Lighting Broadway’s ‘School of Rock’
All twenty-something slacker Dewey Finn wants to do is bring the rebellious spirit of rock ‘n’ roll back to the masses, but his stunted ambition and lack of income may force his friend/housemate Ned and his fiancée Patty to kick him out. However, when Dewey intercepts a temporary teaching assignment at the Horace Green prep school meant for his friend, he gets the opportunity not only to rake in some green but to teach some young kids the history of the genre and how to rock out and speak out against authority. They also enter a battle of the bands so that Dewey can live out his failed rock glory with them. But when the other teachers and parents discover his plans, their collective worlds are turned askew.
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Black Sabbath’s ‘The End’ Tour
Black Sabbath has widely been referred to as the band that started heavy metal music when the band formed in Birmingham, England back in 1968. There have been several incarnations of the band since then, leading up to their farewell tour this year with three out of the four original members. Guitarist Tommy Iommi has been the one consistent player in the band during their career and has joined forces again with singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler for 2016’s “The End” tour.
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Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show: A Kaleidoscope in the Sunshine
Once again, the fastest live show in television has come and gone. With headliners Coldplay along with special guest performers, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars, the 12-minute Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show is in the record books as the third most watched Halftime Show; 115.5 million viewers in the U.S. alone. The Super Bowl was broadcast worldwide from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA.
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Hall & Oates at Madison Square Garden
Hall and Oates are getting ready to spend some considerable time on the road this year, playing 95 percent amphitheaters while performing on some three-week long legs of a tour. They recently held a one-day production rehearsal followed by an intimate first show at the Santander Arena in Reading, PA. Then they packed it all up and headed to the Big Apple, where they sold out a Saturday night show at Madison Square Garden. Opening the show with “Out of Touch,” the hits kept coming, and the audience did their part to sing along at the big dance party.
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Extreme Home Run: A Snow Ramp Rises Above Fenway’s Green Monster
It was hard to accurately envision the incredible sight of a ski ramp rising up out of Fenway Park when, on a beautiful sunny fall day in September, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), along with Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Fenway Sports Management (FSM), announced that the beloved ballpark would host a big air snowboarding and freeskiing U.S. Grand Prix tour event. However, in mid-February, it quickly captured the attention of Bostonians when in the bitter cold the massive freestanding Big Air snow ramp soared to three times the height of the walls of Fenway’s Green Monster.
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The ‘Light Up the Night’ Laser Show at Marriott’s Orlando World Center
Lasers… There’s just something about the stunning visual effects they can create. Everything from aerial beam projections and liquid skies to laser text, graphics and even laser logos. Advanced laser projector technology from companies like Pangolin Laser System and Kvant has allowed this light source to mix in well with other multimedia show elements, including intelligent lighting, video, pyro, fountain projections and more.
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LD Kevin Hardy has Seen the Light
Lighting designer Kevin Hardy’s frequent flyer accounts must be too heavy to lift. Now 53, his peripatetic career has taken him to Beijing, London, Sochi, the Vatican, Niagara Falls and most of the U.S. He has applied his art to subjects as diverse as the band Twisted Sister and Barbara Streisand, Keith Olbermann and Howard Stern, the Ohio Ballet and the election of Pope Francis. As PLSN spoke with him in late January, he was gearing up to head to the Trump-less final Republican presidential debate in Iowa, where he would direct lighting for the post-debate “spin room” and other support segments.
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Univision’s ‘La Banda:’ Choreographed Chaos
Simon Cowell may have just given the haters one more reason to rant about him over the ‘Net. Cowell’s latest creation, La Banda, a weekly singing competition airing Sunday evenings on Univision, has completed its first successful season and was recently greenlit for a second.
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Dimmers and Power Distribution Devices
All lighting starts with electricity. The provision of good, clean power starts with the in house electrical service, but it’s up to the lighting company to ensure that the power is clean, safely protected from ground faults and sufficiently fused.
To download a PDF of PLSN’s March 2016 Buyers Guide, CLICK HERE
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