GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND – This year’s Glastonbury Festival was “the best yet,” according to organizer Emily Eavis. It was easy to see why, as a star studded procession of artists from Radiohead, Ed Sheeran and the Foo Fighters to The Sleaford Mods, The XX and Katy Perry appeared on its stages.
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UK – “Robert Juliat is the gold standard of followspots and whenever we’re looking to add more to our inventory, it’s our go-to brand.” So says David Slater, Group Director of Hire for the award-winning, UK-based technical production company, Hawthorn. The company has just expanded its inventory of followspots with a significant purchase of fixtures from Robert Juliat’s exclusive UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions, opting to add to their stock of 2500W HMI Cyrano long-throw units and to make a new investment purchase of the LED 300W Roxie.
LONDON – Bristol-based Fineline Lighting proves the wisdom of its investment in Martin by HARMAN’s VDO Face 5 HB LED panels by deploying impressive media displays on the two main stages at the recent Love Saves The Day Festival, held locally in the city’s Eastville Park. Specialists in production lighting and visual displays, Fineline has regularly serviced the festival’s requirements for promoters Team Love — again rigging the two premier stages at the sell-out festival and providing kit for the subsidiary stages.
SOUTH AFRICA -The most recent RMB Starlight Classics concert, staged at the beautiful, Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa … was lit by Chris Bolton of Keystone Productions … with a little help from some Robe moving lights! It was Chris’s second year in the creative hot seat – working directly for organizers Jam Events. Last year he and Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier produced a lighting co-design – and the two are now partners in their brand new visual design venture, Collective Works – however when Starlight came up this year, Josh had other commitments, so Chris added the lighting magic working with his assistant Jade Manicom.
AARHAUS, DENMARK – A gigantic 24m diameter ‘earth globe’, known as Climate Planet, has been dominating the Aarhus skyline since early June — to coincide with the Danish city being appointed European Capital of Culture. Encapsulated within this giant model of the Planet is a smaller sphere, and as visitors arrive at the spectacular high-tech exhibition on climate change during the six weeks it will be stationed in Aarhus, they will be immersed in a surreal world of twinkling stars, generated by G-LEC Solaris LED balls.
Metallica kicked off their WorldWired stadium tour in the US with a fitting fanfare of lights and lasers. It’s been at least a decade since the band last went on the road in North America and their entrance certainly didn’t disappoint. With no roof over any of the stadium stages, gargantuan screens stretching high into the sky and a mind-boggling pyro display, Metal’s prodigal sons put their trust in Production Manager Dan Braun to coordinate the creative execution of the tour.
RENDCOMB, U.K. – Theatre lighting designer Andy Webb has specified an Avolites Tiger Touch II as the house-desk at The Griffin Centre, a new £3.3 million state-of the-art performance venue at the Cotswold educational establishment, Rendcomb College. Webb has been involved in the build as technical consultant since 2013, having worked alongside the college for over a decade, supporting the theatrical department and teaching A-Level lighting design.
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ORANJESTAD, Arube – Too often, events that receive a lot of accolades don’t seem to live up to their press clippings. This was definitely not the case at the 2017 Soul Beach Music Festival in Arubal. Routinely included in the Top Ten lists of Caribbean festivals from the likes of USA Today and Jetsetter Magazine, the five day event exceeded the highest expectations this year, serving up a plethora of performances from superstars like Usher, The Roots and Mary J. Blige in a paradisiacal setting. Adding extra sizzle to the proceedings was the seemingly endless variety of intensely colored big looks that Erik van Oorsouw of Elite Productions created with help from over 100 CHAUVET Professional fixtures.
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DUNHUANG, China – A range of Claypaky moving head fixtures created the responsive theatrical lighting for immersive Chinese theatre production ‘Encore Dunhuang’, a ‘walk-in’ theatre show that debuted at the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo. The event’s theatrical lighting design was created by lighting designer Mr Wang Yugang, who specified the Claypaky Scenius Profile, Claypaky Alpha Profile 1200s and Claypaky Sharpy Was he 330s to meet the demands and the scale of the production. Mr Wang Yugang singled out the Scenius Profile specifically for its superior color rendering.
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PARIS – In just a few short years, The Weeknd has become one of the most dominating artists in pop music, winning multiple GRAMMY Awards, topping the Billboard charts and earning millions of fans worldwide. Recently, Lighting Designer Sooner Routhier was hired to design the stage lighting for The Weeknd’s 2017 “Starboy: Legend of the Fall” world tour. The performance features numerous projectors that display video content on custom surfaces, including a large spaceship shaped structure suspended above the stage.
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HILVERSUM, The Netherlands – Philips Entertainment Lighting’s new Philips VL6000 Beams were part of Bas de Vries’ lighting design for The Netherlands’ prime-time talent show, The Voice Kids, featuring contestants aged 6-14.
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PILTON, U.K. – Nearly 50 of the multi award-winning Chroma-Q® Color Force II 48™ luminaire were a central feature of the Pyramid Stage lighting rig at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, providing powerful colored illumination and eye candy during both daytime and evening performances from high-profile artists including Foo Fighters, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Craig David, Chic, Barry Gibb, The National, First Aid Kit and many more.
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