UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has showcased a wide range of the innovative lighting, control and networking products they supply by producing the entire lighting design for the British Racing Drivers’ Club's (BRDC) glamorous annual British Grand Prix Party at Silverstone Circuit, on Saturday 15 July. Staged every year within the grounds of the BRDC Farm as part of the Formula 1 Rolex British Grand Prix weekend, the legendary occasion attracts high-profile members and personalities from the world of motorsport. This year's event marked a decade for AC-ET's patronage of the British Racing Drivers’ Club’s exclusive ‘Rising Stars’ programme, and as supplier of the creative lighting design for the British Grand Prix Party. Working closely again with the BRDC to create the lighting theme for this year's event, AC-ET supplied the complete indoo
Belgium - Creative visual design practice Painting with Light was commissioned to design and install lighting and video at the new 6000sq.m Comics Station Antwerp indoor theme park, located in the city’s famous central station complex. The Painting with Light team collaborated closely with Panasonic Belgium on the AV elements and fully specified the lighting elements of the project, which involved nearly 1300 fixtures being used to illuminate over 60 attractions. These are spread across four stories and six zoned entertainment areas. Painting with Light also took on the role of projection consultants, following Panasonic’s initial study of the building and specification of the hardware, which included 22 projectors and 86 LCD screens. This entailed fine-tuning the final positions, choosing the lenses and calculating alignment, beam angles, focuses, throw distances,
Germany - In his locker, Udo Lindenberg has everything that makes a show the absolute highlight: artists, UFOs, sensations and, as always, his own secrets, which create a light and video show with extra class and quality sound. This was certainly the case with the recently completed tour of the new album Stronger than Time (Stärker als die Zeit). The 71-year-old does not think he will ever stop, and promises his fans another 30 years of well-refined panic with orchestra. And Günter Jäckle, his lighting designer and operator for many years, is likely to be at his side for many years to come. For this tour, the design was created in the show lab of Michael Schenk's company, epicto in Edingen-Neckarhausen. As with the previous tours of the panic-rockers, Jäckle is again using a lot of fixtures from Karlsbad-based GLP. On board are 28 brand new JDC1 strob
UK - The Prolight Concepts Group has released the eLumen8 Tour Batten TW. A retro halogen style effect with a substantial 85% power saving. The Tour Batten TW is suitable for rental and event markets with no dimmer required along with no costly lamp changes ensuring years of faultless operation. “The second model in the eLumen8 Tour Batten Series is the TW (Tuneable White) which features a newly designed combination of LEDs with specially designed collimators and specifically written software to emulate the dimming curve and colour temperature shift of a dimmed halogen lamp,” says Andrew Jeffrey, managing director of The Prolight Concepts Group “With a maximum usage of 110W the eLumen8 Tour Batten TW is over 85% more efficient than a similar batten using 75W halogen filament lamps. Industry standard chassis dimensions allow the battens to easily fit into flight c
USA - Arka Lounge operated for 16 years as one of the more successful nightspots in the Washington Heights area of upper Manhattan. Rebranded last December as Arka Room, owners of this sophisticated, intimate place to party are hoping for the same run of success they enjoyed for nearly two decades. As the area has changed, the venue has changed with it. Now Arka owners seek to engage old and new patrons alike with an updated design that features a dynamic Elation Professional lighting system. “We wanted to create an atmosphere that is unique to this space,” stated Tirso Pelaez, owner of Tirso Lighting, the design and integration company responsible for the design makeover. Pelaez served as lighting designer on the project and says his responsibility was to create the best lighting solution that he could for the space. “Though it was somewhat confined, we felt tha
Israel - When Light Architects Cochavi & Klein were engaged by The Tripping production group to create spectacularly different lighting for a special sunset party in the Gan Haslaim (Rock Garden) of Tel Aviv’s famous Yarkon Park, they came up with the concept of a giant ‘electronic sun’ positioned 20m high in the air behind the elevated DJ and VIP areas. Based around a three-ring circular truss, this huge 8m diamater backlight structure carried 48 of Robe’s 19-segment Spiider LED fixtures together with 24 of Robe’s fast, ultra-narrow Pointe fixtures, and two dozen 4-light mole-fays. The entire structure was suspended at a pre-tilted angle from a 66m mobile crane. The party started at noon, taking thousands party lovers on a journey through the sunset and into the night. The DJ booth was located in front of the rocky hill, with a beautiful back scenery ful
USA - Located in the geographical heart of Minnesota, Central Lakes College embodies the state’s long-standing tradition of supporting community involvement in the arts. This spirit is very evident in the college’s two theatres, which not only showcase the work of its own drama department, but also host community theatrical productions, as well as recitals, rock concerts and a wide range of other performances. To support this diversified schedule, the theatre’s lighting designer Ben Kent recently upgraded its rig by adding flexible Chauvet Professional LED fixtures, supplied by Monkey Wrench Productions. “Our theatre production programme began 48 years ago, and it’s always embraced a variety of shows,” said theatre director Patrick Spradlin. “The college produces five or six theatrical productions a year, which are performed in either our proscenium space
USA - High End Systems has announced the finalists for the 2017 HOG Factor National Collegiate Lighting Show Programming Competition. The competition finals will be held on High End Systems' booth at the 2017 LDI trade show. The finalist teams will be flown to Las Vegas to perform their pieces live at LDI 2017, based on the High End Systems 2017 LDI Booth Design. The Finalist teams are: Long Beach Three from California State University. Long Beach SolaSwine from Carnegie Mellon University Backstaged from University of Cincinnati – CCM High End Systems' Paul Hancock commented: "On behalf of everyone from HES, we want to congratulate all teams for their participation in our third annual HOG Factor Competition. The participation was overwhelming this year; to say it was incredibly difficult for our panel of judges this year would be an understatement.
USA - DJ Expo 2017 will witness quite a few firsts for Chauvet DJ. Visitors to the company’s booth (517) in Atlantic City 15-17 August will not only get a look at its first ever LED video wall, the Vivid 4. This year will also mark the first time that the company shows the SoundSwitch light control hardware/software package at DJ Expo. Alaso, Chauvet DJ will be introducing the newest member of its popular Intimidator series, the Intimidator Beam 355 IRC, a 100W LED moving beam. On top of that, there will be product giveaways, an informative Jeremy Brech seminar and show floor deals from iDJNow. Highlighting the product introductions at DJ Expo will be the Vivid 4, a modular video panel that vividly displays content without the need for bulky media servers. Users can create dazzling video displays with these lightweight video panels that feature black body LEDs that a
USA -Driving on the wireless 2.4GHz highway can be difficult, and crowded wireless roads can result in signal loss and signal degradation. Even in the best situation, wireless congestion can lead to a less than perfect show; in the worst case, it can kill your show. RC4 Wireless invites users in the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand to experience the magic of 900MHz and the new RC4Magic-900SX Series of products, and say goodbye to 2.4GHz wireless congestion. Like the original RC4Magic-900 Series, RC4Magic-900SX operates in the 900MHz band, a cleaner and less congested RF space providing the best performance possible. For added security, RC4Magic-900SX assigns each user a set of unique, private RC4 System IDs using unique RC4 proprietary technology. RC4 System IDs eliminate any chance of interference from adjacent wireless networks, no matter how close oth
USA - Multi-platinum, Grammy-Award winning artists Zac Brown Band (ZBB) is on the road again with a new album Welcome Home and a brand-new production lighting and visuals design created by James Scott and Louis Oliver from UK-based creative design practice, Okulus. James and Louis have included 32 x Robe Spiiders on the lighting rig, which are integral to creating the look, feel and lighting ambience of the show. James has been working with Zac Brown Band since 2014 and since 2015 this has been in conjunction with Louis and Okulus - adding the dynamic and strategic advantage of now being able to offer two design ‘heads’ for each project. While the previous two tours featured prominent structures and multi-layered set pieces, the aesthetic brief for Welcome Home was to strip things back, bring the band physically closer together and make the whol
The Netherlands - An Avolites Arena console was recently used as part of an extensive Avolites lighting control network for Dutch rock giants Kensington, at Pinkpop, the world's longest-running pop festival, in Landgraaf, Netherlands. The Arena console was supplied by Belgium-based rental company, Phlippo, to the band's lighting designer Jop Kuipers. Fairlight supplied two Titan Network Processors (TNP) and an Optical Titan Network Switch (TNS), whilst Kuipers brought in his personal Titan Mobile console as backup. "I have been using Avolites for over a decade," says Kuipers. "The Arena desk is great for large set-ups like Pinkpop, because it has a lot of on-board connection options such as fibre and SMPTE Timecode." Kensington's Pinkpop set came in the middle of the band's 2017 summer festival tour. For the show, Kuipers designed a high-impact floor package co
USA - This November marks the 25th anniversary of the birth of the Source Four fixture at ETC. Between now and this year’s LDI tradeshow, the company is taking a look back at this product that has become such a major part of ETC’s story, the fixture that has made a long-lasting impact on the industry, and the product that has inspired many additional ETC fixtures. When asked what he remembers about the first time he saw the Source Four, ETC CEO Fred Foster says: “When I first saw the Source Four it was just a HPL lamp, glass reflector, and a lens on an optical rail in Dave Cunningham's lab. But it was 40% brighter than a 1000W FEL and used only 575W of power. I was awestruck. It was even more fun to watch the looks on the faces of the LDI attendees when we launched the product a year later.” Ellen White, outreach and training specialist at ETC, was working in E
USA - The award-winning Chroma-Q Inspire range has introduced its newest addition - the Inspire XT. Incorporating all the features of the popular Inspire range of luminaires, including; fully homogenized beam, theatrical grade dimming and convection cooling, the new Chroma-Q Inspire XT boasts an impressive output of more than 9,500 hot lumens. The Inspire XT uses Chroma-Q's advanced homogenized optics, allowing for a single output beam that is clean, pure and uniform. Factory calibration ensures every Inspire’s output is colour matched. The Inspire XT’s range of beautiful whites, soft pastels and bold saturates provides for maximum creativity. Its ability to transform the look and feel of a space and engage an audience while subtly or boldly shaping an environment makes Inspire XT perfect for entertainment, Houses of Worship and architectural projects.
USA - Six standards are available for public review on the ESTA website - click here. Five have comment deadlines of 25 September 2017, but one is a week later, 2 October. People materially affected by these standards are invited to review them and to comment on them, saying they are acceptable as they are or are in need of changes. BSR E1.9, Entertainment Technology - Reporting Photometric Performance Data for Luminaires Used in Entertainment Lighting This standard defines the minimum data to be presented on documents purporting to accurately describe the photometric performance of stage and studio luminaires used in the live entertainment and performance industries. This is a proposed reaffirmation of the standard first published in 2007. The closing date is 25 September 2017. BSR
Hungary - The 17th FINA World Aquatic Championships took place in Budapest with 14 days of aquatic sports following a vibrant, colourful, elegant and epic opening ceremony directed by Olivier Feracci from French event production specialist ECA2 and Hungarian film director Csaba Kael, CEO of cultural hub Mupa Budapest. Lighting designer Frédéric “Aldo” Fayard from Concept K in Paris specified over 400 moving lights for the event, 80 per cent of which were Robes. He was brought on-board by French event production company ECA2 who co-ordinated all the technical production. The event included a host of other visual elements like large format projections, mapped buildings, water fountains and fireworks. A cast of several hundred performed during the two-hour show, broadcast live on national TV, on the M4 Sport channel (Directed by Andras Kakatos) and streamed
UK - The 2017 Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards has announced this year's shortlist of lighting and video designers recognised for their creative work in television. The winners will be announced at the 10th anniversary KOI Awards ceremony, to be held at London's Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, on 17 September. The Television shortlist is the second of this year's three category shortlists to be announced. The nominees are as follows: The Light Initiative Television Award for Events Philip Brines for Proms in the Park, Ben Cracknell for the Olivier Awards broadcast on ITV, and Bernie Davis for BBC1's Festival of Remembrance The Philips Vari-Lite Televsion Award for Drama Chris Ramage for ITV's Emmerdale, Larry Smith for ITV's Dark Angel, and Dominique Clements for CBBC's Hetty Feather The SLX Television A
USA - Australian Pink Floyd has appeared before over four million fans in 35 countries. The band captivates fans by recreating Pink Floyd’s stage shows. This immersive multi-sensory experience is very much on display in Australian Pink Floyd’s current USA tour, thanks in no small part to a nine-universe lightshow that Tom Mumby designed and controls with the ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 Stadium console. Mumby, owner of Vivid Lighting Design, is using over 150 fixtures in the show. A 5m ircle that holds 26 moving washes and frames a video wall serves as the centrepiece of his design. His main rig is also made up of six vertical ladders, hung at staggered heights from a 50’ truss. Complementing the lights on the ladder trussing is a collection of 26 washes, strobes and blinders that runs along the downstage edge. An additional eight washes are used as sidelights. Rounding
USA – On Thursday 20 July, nearly 250 ETC end users arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, for the fourth CUE conference. CUE, short for Create Understand Experience, is a professional development conference hosted by ETC every other summer. This year’s classes were organised into one- and two-day-long tracks so attendees would have a more immersive, educational experience. Tracks focused on technicians, educators, general system networking, designing a better theatre, and Eos console programming. The typical daily class schedule was enhanced this summer with optional Saturday evening classes. With so many opportunities for hands-on learning, it’s no wonder that reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. When asked to describe one main takeaway from the event, a CUE attendee says: “This should be required for technicians everywhere. There are too many benefits to list
USA - When Tim Farquhar took his first look at the site of the Beanstalk Music and Arts Festival, he described it as “a lighting designer’s dream”. Not only was the setting breathtakingly beautiful with its panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains and the Upper Colorado River, but at 6,600’ above sea level and miles from the nearest city there was virtually no ambient light, save the stars in the summer sky, to distract from a lightshow. Farquhar, owner of Farquhar Productions in Boulder, CO, recently made the most of this dream opportunity for himself and visiting band LDs by creating a powerful and flexible lighting rig for the four-day Beanstalk event. His flexible rig was anchored by a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 Spots and Chauvet DJ Intimidator fixtures supplied by Field View Productions. “Every LD wants work in a beautiful setting, and you
UK - The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) staged the London premiere of Scuttlers in its city centre GBS Theatre, an intense drama about the struggles and power politics of 19th century Manchester street gangs set against a steaming, grinding industrial revolution backdrop bringing massive social change and great uncertainty. The work was written by Rona Munro in response to the UK’s unsettling spate of urban riots in 2011. Directed by Hannah Eidinow, the production was lit by Declan Randall, a South African theatre lighting specialist living in the UK, who made use of a number of different Robe fixtures available at RADA. Declan was asked to light this production by Matthew Leventhall, RADA’s head of production lighting, working alongside a team of RADA students. The stark, raw industrial set – designed by Postgraduate Theatre Design (Set & Costum
USA - A pair of grunge rock heavies teamed up for a once in a life one-off at a music hall 150 miles outside Chicago this July, and were support by some punchy looks from an equally powerful duo: The Intimidator Beam 350 LED and Intimidator Spot 255 IRC from Chauvet DJ. Fresh off their appearance on the Make America Rock Again tour, Puddle of Mudd and Saving Abel visited the Boiler Room, in Kewanee, IL for a sold-out show. Jeff Hinton, working for Jonny B. Enterprises, supported their intense non-stop 90-minute performance with a hard-hitting lightshow that featured 16 of the moving fixtures. “These were big name artists for this town and this venue,” said Hinton. “We wanted to create a lightshow that had a full production look, but we had a small stage and limited power. The Intimidators allowed us to create some impressive visuals despite this limitation, not
Moldova - Elation dealer Eventika Grup SRL of Moldova recently finished an interesting project that the company worked long and hard to complete. After the USSR collapsed, the circus in the town of Chisinau, Moldova, disintegrated along with it, leaving behind a large circus building that had the potential to be an excellent performance space. After years of laying idol, Eventika was able to partially restore the building on their own, without foreign investment, and held a 20th anniversary tribute concert at the venue for the Moldavian rock band Gindul Mitei (Cat’s Thoughts). The circus building, Chisinau City Circus, opened in 1981 and was once the largest auditorium in Moldova with over 50 performances there each year. With post-communist era struggles however, the venue was abandoned in 2004. For the 2017 20th anniversary tribute concert, bands and solo artists
France - Airstar has announced the appointment of Clément Guittet as export manager to strengthen its international presence. With 80% of its lighting turnover generated abroad, the company is focused on supporting and growing its global network. Commented Xavier Ponson, Airstar sales director: “Our brand is already represented in 40+ countries through 12 subsidiaries and over 70 independent distributors. This role has been created to help nurture our existing relationships and further boost our international presence.” Based in Airstar’s Headquarters near Grenoble, Clément will be responsible for Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, India and Switzerland, with the aim of supporting the existing Airstar international network and developing the company’s presence in the event, construction, industry, security, architecture and cinema sectors. W
