introduce a number of innovative features in function, style, and efficiency,” says Pete Borchetta, Altman vice president product innovation. “Having spoken with a number of lighting designers and dealers worldwide, we wanted to expand our PHX series even further with these two new high-performance and dependable luminaires.”
Utilising a 340W (RGBL) Red, Gr

USA - Roger Sharp is proud of his region’s music tradition. His upstate New York stomping grounds have nurtured a wealth of talent in virtually every genre, from Lana Del Ray, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Ani Di Franco to Moe, Rick James, Lou Gramm, 10,000 Maniacs and Chuck Mangione.
The owner of High Peaks Event Production, Sharp has always entertained the idea of putting on a summer festival honouring this local tradition, even starting a Facebook page dedicated to this mission. But keeping up with the demands of his growing business prevented him from getting around to realizing this dream. He finally found the time though after the COVID-19 lockdown put all events on hold.
With his event business halted, Sharp built a lockdown-safe recording studio and stage in his warehouse, and launched a weekly Sunday night livestream, NY Rock N Roots Festival to highlight lo

South Africa - When South Africa went under strict lockdown on 26 March, the entertainment industry had been out of work for a couple of weeks already, with all shows on the events calendar either cancelled or postponed indefinitely. It was a grim picture, and Jannie de Jager of DWR Distribution believed that the very least he could do was use this opportunity to set up training sessions for the industry during this time.
While there was no shortage of training videos and webinars provided by international suppliers, which are still being shared on the DWR Distribution Facebook Group page, Jannie and colleague Dylan Jones, wanted to create a platform where training and personal contact with the industry could continue, allowing all parties to be motivated and to share knowledge. The only obstacle was navigating the best way to do this.
“We definitely had to get used

Germany - DRIVE.IN Concerts of Monheim has come up with a solution that allows music fans of the area to attend a live concert again.
DRIVE.IN Concerts Monheim is a series of events in which the crowd park their cars in front of the stage just like at a drive-in movie. Running through June, with a variety of live acts and DJs performing, the concert series features an impressive stage set-up that relies on Elation Professional and ADJ lighting fixtures.
The series kicked off in early May with a live performance by Cologne-based rock band Kasalla as part of their Et Jitt Car-Salla tour of drive-in concerts. Since then, most weekends have seen two or three concerts taking place at the outdoor site, featuring artists such as DJ Quicksilver, Da Hool, Moguai, TOPIC and The Disco Boys. Future performers are set to include electronic acts Fiasko and YouNotUs, as well a

USA - New York City may be over a thousand miles away, but local company, JEM Productions, created the look and feel of Manhattan jazz club at its warehouse- turned-studio in Wausau, WI, as it hosted a livestream fundraising show by the Sara Rifleman Trio.
The performance by the Wisconsin-based musicians was the latest in a series of livestreamed shows emanating from the lighting and audio company’s makeshift studio. It was the smoothest production to date, according to Joe Ellis, president of JEM Productions.
“We’ve been doing these for weeks now, ever since the Covid-19 shutdown started,” said Ellis. “I think we’re getting familiar with this process! Our lighting and production crew did a really great job creating the look of a classic New York jazz club on the set. Sometimes, the simpler the look, the harder you have to dig into the art of design. This

USA - Chicago-based Charles Ford and his business partner Brandon Clark from Creative Live Control have developed a professional streaming production service - lighting, audio, cameras and broadcast - that meets all the social distancing requirements, can be installed and run by the two of them.
While the challenges of producing special high impact lighting for community lighting projects like Chicago Unite at Night have been stimulating and fun, Charles and Brandon also need to generate some business as all their touring work has currently been cancelled, so they hit on the idea of the professional live streaming service.
The living room of Charles’ condo has been transformed into a pop-up studio space and after a couple of test runs, there is a queue of local artists lined up to visit and use the facilities.
Brandon completed all the networking, intern

USA - Bending Lite Productions’ Erik Mahowald has enjoyed a long tour of duty with American electronic musician and DJ Dillon Francis, noted for popularising the ‘Moombahton’ genre - a fusion of house music combined with reggaeton.
Last summer, Erik conceived a lighting design for Coachella 2019 based around 60 GLP JDC1 hybrid strobes, but with the intention of bringing it to major headline events following the reveal.
Working alongside creative content director and VJ, Mario Adato; production manager, Nathan Rebolledo and tour manager, Mike Finn, Mahowald programmed the lighting to animate a set that combined complementary surround elements with creating big moments of drama to produce a high-octane party vibe for audiences to become immersed in.
In the centre of this was Dillon Francis himself, performing from an elevated booth, housing his CDJ setup. The

UK - GoboPlus.com continues to operate in these difficult times with reduced staff numbers, but remains determined to support to its customers with a continued service of both custom and stock gobos. In recent weeks the company has seen a huge increase in gobos celebrating the NHS. Goboplus.com responded by designing a range of NHS gobos for its website and has seen this move mushroom into an online campaign which is steadily growing week by week.
“We have received orders from across the UK from many customers who have been expressing their support on Thursday nights as they #clapforcarers in celebration of the commitment and strength being made by all front-line staff,” says GoboPlus.com’s Paul de Ville. “We have been sharing these pictures on social media in the hope that the message will spread far and wide to show how proud we are of all the hard-work

USA - The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for UV-C lighting products offering reliable disinfection, even from coronaviruses. ACT Lighting has announced that it is distributing UV-C lighting devices from Luxibel as well as the GSUV product range from Golden Sea.
“ACT Lighting has begun to distribute UV-C disinfecting devices from our suppliers, which are ideal for use in production environments of all types,” says Aaron Hubbard, regional sales manager at ACT Lighting. “We are delivering a myriad of products from both manufacturers geared toward the permanent installation markets as well as portable solutions ranging from smaller, consumer level applications to theatres and arenas.”
Luxibel, the professional AV lighting brand of AED group, which has its headquarters in Belgium and offices in The Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK, currently offe

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline