ETC's Congo v5, new software for Congo and Congo jr lighting control consoles, includes a new effects package, new graphics and handling and updated editing tools with additional functions and accessories. Congo users at theaters, TV studios and other entertainment venues will find a variety of new solutions for their multimedia lighting rigs, including new chase, dynamic and content effects. All are handled in new effect playbacks, which allow users to select and control them just like channels and record them into presets within sequences or on masters. Existing dynamic effects and chase-sequence settings also let users bring Congo work projects into v5 without any problems, according to ETC.

DRAPER, UT — Students working in the new theatre at Juan Diego High School in Draper, UT, can operate the counterweight rigging system with a new level of confidence using automated controls designed with students in mind by J. R. Clancy, Inc.

BANGKOK — The stage for the 2,000-seat Ratchada Grand Theatre, at 50 meters by 80 meters, provides elbow room (and martial-arts kicking room) for spectacles such as Siam Niramit, with 150 actors, 500 costumes and 100 set pieces. And at just under 12 meters in height, the Ratchada Grand Theatre was recently listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the tallest proscenium arch in the world.

WEST PALM BEACH, FL — Lured by energy savings and a wide array of color choices, Andi Watson, lighting & visuals designer for Radiohead’s 2008 world tour, opted against conventional fixtures and in favor of a rig dominated by LED fixtures developed shortly before the tour got underway in early May. Watson is working with i-Pix’s new BB 7 — a seven-cell high power homogenized 10° RGB lightsource. In all, there are 48 of the BB 7s in various positions around the stage, including 25 in five custom five-way frames produced by Specialz.

AARHUS, Denmark — Martin Professional reported that its revenue for the first quarter of 2008 rose slightly to $55.7 million, up from $54.9 million in Q1 2007. The company noted that the increase was partly offset by the weaker DKK/USD exchange rate.

NEW YORK — Scharff Weisberg needed an artful approach for lighting the Brooklyn Museum’s annual gala, a fundraiser previewing a retrospective of multimedia artist Takashi Murakami and including a performance by Kanye West, and in a hurry — client Bounce Event Marketing, the overall event designer and producer, required a two-and-a-half week turnaround for the complex project.

NEW YORK — Georges Seurat was obsessed with the nuances of color, light and form, and it took him two years to create his pointillistic masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” So it’s no surprise that for the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway production of Sunday in the Park with George, which brings a story inspired by Seurat’s painting to the live stage with extensive use of projections and LED screens, precise control of the lighting was of paramount importance to lighting designer Ken Billington.

CANNES, France — The Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, may be the highest prize given to a competing film at the Cannes Film Festival. But a team of lighting designers is giving visitors to the Boulevard de la Croisette a dynamic nightly show, turning a row of life-sized palm trees gold — and any other color imaginable.

LONDON — Named for an album that rose to the top of the U.K. charts, the Kooks’ Konk tour could have gone all out with its lighting design. Working with input from the band, however, lighting designer Luton Pete (Pete Hosier) came up with a “less is more” design aesthetic, combining the simplicity of an “old school” look with newer LED technology.

SURFERS PARADISE, Australia — The crew for the 1,174-seat Arts Theatre at the Gold Coast Arts Centre say the two followspots purchased last year have emerged as standouts in their lighting arsenal. The Super Korrigan followspots, supplied by Show Technology Australia, are from Robert Juliat. Pictured here are Alex Fox, GCAC’s head followspot operator and Russell Jones, senior lighting technician.