Canada - RPM Lights is a long-time supporter of AC Lighting. Backed by a partnership between the executives of both companies, RPM Lights owners Jimmy Pappas and Glen Murphy, developed and built their vision for LED lighting in the Canadian marketplace eight years ago. With multiple decades of lighting and rigging industry experience between them, Pappas and Murphy built a reputation for their ability to adapt and utilise technology to achieve outstanding results in the markets and industries their company serves. RPM Lights is a Toronto based rental and sales supplier offering an array of LED lighting products to tradeshows, film, TV and live entertainment industries. Working with well-known trade shows such as the Canadian Auto Show, as well as on popular TV shows and films including Designated Survivor and Big Brother, RPM Lights recently adopted the new Pr
UK - Event production specialists Light Fantastic Production Services supported the creative team behind Luminary, the recent art installation at Crossness Pumping Station devised by artists Anna Heinrich & Leon Palmer. Commissioned by Peabody, London’s oldest and largest housing association, and working in partnership with Crossness Engine Trust and KD Productions, the event celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer responsible for implementing the London sewer system. Created as a multi-media art installation, Heinrich & Palmer’s concept for Luminary was a spectacular combination of projection, audio and lighting effects. Designed around a visually stunning, ethereal experience, the project provided visitors an immersive exploration of the iconic heritage structure. Working to the specific
Romania - In the second century, the Romans established Cedonia, a small settlement on the banks of the Cibin river that marked the outer reaches of their empire. They eventually left, and their small village grew into Sibiu, a cultural hub of central Europe where art and commerce thrived side by side. Today, almost 2,000 years later, the creative vitality of this former hamlet is on vivid display in the Sibiu International Theatre Festival. Earlier this summer, the 25th edition of this 10-day event drew over 3,300 artists from 70 nations who performed for over 62,000 visitors daily. Supporting their work with smooth key lighting and vivid colors was a festival rig supplied by Backstage Production Group that featured Ovation and COLORado fixtures from Chauvet Professional. Desiring consistency in lighting temperature and light field, Andrei Popéa, general manager of B
France - Summer lingered for music lovers at Festival 39 Aout 2019, held at the Domaine de Chalain in France’s Jura region. The multi-genre music festival was held in a beautiful setting alongside Chalain Lake where an array of Claypaky lighting fixtures illuminated Big Flo & Oli, Martin Solveig, Eagle-Eye Cherry and other performers. Atomix provided lighting designer Guillaume Steck with 12 HY B-EYE K25s, 10 Sharpy Plus and six A.leda K20 Wash fixtures for the two-day outdoor event. “With an open-air festival it’s always difficult to programme a show in the middle of the afternoon - it’s usually necessary to wait until nightfall to be able to offer real lighting,” says Steck. “But with these fixtures, allied with a good atmospheric generator, it’s now much easier.” Steck positioned the K20 Washes at the front of the stage with the Sharpy P
China - A High End Systems Hoglet 4 is providing lighting control for a new outdoor multimedia installation in China. Two times each night, a lake in the park in Liaocheng, Shandong Province comes alive with lighting, lasers, mist, flames and fountains. The free half-hour interaction enthralls up to 10,000 spectators with the colourful, watery spectacle. LD Theo Cox - a High End Systems Hog 4 lighting console user - chose the smaller, more compact member of the Hog family for this project. “I elected to programme with a Hoglet 4, as this was the right piece of kit to leave in permanent situ after the shows were up and running,” he explains. “As well as the nightly timecode shows, there was a requirement to run a few simple cues manually, and a physical console was desired but it had to be streamlined. So with only two kinds of fixtures to program, and no need for l
Canada - ACT Lighting has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Ayrton in Canada, effective 1 October. “We are excited to further our partnership with Ayrton to now service the entire North American market,” states Ben Saltzman, CEO of ACT Lighting. “Ayrton is the industry’s most innovative brand and market-leading manufacturer of professional digital lighting with unmatched quality and design. Ayrton’s product portfolio and development strategy are the perfect match for the ACT Lighting team.” “As Ayrton continues to look forward, it makes sense to consolidate our North American distribution strategy,” says Chris Ferrante, Ayrton CEO. “ACT Lighting is the perfect partner, being the best placed company across the region, especially considering the incredible growth we have experienced together in the US market. We are looking forward to the bro
UK - Lighting control manufacturer Zero 88 enjoyed a busy and lively PLASA 2019 where for the first time in the UK, the company presented its new RigSwitch remote controlled switching system together with a host of other neat, practical and innovative power, data and control solutions. Running concurrently with the first two days of the show, Zero 88 also ran two days of free hands-on introductory and training sessions for the FLX lighting console family at the Hilton Hotel, a two minute walk from Olympia, which were popular and well received. Product manager Jon Hole commented that the quality of the visitors to the show was “consistently good” and that the footfall was busy throughout, especially on the Monday and Tuesday mornings. The specially designed one-hour training sessions were based on a very successful informal format that the Zero 88 team has de
Australia - Sydney Opera House on September 7 for Multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier gave presented “a two-hour exploration of music’s outermost boundaries” at Sydney Opera House. Stopping at the venue on his Djesse World Tour, musician from North London wove an intricately layered tapestry of sounds into his performance, captivating his audience with lightning fast piano lines one moment, and haunting bass playing the next, before veering off into a mesmerizing Harmoniser solo, all while making everything flow together with a simple, natural elegance. Reflecting the essence of Collier’s music in all of its complex, yet accessible, possibilities, was a deftly balanced Luke Edwards lighting design that featured Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures. Edwards used 32 of the 1m long RGB strips in his 12 universe show. Each of the ÉPIX Strip Tour
UK - As Central London’s largest conferencing and events centre, Central Hall Westminster recently played host to the Oscar Events House Live in London concert with Assi El Hallani and Mahmood El Turki. As the in-house technical production partner at Central Hall, White Light provided the lighting and audio solutions for this sell-out event. The concert, held in celebration of Eid El Adha, saw both singers perform with their accompanying musicians to an audience of over 2000 people in the Great Hall. White Light were on hand to enhance the event with atmospheric lighting, utilising a combination of LED moving units and haze effects, and to provide full audio coverage and support. Remon Hanna, director of marketing at Oscar Events House comments: “Central Hall Westminster was the ideal choice for our first London concert and the magnificent Great Hall looked and s
Belgium - Filipe Dos Santos, director of photography at RTL Belgium, called on the high-performance features of the VL2600 Spot luminaire from Vari-Lite in his design for Belgium’s annual charity television broadcast, Télévie. Produced by RTL-TVI, Télévie raises funds to help fight cancer and leukaemia in adults and children, so the creation of vibrant, sumptuous television images which both enhance the on-stage entertainment and engage the audience to the full is a key requirement. With its wide and deep studio stage hosting a broad range of live entertainment, the show makes serious demands on lighting. It requires lighting capable of filling the space with a quality of light, a variety of looks and effects, and the textural depth needed to create beautiful television pictures for various acts, over a long period. “A television production
UK - Harrogate’s spa heritage is being celebrated with a light display in the town’s Valley Gardens. As Harrogate prepares for the arrival of the UCI Road World Cycling Championships, a new illuminated sculpture has been unveiled in the gardens. And, two weeks later, 36 wells within the park - together with the imposing Harlow Hill water tower - will be lit with light shafts to complete a 3D art installation, which will be seen in the night sky for miles around. Called Harrogate 1571, the work has been commissioned by Harrogate Borough Council as part of a wrap-around cultural programme for the UCI World Cycling Championships. Whilst over 100 wells are set within Harrogate, Bogs Field in the Valley Gardens is the source of 36 mineral springs. The waters are Magmatic or Plutonic in origin, and never existed as rain, flowing deep beneath the earth for
USA - Luke Bryan’s Sunset Repeat tour started on 31 May and continues in to the autumn. Contributing to the good time atmosphere on stage, as Bryan and company move exuberantly through their 23-song set, is a 28-universe Justin Kitchenman-designed video and lightshow that features Chauvet Professional Maverick and ÉPIX fixtures supplied by Elite Multimedia of Nashville. Displaying the free-flowing energy of a beach party where everyone is invited, Bryan’s performance gleefully pulls in a diverse mix of music that includes his popular country hits like Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset (from which the tour got its name), as well as renditions of crowd-pleasers like Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. A large vertical video wall over the set, flanked by two equally impressive square walls, creates an evocative environment on stage by displaying a wide ran
UK - The official opening of Samsung KX, Samsung Electronics Co’s new ‘digital playground’ in London’s King’s Cross, featured ‘the world's first vertical gig’. The multi-tiered performance space in Coal Drops Yard was erected as part of the launch of Samsung’s new multi-sensory experience and saw performances from R&B artist Mabel. The concept was devised by Iris Experience’s creative director Henry Scotland, and realised with support from video rental house Universal Pixels. The structure itself was fabricated by Star Live using three shipping containers to create a 9:16 format. The finished stage was an impressive 9.1m tall, showing three stories of tech and performance space to the 2,000-capacity crowd. UP provided the vertical 4.5m wide by 7.5m high portrait Leyard CLM6 LED screen with a custom rigging solution and a disguise GX2 media
Switzerland - Cast Swiss Light Consulting, an Elation partner in Switzerland since 2015, has recently become the exclusive distributor for the lighting brand in the country. With the new partnership, Cast expands its professional portfolio to include Elation’s complete range of innovative lighting products, allowing the company to offer its customers more complete solutions. “As one of the bigger lighting companies in the industry, Elation is a fast-growing brand in Europe with a reputation for high quality and top level service,” comments Cast CEO Silvio Cibien. “This is exactly what we look for in a partner, a company that strives to be the best. We delight in demonstrating to customers the added value of investing in Elation products. The product range is very extensive with solutions to fit all sizes of projects and all types of demand.” Sales and m
USA - ADJ has announced the immediate availability of its new POW-R Bar Rack USB, a power management solution designed to eliminate messy wires and extension cords. Designed for controlling the power supply to lighting and audio equipment, the compact unit is suitable for use in installations as well as at front of house and monitor mixing positions, lighting desks and in mobile entertainers’ setups. Building on the heritage of ADJ’s popular PC-100A, a power switching unit that has been on the market for over 25 years, the new POW-R Bar Rack USB retains the original tried and tested design but with the addition of dedicated Always On sockets as well as USB charging ports. The new unit expands the ADJ POW-R Bar range which also includes the touring grade POW-R BAR65 utility power block and POW-R BAR LINK linkable power block. The new addition features eight three-pr
Belgium - The word ‘individual’ comes up often when Martin Thomas talks about lighting his long-time client Alan Parsons. It isn’t necessarily Parsons himself that the Tucson, Arizona-based LD is referring to, but each of the musicians that make up the pioneering Grammy winner’s band. “The music of The Alan Parsons Project has always been founded on a variety of musicians based on their individual strong suits - and the live show is no different,” said Thomas. “All members have specific harmony parts in the music; and lead vocals shift throughout the show. Because everyone sings, key light and backlight for all musicians is critical. So, layers and atmospheric architecture make up most of the production with several negative space moments in the performance.” At the last stop of the band’s European tour at the iAncienne Belgique in downtown Brussels
UK - Elation Professional’s Artiste Monet LED Profile luminaire won a PLASA Award for Innovation at PLASA 2019. Recognised as exceptional innovation at a ceremony held 16 September in London, the judges singled out the Monet’s wireless continuous-rotation framing and SpectraColor colour mixing systems. “We are both honoured and proud to have won our fifth PLASA Award for Innovation yesterday for the fabulous Artiste Monet,” enthused Elation sales & marketing director Eric Loader. “The Artiste series is breaking new ground with innovation that opens up for greater creative possibilities. Lighting professionals on both the production and installation side are discovering how exceptional the series is and the Monet is a great example. We are thrilled to again be recognised as an R&D leader and innovator in entertainment lighting.” The 45,000-lumen Arti
Poland - Elation Professional has announced that specialty stage technology company Przedsiebiorstwo Specjalistyczne TEATR has been named the new distributor for Elation products in Poland. Based near Warsaw in the town of Piaseczno, TEATR is one of Poland’s oldest and most respected entertainment technology companies. “We’re excited to be partnering with such an experienced company in one of Europe’s fast developing and important growth markets,” states Marc Librecht, head of sales and marketing for Elation in Europe. “The Polish market is distinct and offers unique opportunities. Our cooperation with TEATR will be a key step in expanding the Elation brand there and we look forward to working closely with their team.” TEATR has been involved in the implementation of state-of-the-art stage technology solutions for many of Poland’s top theatres, concert
UK - Inspired by the launch of its new PLASA Innovation Award-winning Esprite moving light with fully replaceable LED engine and a host of other features and the Back to The Future movie franchise, Robe presented the first in a new trilogy of expo live performance concepts at the PLASA 2019 expo in London. The show #ReturnToTheFuture was created to highlight Robe’s newest technologies in the context for which they were designed. With an original DeLorean MMC12 as the set centrepiece, six dancers – and around 200 Robe lights - including Esprites, Tetras, T1s, SilverScans, MegaPointes, Spiiders, Tarrantulas and LEDBeam 150s – rigged in the roof and all around the sides of the booth, plus stunning special effects and a pool of water containing Robe IP rated iPointes - the eight-minute 428-cue (that’s one every 1.12 seconds) show was performed to a sp
USA - Bandit Lites once again provided the lighting package for the fourth annual 2019 Black Music Honorus, where Xscape, Freddie Jackson, Arrested Development, Tamia and Yolanda Adams were honoured for their contributions to African American culture and American music. Held on 5 September at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and produced by Central City Productions, the television special was hosted by Rickey Smiley and LeToya Luckett and featured performances by Jagged Edge, Jekalyn Carr, Tevin Campbell, Kelly Price, Naughty By Nature, Le'Andria Johnson, Tony Terry, Travis Greene, 702, Smokie Norful, Jade Novah, Dee1, June's Diary, Mali Music, Mumu Fresh, Major, Keke Wyatt, Jessie Woo, Leon Timbo and Avery Wilson. Veteran lighting designer Mark Carver illuminated the two-hour affair and utilised the gear to provide a stylised, contemporary look. Bandit
USA - The St Malachy church outside Detroit recently installed a modern colour-rendering LED lighting system that features Chauvet Professional fixtures. “Colour and lighting have always been critical elements to the Catholic mass even before lighting fixtures were invented,” said St. Malachy LD Dave Corbat. “This parish takes a proactive role in reaching out to worshippers. This led to the idea of introducing colourful lighting to create an immersive environment in the sanctuary.” St. Malachy engaged system designer Nathan Cole of Sound Planning Communications to create and install a new lighting system that augmented the 800-seat church’s existing rig with LED fixtures. His design adds four Rogue R2 Wash fixtures to the main lighting pipe, and called for two more units to be arranged on the ground near the altar. A collection of COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 lin
UK - Spotrack is at this year’s PLASA Show at London’s Olympia. Spotrack enables an operator to remotely control from any location, up to 50 moving lights as follow spots. It works with any moving light and any lighting console, in any performance space and can be used in all entertainment sectors for live production from anywhere in the venue. The Spotrack team will be on hand to explain and discuss all aspects of the hardware and software that comprise a system which is revolutionising the lighting industry’s approach to spotlight control. Spotrack systems are to be found in action all around the globe at high profile events, as more and more lighting designers and production managers acquaint themselves with the clear advantages the system delivers. Spotrack CEO Liam Feeney comments, “We’re excited to be bringing TracMe to PLASA. We’ve witnessed an amaz
UK - More than 500 entertainment industry professionals celebrated the best in lighting and video design on Sunday night as The Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards announced this year's winners at a glittering ceremony at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. The annual industry awards honour the achievements of lighting and video designers working across the sectors of Theatre, Television, and Concert Touring & Events, and are chosen by a panel of independent judges. The 2019 KOI Award winners are: Theatre The PRG Award for Projection Design: Jack Phelan for The Second Violinist, Landmark Productions & Irish National Opera The ADB Award for Plays: Jessica Hung Han Yun for Equus, English Touring Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford The Robert Juliat Award for Opera: Mark Jonathan for Vanessa, Glyndebourne The
The doors have opened for day two of PLASA Show 2019 at London Olympia, with Platinum Sponsor Robe, Silver Sponsor d&b audiotechnik and Technical Sponsor Hawthorn. The show floor is already brimming with business as visitors explore the latest products and solutions from 220+ brands from across audio, AV, lighting, rigging and staging.
The show’s platinum sponsor Robe have unveiled an expansive theatrical stand based on the classic 80s movie, Back To The Future. Live performances run every 90 minutes, with a viewing area on the show’s gallery level for visitors to watch from above. The creative duo behind the stand, Nathan Wan and Andy Webb, comment:
“Robe’s stand this year features a fully time coded show called ‘Return to the Future’ which is centred around a time travelling DeLorean car. During th