News

NASHVILLE – Cyndi Lauper’s career has spanned more than 30 years, and while she’s known as a pop pioneer, she’s recently made another bold move to country airwaves with her newest album, Detour. Bandit Lites provided the lighting package for the first leg of the Grammy, Tony and Emmy-award winning performer’s summer tour, which kicked off in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium. In addition to performing songs from her new album, Lauper also treats fans to her classic hits, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “True Colors,” while telling anecdotes of her adventures.

CHICAGO — MayFest returned to Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood from May 20-22, 2016, with rock veterans 7^th Heaven headlining the final night. Zach Scott designed the lighting for the band, which has opened for the likes of Bon Jovi and Kid Rock. Scott included Rogue R2 Beams from Chauvet Professional in the lighting looks at the event.

RALEIGH, NC – Alpha Production Group, which recently took delivery of six Clay Paky Scenius moving head spotlights, quickly sent them out to support the looks for Lauryn Hill’s tour, now making several stops along the Pacific Northwest. In the Lauryn Hill rig the Scenius fixtures were mounted on downstage truss to serve as washes for the artist and her band. They are also used midstage on cases for more atmospheric sets. Alpha Production Group purchased 16 Clay Paky Sharpys from A.C.T Lighting about 18 months ago and has a pair of grandMA2 Light consoles, which A.C.T Lighting also represents in North America.

MANCHESTER, TN – Synthpop trio Chvrches has been touring with a lighting design by Louis Oliver and James Scott of Okulus that includes Philips’ Showline SL Nitro 510C LED strobe fixtures to meet the band’s interest in having a strong video element but without using a conventional screen. The band performed recently at Bonnaroo 2016.

NASHVILLE — For Florida Georgia Line’s Dig Your Roots tour, named for the country duo’s third album, which is due out in Aug. 2016, Baz Halpin and Chris Nyfield are using 62 Strike 4 warm white LED fixtures from Chauvet Professional. The LDs arranged the Strike 4s, which were supplied by PRG, on five light ladders. Positioned on a trolley style track upstage, the ladders can be moved horizontally during the show. Running their rig with a grandMA2, Halpin and Nyfield control each 100-watt LED cell in their Strike 4 fixtures individually.

LAS VEGAS – At InfoComm 16, Calibre is launching a streaming video input option for the company’s 7th-generation HQView600 series presentation scaler-switchers, LEDView700 series LED scaler-switchers and HQUltra700 series live events scaler-switchers. Pictured here is Tim Brooksbank, CEO.

LIBERTY, MO — Pleasant Valley Church has installed 120 Chroma-Q Inspire color-mixing LED house lights. Stark Raving Solutions worked with Chroma-Q distributor A.C. Lighting on an LED house light “shoot out” before replacing the church’s existing 500W incandescent house lights. The goal was to provide an immersive worship environment for its congregation and to dramatically reduce the venue’s ongoing operating costs.

LAS VEGAS — Underscoring the growing number of ways for ProAV resellers to profit by incorporating unmanned aerial vehicles into their immediate business development programs, Stampede hosted  eight subject-specific seminars at InfoComm 2016 at Booth #N-168, beginning Wednesday, June 8th and running through Friday, June 10th.  The seminars were co-hosted by Unmanned Vehicle University.

DALLAS – Dallas and San Francisco based production company Casadonte Productions has been hired to live stream the National Xball League (NXL) paintball events for GoSports.com. To accomplish their tasks they chose to use a variety of Blackmagic Design products, including three Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks, ATEM production switchers and a Smart Videohub router.

SAN FRANCISCO – For Nada Surf’s ongoing “20 year tour” (as referenced, tongue-in-cheek, by frontman Matthew Caws), LD Dinah Miller turned to Squeek Lights for a lighting rig that includes a collection of Rogue and Nexus fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

KNOXVILLE, TN – Nearly 17,000 attendees including 8,000 students from 21 countries poured into Knoxville for Global Finals, the culmination of Destination Imagination (DI). The nonprofit organization works to motivate students to be visionaries in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Bandit Lites once again provided the lighting for the massive celebration, where teams from around the globe assembled to compete in challenges created to inspire creativity and promote logical skills.

LAS VEGAS, NV – To address the increasing demand for world-class large-scale audience experiences in major entertainment venues worldwide, Christie will be previewing the new Christie Mystique suite of tools, including software, hardware and services at InfoComm 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8 – 10.