News

NEW ORLEANS — Starbucks may have announced plans earlier this year to close about 600 of its locations, or about 5 percent of all U.S. stores, between July 2008 and March 2009, but the company went full steam ahead with a reported $3 million investment in its recent Leadership Conference, which drew more than 10,000 of its management team members to New Orleans to experience a show staged by Seattle-based production company Touch and AV Concepts, Tempe, Ariz.

MILWAUKEE, WI — The crew for Summerfest ’08, which takes place at the Marcus Amphitheater in Henry Maier Festival Park along the lakefront, staged a followspot showdown this year. The winning instruments — Robert Juliat Super Korrigan 1200W and Victor 1800W followspots — were used for shows attracting up to 25,000 attendees per performance and more than a million people over the course of the summer.

ANAHEIM, CA — “Subtle” might not be an adjective often used to describe Affliction Entertainment’s heavy metal style. But subtle details make a difference for the appearance of the mixed martial arts shows, presented live and on pay-per-view. For Affliction Banned, an event broadcast earlier this year, Innovative Show Design (ISD) lighting designer Justin Garrone chose 28 PixelPar 44s to warm the truss.

The Infinity ACL from Coemar, part of a collection of new Infinity instruments that debuted in Las Vegas last month, has a focusable black-light, variable beam size and variable beam control with rotating aerial effects. It can provide aerial effects and split color beam effects, changing color via CMY color mixing. A six degree beam angle, iris and LDC display come standard. Other fixtures making their debut at the LDI show include the relatively compact and lightweight Infinity Spot S and Infinity Wash S and the StageLite Led, a digital cyclorama that is part of Coemar’s LiteLED range. All products are distributed by Inner Circle Distribution.

LAS VEGAS — Those nominated by PLSN readers to be the best and brightest in the live entertainment industry assembled Oct. 24 for the 2008 Parnelli Awards gala at the Rio Hotel & Casino. Although all deserved special recognition for their contribution to the industry, a few were given the additional distinction of having won the industry’s highest honor: a Parnelli Award. To receive it, they ascending the stage shared by luminaries including Dennis Sheehan, winner of the 2008 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award, Michael Tait, winner of the inaugural Parnelli Visionary Award, shown here; and Alice Cooper, who served as the event’s Master of Ceremonies and was also Honorary Chairperson for the Parnelli Celebrity Classic golf tournament held Oct. 23.

LOS ANGELES — All of the lighting, video and audio playback for the road show, Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew Live is being controlled by co-designer/programmer/operator Mark Jacobson on a full-size grandMA console from MA Lighting, and the video and audio, on a Green Hippo Hippotizer, “needed to be sync’d without timecode,” Jacobson said — with little room for error. “All of the video for the dance routines was edited along to the music, and some of the songs have intros that involve speaking on camera, so it has to be in sync.”

LAS VEGAS — The fire alarm system went off with strobes flashing as lasers and spotlights pierced the smoky air in the long hall within the Las Vegas Convention Center. But attendees at the LDI show kept greeting one another with hearty handshakes and hugs, kept watched demos of new products and went right on learning about the newest software upgrade while others simply strolled along the mostly-black and occasionally confetti-strewn carpet, absorbing the visual spectacle offered by more than 400 exhibitors. Here are a few of the new developments that kept attendees from racing toward the exits.