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Clay Paky Sharpys Light Katy Perry World Tour

Clay Paky Sharpys Light Katy Perry World Tour

For Katy Perry’s current Prismatic world tour, LD Baz Halpin selected the Clay Paky Sharpy and Sharpy Wash 330 to create a series of poptastic surprise special effects. Halpin designed a series of 36 bespoke hydraulic flippers onto which are attached 36 individual Sharpy fixtures. The flippers are built into the sides of show’s giant onstage triangular LED screens to provide a range of fast paced special effects. “As the LED screens move up and down the stage the Sharpys ‘flip’ up or down allowing the screens to pass by each other,” explains Halpin. “At one point in the show the dancers interact with the fixtures by using mirrors attached to their hands. They bounce the beams across the stage achieving a really retro-mirror effect that’s in keeping with the kitsch feel of the show.”

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CT Brings The World Cup To Qatar

DOHA, Qatar – Creative Technology provided a variety of LED screens and video projection for Qatar’s Brazil 2014 Fanzone venue for World Cup fans.  The main screen consisted of 8mm SMD lightweight product in the form of a 10.2 x 5.7 16/9 main LED screen with side supporting screens of 20m x 3.2m in a 20mm SMD. In addition, single LED fingers extended all around the 29m of the parameter of the venue in 20mm SMD. 

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PLSN Editor Justin Lang

Finding Gear Just Got Easier

From time to time, I get a chance to do some work in the DCMA — the Washington DC metro area, for those of you outside of the Beltway.  Typically, they are quick gigs, and the jobs range from running a desk to pushing a road case.  Yes, I am never above pushing a case — it builds character, and some of the stories my fellow stagehands tell are priceless.

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Clive Forrester of All Access Staging and Productions

Calling All Desk Jockeys!

Okay… Who is going to take the first step? Well, I guess it will be me. No, that is not true. It was actually Clive Forrester of All Access Staging and Productions who took the first step around four years ago. Clive took the first step towards better health by buying a Tread Desk. What is a Tread Desk? A Tread Desk is a combination desk and treadmill that enables you to keep your body in motion during the workday instead of being slouched over your desk for eight or more hours a day.

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Act One featured Broadway's largest-ever turntable set design. Photo by set designer Beowulf Boritt

“Act One” on Broadway

Beowulf Boritt’s Tony Award-winning set for Act One, which ran this past spring at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre, was one of the grandest set pieces ever designed for Broadway. The 30-foot high, 60-foot diameter turntable featured three full stories of locations — apartments, hotel rooms, theater spaces, outdoor places — and created a larger-than-life presentation that added to the energy of the show, which chronicled the autobiographical story of playwright Moss Hart as he rose up from poverty to become a Broadway sensation through his association with playwright and collaborator George S. Kaufman. It was certainly an impressive sight, not to mention heavy — it weighed in around 100,000 pounds.

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