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LD Rob Sinclair included 120 Martin MAC Viper AirFX and a dozen Martin MAC Auras in the rig.

Kylie Minogue’s “Kiss Me Once” Tour Heads to Australia

Kylie Minogue’s Kiss Me Once tour, in support of her 2014 album release, moves to the artist’s native Australia with plans for five concerts in March 2015 before returning for another tour leg in Europe this summer. The 2015 shows follow the artist’s 2014 tour, with close to 30 shows in the U.K. and Europe. LD Rob Sinclair and lighting director Louisa Smurthwaite provided insight into the creative processes behind the tour’s extensive lighting design, which included fixtures from Harman’s Martin Professional.

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Constellations on Broadway photo by Joan Marcus

Constellations on Broadway

The recent Broadway production of Constellations, a two-person drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, seems deceptively simple: a short 70-minute play in which the duo plays a couple that meets, falls in love, then copes with insecurities, infidelity, and illness. Above them hover a group of “balloons” of varying sizes that are omnipresent as the actors play out the scenes numerous times, reciting many of the same lines but offering multiple takes on the relationship based on a “what if” premise. What if one person had reacted to or acted differently in a certain situation?

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Eric Church The Outsiders tour photo by Steve Jennigns

Butch Allen and Rob Koenig on Eric Church’s “The Outsiders” Tour

We caught up with the Eric Church tour in February and spoke with Butch Allen (lighting, set and production designer) and Rob Koenig (associate lighting designer, programmer and director) about the tour, which has exploded along with Eric’s popularity. Eric’s devoted fans in Salt Lake City got something extra when both band and crew got a bad case of the stomach flu. Instead of canceling the gig, Eric went on with the show solo, playing 19 songs with no fancy lights, video or stage production, just spotlights for a rare performance. He also told the crowd that they would get a free makeup show later in the tour.

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Sam Smith tour photo by Steve Jennings

Sam Smith 2015 Tour

Will Potts has been working professionally in the industry since graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in 2006 with a BA in Technical Production Arts, although his first paid jobs specifically in lighting were in 2003 at The Arches, a multipurpose arts venue in Glasgow, Scotland. Here he was given the opportunity to light concerts, clubs and theatre, gaining valuable creative experience while working closely with all sorts of artists in different genres of performance.

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Albert and Berenice Chauvet (center) with staff members in Europe

Chauvet Celebrates 25 Years by Looking Forward, Not Back

It’s 9:40 a.m. on a warm January South Florida morning, and gathered around a conference table are three lighting professionals who have been brought to Chauvet’s HQ for a visit. Typical of lighting guys, they are sharing war stories on the challenges of providing lighting and video (in this instance, as it relates to the house of worship market).

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Red Bull Crashed Ice came to St. Paul, MN on Jan. 24, 2015 and set up in front of the Cathedral of St. Paul. Photo courtesy of Red Bull Crashed Ice.

Red Bull Crashed Ice Tour, St. Paul, MN

What started out as a single event 15 years ago has blossomed into the Ice Cross Downhill World Championship Series. For the fourth year in a row, one of these sporting spectacles took place in downtown St. Paul, MN on Jan. 24, 2015, where an estimated 140,000 spectators got right into the up close action of this sport. A plethora of the worlds’ fastest skaters go head to head down a narrow track skating at speeds of 40 mph. While the races themselves were exciting, I couldn’t help wondering who and how a company can erect this gigantic structure along with all the lighting, video and audio it takes to put on a world televised event like this.

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Michael Graham offers tips on conquering the dark side of visualizers.

The Dark Side of Visualizers

Visualizers are awesome. Doesn’t matter which one you use, Vectorworks, Martin Show Designer, ESP, or Capture, or the myriad of other selections out there, they are indeed cool. Visualizers are designed to save us time in crating shows, and also give us some pretty powerful renderings to blow our clients minds and convince them that our vision is indeed amazing, and worth buying. Visualizers can make your design much more clear to your client than just having a set of blueprints or pencil drawings.

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Reid Nofsinger, Strictly FX

Strictly FX’s Reid Nofsinger

They ought to put Reid’s picture in the dictionary under “pyro technician.” Take one look at him, and you know he’s the type of guy you would expect to drive fast cars, own his own custom fit Storm Trooper suit and blow up stuff for a living. He’s been the lead engineer and technician at Strictly FX, Chicago’s premier special effects vendor for the entertainment biz, for more than 15 years. PLSN sat down to chat with how he and Strictly got to where they are today.

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Steve Shlisky at KTVU in Oakland, CA

So, You Want to be a Video Editor

Everything you watch on television is edited — every program, commercial, promo, news story, every clip on the LED wall at a concert, you name it. Every scene is meticulously edited in order to move the story line along and create the program’s drama, comedy or excitement. Think about it — even live events are edited in realtime by the director (with each and every camera cut)for the very same reason — to move the story along.

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Vaddio RoboSHOT 30 and 12 Cameras

Vaddio RoboSHOT Cameras

Vaddio has been around for more than 10 years now, supplying the world with robotic cameras. Yesterday I made a trip out to their Minnetonka, MN office space to find a pretty massive office and warehouse where the employees numbered over a hundred. Everything made by the company is built in America, assembled right here at their sparkling clean facility. That was just the first thing to impress me.

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Elation Sniper 2R

Elation Sniper 2R

In a world where every manufacturer is chasing the next great LED configured fixture or inventing their version of a hybrid luminaire, it is pretty exciting to see a light come out that isn’t competing with anything else in the market. Elation’s design team has once again raised the bar by unleashing their Sniper 2R. This award-winning fixture was released last year at the PLASA show in London, and its laser simulation capabilities and high speed scanning mirror system made it the talk of the show floor.

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