Sweden - Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, was due to take its production of Love Songs on a three month tour of Sweden from early March, with lighting director and designer, Jörgen ‘Hajen’ Haimanas, choosing six Ayrton Diablo LED profile luminaires as a major feature of his lighting design, in what would be Diablo’s first national tour of Sweden. Due to the current Covid-19 crisis, the tour was only able to complete the first five dates before it was necessarily postponed by lockdown. Love Songs is described as a ‘sentimental love bomb’, a musical evening depicting love in all its forms, featuring the musical talents of Arja Saijonmaa, Frida Beckman, Lisa Hu Yu, Robert Hannouch and Peter Järn. Haimanas used his considerable lighting talents, to create an incredible array of looks using the six strategically placed Diablo units in a desig
France - The coronavirus pandemic has already seen many examples of those in the entertainment technology and production industry putting their skills and resources to good use - from morale-raising actions to physical contributions and manufacturing items to aid the massive efforts worldwide to contain the spread of infection. In normal times, S-Group is a busy full production and rental operation with four regional bases and a HQ in Alès, north of Nimes in the South of France, and this time of year they’d have an average of 20 tours on the road as well as servicing numerous long term rentals. However, with the live show and event Industry at a complete standstill, S-Group’s manufacturing division has instead energised its 3D printing capabilities to assist in producing protective visors for workers engaged in the various frontline healthcare and first response s
Mexico - Verge Aero recently added a new dimension to Mexico’s biggest and oldest carnival. A 130-drone display, in the skies above Mazatlán’s Olas Altas bay, delivered a spectacular new twist to the town’s traditional six-day carnival celebration, Carnaval de Mazatlán. Situated on Mexico’s west coast, Mazatlán has one of the world’s greatest carnival traditions. Held annually since 1898, marking Mardi Gras and the start of Lent, Mazatlán’s exuberant six-day carnival is reputed to be the world’s third largest, after Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. This year, Verge Aero’s drone technology, specially developed for live entertainment productions, was brought in to precede the spectacular firework display by local pyro supplier, Pyromar. Verge Aero worked together with local partner, Sky Precision, to create the light show and coordinate it with the hug
USA - ETC has introduced On Headset, a new audio series that allows listeners to programme a major theatrical production in realtime whilst listening to the audio cues of a lighting designer. “Our goal with this project is to fill the gap between the traditional classroom or ‘e-training’ methods of console learning and actually sitting behind an Eos desk in a theatre,” explains ETC senior field service engineer Victor Seastone, “This is a console flight simulator to help with both.” The series features esteemed Broadway lighting designer Ken Billington and a lightly curated recording of the headset conversations during technical rehearsals of the New York City Centre Encores’ Me and My Girl in May 2018. The New York City Centre, a well-known and distinctive theatre, welcomes 300,000 visitors annually to its establishment which was founded
Australia - On 15 April, Australian skies were lit up in support of those fighting the COVID-19 global pandemic whilst also drawing attention to the plight of the country’s entertainment industry. Organised by ALIA, the event also served as a morale boost for the lighting industry. Production companies, sole traders, distributors and manufacturers all joined in the effort. The brief was fairly open being just colourful with a bit of movement and initially, premises only were to be lit up. But many companies were able to light significant landmarks including hospitals, theatres, town halls, sports stadiums and even a lighthouse. Many sought permission from the aviation authorities to project high into the night skies. In an act of generosity, Brisbane-based Gobotech offered free gobos to those taking part. ALIA was “blown away by the number of participant
USA - Stay at home restrictions have prevented the Clermont, Ohio Chamber of Commerce from holding its regular meetings. But now, more than ever, its member businesses are seeking guidance from the 50-year old organisation, particularly on the steps they can take to navigate their way through this period of lockdowns. A highlight of the chamber’s educational initiative was the detailed and informative 8 April livestream it hosted by noted author and small business expert Brian Beaulieu, CEO of ITR Economics. A former US Labourr Department economist, Beaulieu delivered his presentation from the Events United Studio Lab, illuminated by a rig that featured Maverick MK2 Spot, Ovation CYC 1 FC, STRIKE 4 and Ovation E-260WW IP fixtures. Beaulieu was able to communicate the intricacies of his ideas to the audience, located 900 miles from the New Hampshire studio, with the h
Europe - This week will see the continuation of Absen’s series of webinars, with two sessions on Tuesday 21 April at respectively 9am (Rental & Staging) and 1pm (Introduction to LED), one session dedicated to fixed installations (Corporate & Retail) on Wednesday 22 April at 9am BST, and a two parts session (9am and 1pm BST) on Thursday 23 April which will provide insights on Basic Technical Knowledge of LED Displays. More webinars will also be offered by Absen in the near future. The inaugural session, which was held on Tuesday 7 April and focussed on Absen’s rental & staging products, had in excess of 350 registrations and over 200 attendees; 84% of whom rated it as being either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. The next rental & staging webinar, which will be hosted by Absen’s rental & staging industry director Christian Cz
UK - Fairport Convention’s annual Cropredy Convention in Oxfordshire and The Eden Sessions in Cornwall are the latest major music events to fall victim to the coronavirus pandemic. Both are being rescheduled for 2021. Since its first staging in 1980, the Cropredy festival has taken place annually since on farmland near Banbury, Oxfordshire. This year’s three-day event had been scheduled to take place on 13-15 August. It will now be staged over 12, 13 and 14 August 2021 (the equivalent weekend) on its usual site. The line-up of acts will be carried forward: artists booked to appear this year have agreed to switch to 2021. Highlights include Trevor Horn Band, Clannad, Steve Hackett – Genesis Revisited, Richard Thompson, Matthews Southern Comfort and host band Fairport Convention. Tickets purchased for Cropredy 2020 remain valid for the rescheduled fest
UK - Manchester Cathedral teamed up with one of its long-standing event production partners, Sterling Event Group, to illuminate the façade of the magnificent building in a blue hue in a show of solidarity and support for NHS staff and key workers who are going above and beyond to support our communities at this difficult time. Richard Bowden, managing director at Sterling said: “We wanted to show our support as a company for the magnificent work our NHS and keyworkers are doing in the battle against Covid-19. We have a great partnership with Manchester Cathedral and its work in the community. As a stunning landmark in the heart of our city we are very privileged to be able to illuminate it.” At 8pm on Thursday 16 April, the display was supported by representatives from the Greater Manchester emergency services as everyone clapped for carers. The cathedral w
USA - Elation is expanding the Fuze series with the Fuze SFX, a new concept LED Spot FX moving head designed for a variety of applications requiring a compact and powerful multi-purpose luminaire. The Fuze SFX is a combination of spot and effects fixture capable of projecting tight beams to wide washes using a highly efficient optical design while providing over 12,000 lumens of output from a 300W White LED engine. Unveiled at the LDI show in November, the fixture received an enthusiastic response and is now shipping. The SFX allows for even stage washes utilising its variable frost filter while a wide array of colours is possible from a seamless CMY colour-mixing system plus seven-position colour wheel. Housing 18 carefully designed gobos and a 4.5° to 38° zoom, the Fuze SFX can create mid-air FX as easily as precise image projections. The Fuze SFX is powerf
USA - ETC has announced two new product families designed to work cohesively together. ArcSystem Navis is a line of LED luminaires featuring “pristine light as well as a modular design for smooth installations”. For centralised LED power controls, F-Drive is a new system offering an intuitive design with customizable output cards. Together, Navis and F-Drive make one adaptable and robust LED system for any space. “The Navis line of luminaires prioritises ease of installation, hassle-free maintenance, in-field customisation, and beautiful light with high-grade TIR optics and stepless dimming,” says ETC. The fixtures are available in multiple colour temperature options ranging from 2700 K to 5000 K as well as an RGBW colour-mixing option. A 3000 K Fade to Warm variant is also available providing an intimate, warm light at lower intensity levels, often preferred in hosp
Spain - Madrid-based technical solutions provider, Glub-Glub Soluciones Tecnicas Para El Espectaculo, has become the first Spanish company to invest in GLP’s new S350 LED fixture. Glub-Glub director Juan Margallo, who invests solely in LED lighting technology, had been looking for an advanced LED profile largely to service the corporate events and theatre work in which the company specialises. Easy to fit into a lighting plot, this compact, lightweight fixture features GLP’s baseless design - which will provide Glub-Glub with versatility in terms of hire potential. The initial order for eight units was handled by GLP’s Spanish distributor, Monacor Iberia SAU. Its director general, José de las Heras, traces the background to the sale: “We set up a demo in Madrid, where Mr Margallo had the chance to get his hands on the product. He liked the fixture very m
USA - Studio Gear of Milwaukee has been providing audio-visual and lighting equipment rentals, production services and sales to its customers throughout the United States for over 30 years. The company is an advocate of Robert Juliat, and Tim Cooksy, Studio Gear’s sales and integration specialist, is familiar with Robert Juliat fixtures having used them many times before: “I have installed Robert Juliat in a lot of different venues including theme parks, amphitheatres and touring shows. I have never had a bad experience with a Robert Juliat spot light,” he says. Two recent Studio Gear installations, both in Milwaukee and each with different characters, called for some flexible solutions from Robert Juliat. Studio Gear supplied four RJ Roxie2 300W LED followspots to Shorewood High School and a single RJ Oz 600W LED followspot to Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. All the foll
Australia - Delivered Live is a weekly music and comedy performance concept. Streamed live from Melbourne, it's the result of a collaboration between Handshake Management, rental and production company Harry The Hirer Productions and the Victorian State Government, and is designed to feed the need for live entertainment and positive energy during the nationwide lockdown. It also has a role in providing much-needed financial support to artists, crew and technicians who have been left high-and-dry with the almost complete shutdown of the live performance industry. The venue is The Studio, a new production and demo area at Harry the Hirer Productions’ HQ in the Richmond district of Melbourne, a large ‘development space’ with lighting and audio consoles, previz and demonstrat
UK - Stage Electrics has announced that they have won a £845,506 contract for the design, supply and installation of specialist production lighting, production sound and communication systems to the Globe Theatre Stockton on Tees. Some of the biggest names in entertainment, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Morecambe and Wise, The Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, T-Rex and Shirley Bassey have all played the Globe. The venue is set to open its doors in November 2020, this time as a 3,000-capacity live entertainment venue with the Heritage Lottery fund contributing £4.5m towards the restoration project. The project was initially brought to Stage Electrics by Chris Baldwin (ACT Theatre Consultants) to assist with developing the specification and budget pricing. Following Chris’s retirement, Stage Electrics began working directly with Willmott Dixon to develop the original desig
USA - In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Chris Brodman and Cody Lisle of LIT Lighting have launched LIT Live, a live stream for music shows. Prior to the lockdown, most of LIT’s work involved lighting festivals and corporate events. Brodman and Lisle had no experience streaming live music. They brought together a team of experienced volunteers and, adhering strictly to social distance protocols - set up times were staggered to avoid crowding and all equipment was consistently disinfected - they began streaming live music shows on Twitch.TV and Facebook. The first show featured Hollywood Slasher and was lit by Casey Jones, who ran his rig on a ChamSys Magic Q Maxi wing PC system; while the second, featuring DJ Yellow, was run by James Simpson. Both performances were given dynamic, colourful looks with the help of 16 Maverick MK2 Spot, 22 Rogue R2 Wash and 12 Rogue
Ireland - The Irish première of the hit musical comedy, Spamalot (School Edition), took place recently in County Mayo. The show, written by Eric Idle and based around the hit film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has been a favourite of audiences all over the world since its Broadway debut in 2005. The run of five shows took place in the newly built multi-purpose hall of the Sancta Maria College in Louisburgh. Whilst the setting might suggest a modest production, limited by the technical and financial resources of a school, the reality was anything but. The college’s production of Spamalot, directed by Head of English and theatre arts specialist, Marina Rice, was able to call on the services of two west of Ireland-based companies... EvenTech, run by John Kearney, is a leading production services company, who specialise in complete solutions for
USA - Harman Professional Solutions has announced the new Martin MAC Aura PXL LED wash light, which features individual pixel control of both the main beam and Aura backlight. With a bright, precisely-calibrated RGBW engine, instant colour mixing and seamless pixel mapping, the MAC Aura PXL is both a sustainable workhorse for rental companies and a powerful creative tool for lighting designers, says the company. The MAC Aura PXL expands on the unique LED backlight concept introduced in the popular MAC Aura with an enhanced feature set that presents amazing new possibilities. “The MAC Aura PXL is the next evolution of the MAC Aura product line, and delivers essential new features that lighting designers have been requesting,” said Markus Klüsener, global product line manager for stage lighting, Harman Professional Solutions. “With control over each individual pix
UK - ChamSys continues to build on its global commitment to education, making webinar bookings and 20-minute appointment consultations found on the training page available in German, Italian and Spanish versions. The company has also broadened the scope of its training with the addition of new Live MagicQ sessions that will stream every Tuesday at 11 am EST (4 pm BST). Conducted by the ChamSys training staff, the new sessions will delve deeply into key MagicQ software capabilities, such as mapping complex fixtures, FX setup and tracking. In addition to being livestreamed on Facebook, the lessons will also be made available on IGTV. Initially, the new MagicQ material will be available only in English. Topics include: Control and Mapping of Complex Fixtures With Multiple Elements, which covers subjects like Ind/Dup, element selection, and non-linear shape f
USA - Thousands of college students of faith descend on Oklahoma City each year for the Student Mobilization Conference (SMC), four-days of worship, camaraderie, inspiration and, in the evening, lively entertainment. Relevant Audio + Visual has collaborated with SMC the past eight years to create an inspiring audiovisual experience for attendees and this year tapped into their inventory of Elation Professional luminaires to help create the uplifting atmosphere. The 2020 conference took place 2-5 January at the Cox Convention Centre in downtown Oklahoma City. Relevant Audio + Visual’s challenge was to create an engaging, impactful environment to motivate and encourage attendees to spread the word about Student Mobilization’s Global Impact/Mission and summer discipleship training opportunities. The Wichita-based AV production house designed a complete 3D visua
Slovakia - The strength and power of PR Lighting’s Aqua 580 Beam was put to the test by major event specialists Kvant Show Production, when they projected onto the 111mhigh National Bank of Slovakia HQ in Bratislava. Complementing Kvant’s own Laser Spectrum 30W lasers, 24 of PR Lighting’s IP66-rated fixtures were deployed as searchlights, with 12 positioned directly on each side of the Bank building terrace and firing into the night sky. Due to the tight and well-focused 2° beam, with output generated from a Philips 25R 550W engine, calibrated at 7800K, two infinite fat white beams of light from each pair, soared into the distance, and were visible over 5km away. Meanwhile, Barco HDX-W20 FLEX projectors were set-up on another building’s rooftop, opposite the Slovak National Bank, and projecting over a distance of 130m-150m. The projection itself was comm
UK - Lighting control manufacturer Zero 88 has seriously ramped up its available online consultations and training opportunities. A busy and dynamic schedule includes 42 x Zoom training sessions each month which will run for as long as the crisis lasts. Zero 88 product manager Jon Hole commented, “With the whole live music, events and performance industry shut down, we want to be as positive, forward-thinking and helpful as we can to anyone who is already using or keen to know more about some of the core Zero 88 products.” The Zero 88 Home Page https://zero88.com/ has full details of what’s available and interested parties can sign up on the spot. The 42 x Zoom training sessions are divided into 10 categories – which are scheduled to be repeated over the monthly period, offering different time slots and also ensuring that those in different time zo
Belgium - Cordeel knows how to finish projects with a flourish. The Belgian construction company demonstrated this in convincing fashion recently when it completed the Temse shipyard dry dock headquarters. After finishing the construction of the building at ground level, Cordeel’s engineers hoisted the 1,200 ton still and glass megastructure into its final position where it now perches majestically 20mabove the shipyard. For the inauguration of this distinctive building, CREATE.eu and Panama Group were brought on board to transform the space around the dry dock into a one-off Cirque du Soleil-style show for Cordeel's 1,600 employees. Instrumental in creating this transformation was a collection of over 50 Chauvet Professional fixtures that included eight COLORado Panel Q40 units, eight Maverick MK2 Washes, 24 Rogue R2 Washes, four Rogue R3 Washes and 12 Ovation E-260WW ell
Mexico - A popular nightlife venue in Mexico has undergone a complete internal transformation ready for its 2020 season. This included the installation of a totally new lighting system comprised exclusively of ADJ fixtures including Vizi Beam RXONE and Vizi Q Wash7 moving heads alongside Sweeper Beam Quad LED motorized battens and Saber Spot RGBW LED pinspots. Located in Villahermosa, the capital city of Tabasco State in southeast Mexico, Dbar is well-established as a gathering place for the area’s elite. With a top 40 music policy, the venue attracts a client base predominantly in the 21 to 40 age demographic who dress to impress and come to let their hair down. Offering premium drinks and bottle service to a upmarket crowd, it is essential that the venue’s décor sets the right tone, which is why the management completely overhauled the interior space ahead of the 2020
