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Mark Dziekan Named VP Sales & Marketing at High Resolution Systems

Mark Dziekan

Mark Dziekan Named VP Sales & Marketing at High Resolution Systems

CLARKSTON, MI – Mark Dziekan has been named Vice President of Sales and Marketing of High Resolution Systems.  In his new role, Dziekan will focus on the strategic positioning and business expansion of the interrelated companies HRS Control, Lightware USA and High Resolution Engineering. The 26-year veteran of the electronics industry most recently was VP of Sales and Marketing at Black Diamond Video in Point Richmond, CA and VP of Sales and Service at Toshiba Display Systems in Simi Valley, CA.

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Jason Aldean

Jason Aldean Tours with Bandit Lites

KNOXVILLE, TN – LD Aaron Swetland uses a mix of lighting technologies from Bandit Lites in the design of Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party Tour, which continues into 2012. Bandit calls Aldean an overnight sensation – 10 years in the making – which is when their relationship with him started.

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Bob Theis and Mike Murphy

J.R. Clancy’s Bob Theis Steps Down; Mike Murphy Becomes Top Exec

SYRACUSE, NY — After 30 years with J.R. Clancy, Bob Theis will step down from his position as chief executive officer on Dec. 31, 2011.  Theis will continue until July 2012 as an advisor to the board of Wenger Corporation, the company that owns J.R. Clancy. Mike Murphy, who has served as president of Clancy since 2009, will become the company’s top executive on Jan. 1, 2012.  He will retain the title of president.

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Andrea Bocelli and the New York Philharmonic in Central Park, 2011

Andrea Bocelli in Central Park

Lighting designer Bob Barnhart has 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry under his belt, including 17 years as an LD working on the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Miss USA Pageant and with performances by musical artists ranging from Barbara Streisand to The Rolling Stones. He also has a theatre background, worked for Flying By Foy for seven years. But no matter how much experience one has accumulated, there is always something new to contend with, and in the case of the well-received Andrea Bocelli concert in Central Park this past September — captured on the new live DVD, Concerto: One Night In Central Park — the unknown factor was Mother Nature herself. “It’s the wind that really did us in,” Barnhart tells PLSN when discussing his design work on the event. The show still looked great, despite the rain during the first half of the show that had umbrellas popping up everywhere.

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Katy Perry photo by Steve Jennings

Katy Perry: 2011 California Dreams Tour

Katy Perry’s 2011 tour, California Dreams, began its 123-show run in Europe in February, ending in the U.K. in April, with May spent in Japan and Australia. The summer North American leg of the tour included stops in 51 cities from June to September. The tour’s last scheduled date was at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Nov. 22. On Nov. 23 — the night before Thanksgiving — Perry marked the end of the tour with an additional performance, “Katy Perry Gives Thanks.” Admission to the show was free.

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Def Leppard Mirrorball Tour

Jonathan Beswick: Making Def Leppard’s Big Looks Bigger

For Def Leppard’s 2011-2012 Mirrorball tour, show designer and video director Jonathan Beswick, who has been providing the band with distinctive video looks since 2006, worked with LD Kenji Ohashi to go beyond mere I-Mag to fuse lighting and video into rock ‘n’ roll looks that are even bigger than those achieved on previous tours. Higher-resolution video panels — and more of them — made that goal possible, and lighter-weight gear helped keep the production’s rigging, setup and tear down challenges in check.

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Amnesia in Miami

Amnesia in Miami

The Club Reopens with a New DJ, Roof and Memorable Visual Experience

Known as one of the hottest nightclubs in Miami back in the early 1990s when owners Gregory and Andre Boudou introduced house and trance music, huge foam parties and a European, open-ceiling grotto style layout to South Florida partygoers, Amnesia has returned in 2011 with the Boudous joined by DJ Bob Sinclair.

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PLSN Video World Dec 2011

A Word About Marketable Skills

If you’re just starting your career in the biz, please gather round the campfire.  Perhaps more important, if you have children entering high school, college or a university — please read on.  As I climb up on my soapbox, this is a subject that I’ve preached about for years, and in our harsh economic climate, it still rings true.

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Concert Touring 101

I have just finished programming another big rock show, and it got me to thinking about the common programming elements that are present in all concert tours.  Even with different musical genres and unique production requirements, there are some essential processes that every automated lighting programmer should be aware of.   The layout of the show, use of flash keys and palette usage are very important parts of the concert touring experience.

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Transportation Security Takes Center Stage

Anyone who has gotten onto an airplane in the last 10 years knows that it’s not as simple a process as it once was. The Transportation Security Administration has added multiple layers of procedures in that time, from banning liquids to backscatter X-ray scanners, most of little use in the way of actual security. But even as the TSA has made getting people onto airplanes a massive headache, the federal government has made getting materials of all sorts onto airplanes and other forms of transportation a relative breeze. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

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