NEW YORK — DJ and dubstep producer Excision is touring the U.S. and Canada this year with a visual assist from Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20- LED-based moving lights, a cadre of Sharpys and grandMA2 lighting and laser control. A.C.T Lighting distributes both Clay Paky fixtures and MA Lighting in North America.
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NASHVILLE — Dream Theater, which kicked off the North American leg of their “Along for the Ride” tour with a March 20 show in Toronto, is using 20mm FLEXCurtain LED displays from PixelFLEX to add to the show’s visual impact. (The band’s April 5 show at The Chicago Theatre is pictured here.) PixelFLEX notes that Dream Theater’s trek is also the company’s first big splash on the international touring scene. Photos of the band’s gigs in Europe are posted below.
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MIAMI – To help DJ Steve Angello, formerly with Swedish House Mafia, turn an abandoned RC Cola plant into a one-night EDM playground pulsing with color and sound, Design Oasis provided a 38 by 20 foot (WxH) wall of MVP 12 LED video panels from Chauvet Professional. Angello’s #Decade concert, staged on March 27, coincided with Miami Music Week.
Read More »Judging from the new products and feature enhancements ETC Rigging is presenting this year, the company’s R&D department has been pretty busy lately. New developments include the Prodigy P75 Hoist, with 75 feet of vertical travel, up to 3,300 pounds of lifting capacity, and eight lift lines with quarter-inch wire rope. Also new: their retrofit-friendly Fixed-Speed Motor Starter, the Foundation Handheld Remote (FHHR) and a new QuickTouch+ Merge control board option that lets users alternate control between as many as six QuickTouch+ controllers on one rigging system.
Read More »JUNEAU and ANCHORAGE, AK – Attempting to recreate the hot, humid environment of Mississippi onstage in Alaska, set designer Akiko Nishijima Rotch turned to Rose Brand’s Kaos material. It “was the exact texture I was looking for,” she said. “The gaps in the material are uneven, and Kaos is also paintable. The uneven gaps allowed us to express the organic shape of Spanish moss. The ease of painting allowed us to create the depth of colors we needed to complete the illusion of the moss.”
Read More »NEW YORK – When Swedish retail giant H&M opened its newest US flagship store in New York’s Times Square, lighting designer Ira Levy selected Clay Paky Sharpy and A.leda Wash K10 LED-based lights to enhance the store’s futuristic, high-tech look.”The idea was for the store to appear as if shoppers were coming to a New Year’s Eve party 24 hours a day,” Levy said of the store, which is “located across from where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, and it has a club environment with lots of glitter and reflective surfaces. We use moving lights to add energy to the retail experience and shoot the lights against all the reflective surfaces, almost like a stylized mirror ball.”
Read More »FORT WORTH, TX – Putting their classroom knowledge to the test, three teams of student USITT members participated in a challenge involving real world theatre renovation problems under the guidance of practicing professional theatre consultants. The team from Ohio State University won the competition and a $750 award.
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KAZAKHSTAN and SERBIA — LDs Dmitriy Karabetskiy and Viktor Trifu both specified Avolites consoles for their individual designs for versions of the X-Factor TV franchise seen in Kazakhstan and Serbia. For the Serbian series, X-Factor Adria, Trifu and his partner Arsa Zlatkovic opted for the Avolites Expert Pro. Meanwhile, over in Khazakstan, LD Karabetski chose the Avolites Titan Mobile desk with Titan software.
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