Travis Shirley Electrifies Main Stage of Unique Event
The annual Electric Forest Festival features jam band/EDM music on five stages at the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, MI. But more than that, Electric Forest Festival has, as part of its unique identity, the goal of enhancing the music with a multi-sensory fan experience with art installations throughout the (actual) forest in which the fest takes place.
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The Chicago Cubs Host Massive Celebration
When the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, defeating the American League’s Cleveland Indians 8-7 in Game 7’s 10 innings, including a late rain delay, it marked the end of an epic era. The Cubs had not won the World Series since 1908 and the City of Chicago was prepared to celebrate the historic win, they just may not have expected it to have truly historic attendance.
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Ricardo Ortiz Lights Elaborate Shows for Grammy-Winning Artist
Pepe Aguilar, the son of music and film stars Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre, is an American-born singer who has made his mark in the Ranchera, Mariachi and pop genres of music.
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One day in 1976, Dr. Billy Golden, a chief of staff surgeon, came home with three Alice Cooper concert tickets, which he had bartered from a patient (apparently that’s how they rolled in Eastern Tennessee in those days). He not only made his 15-year-old son Michael happy, but inadvertently set his son on a career path neither knew existed. “I took two friends from high school, one being Steve, younger brother of Michael Strickland,” he tells. “That concert turned my complete focus toward working in the entertainment/concert field.” The motivated and presumably persuasive teen immediately got a job at the Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, TN. Thus his live event industry career was launched, though inauspiciously: He started at the bottom, if not a few elevator stops below that. “I mopped, swept … I literally popped popcorn by day and ran a spotlight at night.”
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According to some historians, the first spotlights were used in Paris opera houses in 1803. They involved the use of limelight. Invented by Henry Drummond, the technique was to heat a piece of lime with a flame of oxygen and hydrogen. This produced a hot white light that, when put behind a lens, could focus a hot spot of light in a directional manner. As you can see from the latest crop of followspots listed here, we’ve come a long way in 200 years.
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You probably have heard recently about Cosmic Truss’ award-winning booth design at this year’s LDI where they displayed a giant skull — which looked like it came straight out of hell — made entirely from truss. While many assumed that the huge skull was all custom, in fact it was almost completely stock pieces with minor custom bits. PLSN caught up with Cosmic Truss’ brand director, David Park and sales manager, Paul Saghbazarian to talk about Cosmic Truss, what’s new, and what they’ve been up to lately beyond building awesome truss skulls.
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Michael Apostolos on the Design for the Artist’s 2016 “Magnificent Coloring World Tour”
Starting off as a freshman in high school interning at Performance Lighting out of Chicago, Michael Apostolos first started working in the shop prepping gear. Moving forward, he then got into designing and programming for his high school theater and upon graduation, pursued a career as a production and lighting designer.
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The annual LDI tradeshow, one of the largest lighting and production equipment conventions in North America, has become, for many of us in the lighting, video and production industries, a place to see old friends, make new friends, see new products and develop new business.
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Ayrton might be likened to the Apple of the LED lighting fixture world, creating fixtures we didn’t know that we wanted until we saw them. The utility of a moving-head strobe may not be immediately clear, and at first blush the idea of a pixel-mappable moving head strobe seems — perhaps — a little over the top. But play with the MagicBurst™ for an afternoon, or even a few minutes, and that opinion might change. While the concept is simple enough on the surface, there’s greater depth here than might be immediately apparent.
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In the last 12 months High End Systems has been very busy with the implementation of many exciting features into the Hog 4 family of consoles.
Read More »Automated lighting fixtures are filled with many different effects and mechanical abilities. In addition to gobos, colored glass, shutters and irises, many fixtures provide a prism effect. While similar to a gobo, inserting a prism into the optics of an automated light can have many different results. An automated lighting programmer should understand the reactions and controls when using prisms.
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Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? They’re alerting us to other long-running holiday shows — beyond TSO. Designer Watch checked in on Brian Setzer, Oak Ridge Boys, Mannheim Steamroller, Amy Grant & Michael W. Smith, Ian Anderson, and Johnny Mathis tours.
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