UK - High End Systems has introduced the newest member of the Sola Series, the SolaWash 1000 automated luminaire. SolaWash 1000 is available in two versions; either with an Ultra-Bright engine producing 20,000 field lumens or a High CRI Engine featuring incredibly accurate colour rendering. The fixture includes a full framing shutter system, CMY/CTO linear colour mixing system, a seven plus open position replaceable colour wheel, iris and dual Linear Frost systems for medium and heavy frost. Sharp edge focus performs throughout the entire 12° - 55° zoom range. A TM-30 Filter boosts the Ultra-Bright engine to 85+ CRI. Automated lighting product manager Matt Stoner comments: “The SolaWash 1000 offers an elegant feature set for our users. Whether you are using the fixture as an Ultra-Bright wash light with framing, a high CRI key light for face lighting or even a wid
USA - Growing up in northeastern Louisiana, country star Tim McGraw was familiar with the kind of hot, humid night he encountered when he took the House of Power Stadium stage as the headliner presented by Orange Motorsports and Entertainment and House of Power Production at the at the Orange County Fairgrounds. On stage, McGraw relied on his team, including long-time lighting designer Patrick Brannon, to bring the kind of production associated with a multi-Grammy winning icon. Although the House of Power Stadium stage was not nearly as large as many that McGraw performs on, Brannon was able to give him comfortably familiar production-style looks with help from a rig that featured a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, including the new Maverick MK3 Profile, supplied by Dynamic Productions. “When I design for a full production tour, it’s exactly that. The t
UK - Artistic Licence will show its latest DMX512-to-DALI conversion product, DMXtoDALI quad. With support for DALI DT8 (colour), DMXtoDALI quad is specified for the new generation of DALI products coming to market. Artistic Licence has extensive experience in DMX512 and DALI interconversion. Its popular DIN rail solution, Rail-DMX-DALI, was launched several years ago to serve customers needing to add DALI fixtures to DMX based lighting control systems. With the continued growth of the crossover market, Rail-DMX-DALI is still very much in demand. However, the recent introduction of DALI DT8 (colour control) means that this product is not compatible with the very latest DALI technology. Artistic Licence redesigned Rail-DMX-DALI to incorporate the new standard, and to implement major product upgrades that greatly improve the performance and user experience.
Czech Republic - Robe has unveiled Esprite, the company's new LED moving head. The luminaire, which incorporates a new type of LED light source and outputs 27,000 lumens, is set to debut at the upcoming PLASA Show (15-17 September, London Olympia). Designed as an LED replacement for discharge fixtures, Esprite is the first in a new series of Robe luminaires to feature the company’s 650W WTE (White Transferrable Engine) white LED light source, a replaceable/transferable engine that promises to eradicate issues such as unpredictable lifecycles and other performance inconsistencies. The LED module also holds a host of data in addition to date, serial number and usage, which can be accessed via a free mobile app. Other design features in Esprite include a new cooling system that removes any airflow over the optics
Germany - Udo Lindenberg, one of Germany’s most enduring rock stars, is back on the road with Live 2019, another trademark spectacular touring production. This time around, lighting designer Günter Jäckle has included 22 VL6000 Beams from Vari-Lite in his touring rig. Described by Jäckle as, “like a rock and roll circus, revue, craziness, freak-show, rock show”, an Udo Lindenberg performance is a busy visual extravaganza, with up to 50 performers on stage. To deal with all this activity, Jäckle balances theatrical lighting techniques with supercharged rock and roll show lighting. “The first thing for me is to be a director,” he says, “to allow the audience to see what they should see, and not what they should not.” Discussing his design priorities, he says, “The star must be in the foreground - not the lightshow. Also, we don’t make effects becau
Europe - German rock band Rammstein have just finished their European stadium tour, with Claypaky HY B-EYE K25, Scenius Unico, Mythos 2 and Sharpy lighting fixtures, selected by lighting designers Ronald Greil and Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Design, accompanying the show across the continent. Neg Earth Lights was the lighting vendor. Rammstein began the stadium tour in Germany in May and wrapped in Vienna in August. The band will resume the tour next spring. “Our brief was to keep the lighting in line with the Rammstein aesthetics built over 25 years of touring,” says Greil, who marked his first time working with the band. “It wasn’t just another pop or rock show; it was more like a rock opera, all perfectly staged. We kept the focus on the band creating the canvas for them to perform on, which featured unique staging and architecture, a rig with ove
USA - Dead Floyd, a tribute group that fuses the improvised jam-band grooves of The Grateful Dead with the more prog rock stylings of Pink Floyd to deliver shows that celebrate the music of both. Jake Gibson, of AOS Lighting, started designing for Dead Floyd almost 10 years ago. With a deep understanding of the musical legacy of The Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd, Gibson channels the collective high-energy of both original bands into a light show that flows seamlessly with his client’s music. A recent performance at Fort Collins’ Aggie Theatre saw Gibson amp up his lightshow by adding Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot 455Z IRC Moving Heads fixtures to his rig. “For this particular show, I wanted to create a standard rock production look,” he said, “something simple, but full and effective. Adding six Intimidator Spot 455Zs really helped achieve this goal.”
USA - One of the summer’s more successful US tours has been Carlos Santana’s Supernatural Now outing with opening band The Doobie Brothers, two acts with roots that stretch back decades that can still pack a house. Equally experienced is LD Michael Ledesma, who has designed the lighting for the tour and is out on the road operating the show. The Supernatural Now tour kicked off in June and celebrates two important anniversaries in the band’s history: the 20th anniversary of their blockbuster Supernatural album and the 50th anniversary of Santana’s legendary performance at the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Naturally, iconic tunes associated with both occasions fill the show with select songs from the artist’s 2019 Africa Speaks album also on the set-list. Ledesma has worked with Santana for years and uses Elation Protron
Switzerland - Indoor drone systems specialist Verity Studios has announced that head of sales Fabrice Couadou is the latest addition to its senior management team. With more than 20 years of sales, business development, and marketing experience at Intel, Couadou will focus on scaling Verity’s live events business. “Verity has brought leading-edge technology to the live events industry and at the same time made it reliable, safe, and easy to operate,” comments Couadou. “With its innovation roadmap, Verity is already several steps ahead of the market and its competition and has established a successful recurring business model. Verity’s work with entertainment providers like Cirque du Soleil and MSG, and artists like Drake and Metallica is further proof that they’re the clear leaders in this field, and I’m excited to join the team.” (Jim Evans)
UK - GoboPlus will exhibit at PLASA 2019 on stand B2b alongside its new sister company, FollowSpotSales. FollowSpotSales joins CutColourPlus, the filter cutting and supply service, and Inluster lighting consultancy under the GoboPlus umbrella. FollowSpotSales.com is a new UK distributor for LDR of Italy, one of the last remaining independent lantern and follow spot manufacturers. It produces a complete range of profiles, Fresnels, soft-lights and follow spots with LED, discharge and traditional tungsten light sources, for entertainment technology as well as display and architecture. A selection of LDR lanterns and small gobo projectors available from GoboPlus.com will be shown on stand B2b. GoboPlus.com continues to devote its comprehensive expertise, exceptional quality and service to the delivery of outstanding custom gobos and over 3000 designs from Rosco, DHA, and
UK - MDG will be exhibiting at PLASA 2019 on Stand 50 where it will be celebrating the fifth anniversary of MDG Fog UK with a prize draw and the chance to win some MDG swag. The team from MDG UK and head office will be demonstrating the ATMe and ATMe WPE haze generators. The ATMe WPE is a weather-proof and dust-resistant version of the ATMe which has been designed specifically for outdoor use. MDG’s Me Series of fog generators, will be represented by the units at two opposite ends of the size range, with the compact Me2 fog generator at one end and the hugely impressive, stadium-filling Me8 fog generator at the other – both of which release pure white, fine particled fog in “unbelievable volume with the finest of control”. New for PLASA 2019 are MDG’s bespoke touring flight cases. Designed to carry MDG’s ATMe haze generator or any of Me1, Me2 and Me4
UK - Robert Juliat will be exhibiting at PLASA 2019 on Stand K40d with UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions, where it will demonstrate SpotMe, its award-winning, bespoke 3D position-tracking system for followspots, which earned Robert Juliat a PLASA Award for Innovation in 2018. The ZEP2 range of LED zoom profile spots and Fresnel fixtures will be on display. Equipped with an enhanced white LED source providing a higher light quality and output, ZEP2 can be used as a direct complement or replacement for traditional 1kW or 2kW units but uses only 150W or 300W of long-life LED power resulting in huge cost savings. ZEP2 profile spots deliver a smooth flat beam, CRI of up to 92, and all the SX range features including three variable zoom options (28°-54°, 16°-35° and 11°-26°), a strobe function, and a built-in flicker-free dimmable PSU with silent operation which ma
UK - Ayrton will be exhibiting at PLASA 2019 with its exclusive UK distributor Ambersphere Solution on Stand K40b. On display from the French lighting manufacturer will be its latest luminaires - Khamsin, Bora, Mistral and Levante – and two new products, Perseo and Huracán-X, will be launched at the show. Ayrton will also celebrate its heritage through a product showcase styled as a timeline, showing products manufactured since the company’s inception in 2001. Perseo is Ayrton’s first multi-function, compact, powerful, IP65-rated fixture developed for outdoor use. Feature-rich from the factory (including 100% framing shutters, a variable CTO and six-colour wheel), Perseo produces 27,000lm from its 500W LED source, and sports a fully weather-proof housing with a new water-resistant menu navigation system. The fixture has a 27,000-lumen output calibrated at
Italy - The 2019 edition of the Italian travelling music festival Battiti Live (Live Beats) recently visited Italy’s Puglia region, with five days of music from 70 international acts. Having grown from the initial 1995 Battiti dalla Caverna radio programme, the event is now streamed live on national TV throughout Italy. With the growth and popularity of this event has ever-increasing, so in turn has the expectation of the production. "The music, the public and the cities involved are the heart of Battiti Live,” comments Radionorba’s artistic director Alan Palmieri. Termoli-based full-service production company Rooster ensured the smooth running of the festival and employed various Prolights fixtures to achieve this. Twelve Halupix fixtures were used, featuring an optical design that combines a 2800 Kelvin warm-white LED source with special 8°
Mexico - Mexican AV specialists Sound Systems Suppliers (S3) has invested in a Work Pro LightShark LS-1 DMX hardware lighting console in order to enhance workflow across a range of events including corporate launches, fashion shows and live concerts. Based in Mexico City, S3 has been offering specialist AV services to clients for more than 15 years. Its main customers include the Sendero Shopping Centre, F1 Management Malls, Phillip Morris and Universal Music. The company also supports touring musicians such as Izan Llunas, Yahir, Matisse, Coque Muñiz, Playa Limbo and many more. Company director Jorge Uriel Núñez Vega says: “Our core business is live show production and we offer our customers a complete solution that incorporates audio, video and lighting. Before buying a LightShark console we were using PC interfaces to co
Belgium - The small municipality of Neerpelt on the Belgian-Dutch border hosted the 68th edition of the annual European Music Festival for Young People. Attracting performers and music lovers from all over the world, the event showcased 100 children and youth ensembles with over 4,000 international performers representing every genre from symphonic and brass, to jazz and big bands, to chamber and folk. Licht & Geluidstechniek Renckens (LGR), supported this array of performances with a versatile and colourful lighting design that reflected the many moods of the music without distracting from it. Aiding LGR in this endeavour were 36 Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip IP fixtures. Drawing on the compact design of the linear LED strips, the LGR team was able to fit this lighting within the smaller footprint of the stage. When called upon to accent the music, the fixture
UK - TSL has completed the rebrand of Basingstoke-based stage lighting equipment supplier Blinding Light to TSL Lighting following the latter’s acquisition in January 2018. Operating as TSL Basingstoke, the company will look after all lighting projects, whilst the rigging projects will be processed at TSL’s warehouse in Gatwick. The move has been described as “a milestone” in the expansion of the company, which is under the directorship of Sam Tamplin, Loz Wilcox and Dom Sheerman. Tamplin comments: “During the time that Blinding Light has been part of the TSL family, we’ve harmonised our processes to the point where the equipment preparation for all jobs, whether styled as TSL or Blinding Light, is identical, so the time feels right to remove any potential brand confusion for our customers. “Bringing the brands together as TSL Lighting will se
UK - LaserCube, an all-in-one laser display system ideal for mobile DJs and other applications that require a portable and easily set-up laser solution, will be presented at PLASA Show (15-17 September, London Olympia, stand T8). LaserCube allows users to project analogous colour patterns and animations onto walls, screens or other surfaces, create looping tunnels or other laser artwork. The device fits inside a 10cm, 1.4kg cube and its battery lasts for three hours on a single charge. Users can control LaserCube remotely via the LaserOS software, available for Mac, PC and Android devices; LaserOS is handily pre-loaded with various animations, images and sonic visualisers. Bespoke abstracts and timeline-based shows can also be created with compatible third-party software, such as MaxWell, Modulaser, or LaserShowXp
Australia - Occupying almost an entire city block, Hobart’s new cultural precinct represents a significant partnership between private developers and DarkLab, a subsidiary of the Museum of Old and New Art. The first stage of the development, In The Hanging Garden, opened as part of the annual winter festival Dark Mofo. In its initial phase, In The Hanging Garden consists of an extensive urban beer garden and outdoor dining area and at the centre of the site, and providing some protection from the elements, is a dramatically lit 18m-tall skeleton steel Cathedral shelter, around which are split-level spaces filled with rotating food and beverage offerings in converted shipping containers. During Dark Mofo, the cathedral hosted Night Mass with a variety of acts bravely playing through the cold winter nights. Hobart-based Alive Technologies supplied audio a
Czech Republic - Let It Roll 2019 attracted some of the most popular drum 'n' bass sounds and artists as 25,000 fans rocked up to enjoy three days and seven stages of DNB mayhem in the atmospheric environment of Milovice Airfield. The former Soviet-era airbase north of Prague in the Czech Republic is tucked away in wooded countryside surrounded by a myriad of winding concealed roads. The festival has been on the current airfield site for the last five years, growing in popularity and profile and this year Robe moving lights again played a prominent role. Directing all the Mothership (Main Stage) technical production was Pepa Ženíšek from SMART Production and his team. Flying high on the Mothership this year were Andy C, Sub Focus X Wilkinson, Chase & Status, Delta Heavy, Pendulum and many more. The Main Stage production lighting design was imagined
USA - The Minneapolis Convention Centre has completed another phase in its continuing technology upgrade adding Ayrton Bora-S wash luminaires to the main auditorium. “We replaced our old wash units with a greater number of Bora-S and kicked up the rig a couple of notches,” says the Centre’s technology coordinator, John Eberlein. “We’ve gained greater capabilities with Bora, which can act as a spot, gobo and shutter unit. This takes us to another level.” The feature-packed Bora-S is particularly suitable for scenic applications requiring a great deal of light output, such as concerts and other live entertainment. It is equipped with a new LED module calibrated at 8000K delivering powerful metallic white light with a record-breaking output of 42,000 lumens. ACT Lighting, Inc., Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for North America, had demo’d an assortme
Canada - When the Casino Regina Show Lounge wanted to replace some of its heavily-used followspots, Christie Lites Sales, a Saskatchewan dealer for Robert Juliat lighting fixtures, suggested a pair of Oz 600W LED followspots for the entertainment venue. “We wanted a direct replacement for the Robert Juliat Korrigan followspots we had previously, so Oz was the best option,” says Bruce Dumba, lighting director at the Casino Regina Show Lounge. Casino Regina is owned and operated by SaskGaming, and is located in Regina’s landmark Union Station building. The 800-seat Show Lounge hosts all types of entertainment: singers, bands, comedians, artist tributes, banquets, and is looked after by Ashley Seidler, manager of entertainment at Casino Regina. “Most venues are looking for LED followspots now, and Oz is essentially the LED version of the Korrigan units the Show L
USA - One of the top selling country music acts for well over a decade, country trio Rascal Flatts is what lighting designer Travis Shirley calls a legacy act. For their Summer Playlist tour, pods of Elation Smarty Hybrid moving heads provide striking yet elegant lighting impact. When Shirley began discussions with band management, it became clear that the band was ready to bring themselves up to date as far as the look of their show. “They wanted something fresh, something current and that’s the direction we started heading in,” Shirley shared. “I took it as a clean slate. Naturally, with fresh and clean what comes to mind is simplicity, clean lines and modern concepts. I wanted something simple but definitive.” Shirley’s design is based around three lighting pods located forward of three vertical backdrop LED screens. “Three members of the band, three
USA - City Theatrical’s Multiverse Wireless DMX technology is now available with the VioStorm UV LED lighting series, Wildfire Lighting’s flagship black light product line. Multiverse Modules, which are tiny radios that can be built into lighting fixtures to provide Multiverse wireless DMX control, now come as an onboard option for use in the 900MHz or 2.4GHz spectrum when purchasing Viostorm Series lighting fixtures. This technology comes as Wildfire Lighting’s first introduction of wireless DMX technology into its products. “We chose Multiverse because we liked the interconnectivity it brought to the table,” says John Berardi, president and CEO of Wildfire Lighting. “The Multiverse Transmitter utilises ethernet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi capability, dual band technology, nine simultaneous universes all in a single transmitter, plus integration with the DMXcat app
