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Lightronics Architectural Dimmers

Lightronics’ AR-1202RTC 12-channel x 2.4kW architectural dimmer.

Lightronics Architectural Dimmers

Lightronics got their start building dimmers, plain and simple. Founder Kevin Nelson was introduced to theater while a young man in school down in Virginia Beach, where he got involved with the audio and lighting gear he used. Eventually he was hired on by a local music store and got hands on work repairing lighting gear. Along the way he started using gear for shows, working long into the night before loading out his gear and going to the next venue the next day. At a point, he realized that dimmers needed to be constructed a bit more ruggedly to endure the rigors of being travelled in a van and be able to perform consistently every day.

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Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Wash

Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Wash

Chauvet Professional is a top name in entertainment lighting, and the company continues to deliver new and innovative products to the market. Joining the existing Maverick series of spots, washes, and a beam is the brightest of the washes, the Maverick MK3 Wash. In this Road Test, we’ll travel in and around the full-featured MK3 Wash moving head fixture to learn all about it.

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From top to bottom, ATEM Television Studio HD, HyperDeck Mini, Web Presenter and Teranex Mini Smart Panel from Blackmagic Design.

Honey, I Shrunk the Studio

A Look at Four Compact Tools for Video Production

I’ve been using a Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio for a while now, so I was excited to get my hands on the newly released Television Studio HD. Why stop there, though? This month you get a bonus equipment review — I took possession of not only the ATEM TVS HD, but also a HyperDeck Mini, a Web Presenter and a Teranex Mini Smart Panel. Basically, a complete eight-input switching/record/playback system designed to fit in a 1RU space, with the exception of the Web Presenter.

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Fans on Broadway ready for Game 4.

EventPM Lets the Predators Loose on Nashville

Crowd Takes Over Downtown Streets During Team’s Stanley Cup Run

Huge crowds descended upon downtown Nashville during the 30 days the Predators advanced through the NHL Western Conference, with hockey fever building to a frenzy during the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals series in early June. All that took placed in late May and early June, during one of Nashville’s busiest times of the year, with CMA Fest [June 8-11] and the CMT Awards [June 7] and related concerts happening around the same time. Fan fever pitch in the city streets was unlike anything the aptly nicknamed “Nash Vegas” had ever seen before.

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PLSN July 2017 Buyers Guide - Handheld Gadgets

Handheld Gadgets

As I walk along convention floors, I often notice cool little gadgets, from tools to lights to smoke devices and more. Each of these fits a nice little niche in our world of live events. Whether it’s a physical gadget, pressurized effect or an electronic device, we’ve compiled a few nifty devices we felt were worth a look this month.

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Joyce and Eric Von Fange

The Light Source

The Light Source epitomizes the American family-owned business, fabricating quality original products in their shop in Charlotte, NC. Officially entering their 30th year in business in 2017, they show no sign of slowing down as they continue to fabricate unique items that stem from client needs. PLSN sat down with Eric and Joyce Von Fange to talk about their company.

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Claypaky B-Eyes provided washes and beams. Photo by Steve Jennings

Move – Beyond – Live On Tour

Back for their third tour, siblings Julianne and Derek Hough of TV’s Dancing With the Stars fame were out on their Move — Beyond — Live On Tour, which launched April 19 in Akron, OH and crisscrossed the country before concluding in Santa Rosa, CA June 17. With a combined total of nine wins on the show, the dancers are delighting audiences with their routines with the show visuals adding their own razzle-dazzle. The tour’s designers include Peter Morse (lighting) and Butch Allen (set). We spoke with Morse about the show.

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The symmetric fans of light look great from the side. Photo by Steve Jennings

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The “40th Anniversary Tour” Kicks It Up a Notch

For Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 40th Anniversary Tour, lighting designer/director and set designer Stanley A. Green is at front of house, enjoying how the audience is reacting to tour visuals that have grown in size, shape and overall visual impact from previous tours. One index of the growth in production can be seen in the parking lots outside the arenas, stadiums and sheds on the tour’s itinerary: Yep, that’s 12 semi-trucks of gear.

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Roger Waters 2017 tour photo by Steve Jennings

Roger Waters 2017 Us + Them Tour

Roger Waters, the co-founder of Pink Floyd, is out on his “Us + Them” tour in support of his new solo album, Is This the Life We Really Want? His live set included five cuts from the new album, with topics ranging from President Trump, climate change and racism. Those things are magnified with the tour’s production visuals — which includes a massive video wall and a truss that lowers down from the rafters in the center of the arena to reveal a replica of the Battersea Power Station from Pink Floyd’s Animals record cover (including smoke chimneys).

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