International News

BIRMINGHAM U.K. – Gaming event lighting guru Steve Thurkettle selected the Titan lighting and media control interface from British manufacturer Avolites to drive his complex audio-visual design for the 58th Insomnia Gaming Festival (Insomnia58), the UK’s biggest ever celebration of gaming culture. The event took place at the NEC in Birmingham over the U.K.’s bank holiday weekend Aug. 26-29.

THE NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM and FRANCE – Belgian engineering, animation and rigging specialists WIcreations had a busy summer supplying a selection of their standard rental products like WI Towers and WI Touring Track to a diverse variety of music festivals and live events, including Dominator 2016 (Strand Eersel, Netherlands), 2 Meisjes op het strand (2 Girls on the Beach, Little Beach in Ostend, Belgium), Decibel 2016 (Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands), EMF, Electro Beach Music Festival (Le Bacarès in France), the Nassau Festival (Amsterdam), Indian Summer (Geestmerambacht, Langedijk, Netherlands) and Pinkpop (Landgraaf in the Netherlands, pictured here.)

GLASTONBURY, U.K. — Arcadia Spectacular’s 50-ton spider sculpture, which has been impressing festival attendees since it appeared in Glastonbury in 2010, now makes use of 16 Robe BMFL WashBeams. The sculpture measures 55 by 60 feet (HxW).

LONDON – Robe noted that its stand at PLASA 2016 relied on the company’s new Spiider LED wash beam luminaire for its visual impact. The company deployed 42 of its Spiiders on a “super-web” that served as a key focal point. Other fixtures put to work at PLASA included Robe’s new Halo pixel ring, LED DL series and BMFL WashBeams.

LONDON – Artistic Licence, inventor of the Art-Net ethernet lighting control protocol, noted that the company’s Art-Net 4 was honored at the 2016 PLASA Awards for Innovation ceremony.

LONDON – Pio Nahum, Clay Paky CEO, lauded the recent PLASA trade event and the company’s latest technologies at the show, including Clay Paky’s Scenius Profile fixtures, the new the Shar-Bar moving multi-effect bar, Clay Paky’s recent acquisition of ADB and the company’s Odeon line of architectural lighting fixtures. The company’s Scenius Profile fixture (pictured here), which was developed with input from parent company Osram’s R&D department, was honored for innovation at the show.

JOHANNESBURG — Gearhouse Splitbeam noted how an early September delivery of ETC Source Four Revolutions, prompted by a specification for the fixtures by LD Ben Cracknell for a production of the musical, Annie, earlier this year, is reinforcing the company’s already impressive capabilities in meeting the lighting needs of touring theatrical productions.

WARRINGTON, U.K. – The annual Creamfields EDM extravaganza returned to Daresbury Estate with another assist from Liverpool based technical production specialist Adlib, which supplied lighting, sound and rigging to two main arenas. These included CF03, hosted by Armada, Cream and Smash The House and CF 05 (a.k.a. ‘The Curve’) due to the spherical shape of the tent and the production space. Adlib also supported CF10, the VIP Hospitality area, at the festival.

LOKEREN, Belgium — The Red Bull Elektropedia Room at Belgium’s 10-day Lokerse Feesten festival delivered a high-energy club-like feel with a fast-moving lightshow designed by Ignace D’haese, Jonas Weyn and Tijs Coene of Arf & Yes that included 100 Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 FX-B fixtures, supplied by Phlippo. The event ran from Aug. 5-14 in Lokeren, in Belgium’s East Flanders province.

UK – Lighting and video content design ceremony Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) announced the winners of the 9th edition during a prestigious ceremony at London’s iconic Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on Sunday 18th September. The well-attended ceremony saw almost 500 professionals come together to celebrate the achievements of lighting and video designers working on shows across the UK.

UK – Leading UK lighting and visuals rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the recent UK tour by iconic soul and jazz singer / songwriter and guitarist George Benson. Benson, who had his most popular hits in the 1970s including the album “Breezin’” still has a huge following, and tours worldwide from May to October every year.

ITALY – Multi award winning Italian singer / songwriter and music producer Laura Pausini started her 2016 world touring campaign in support of her new ‘Simili’ studio album with a brand new lighting design created by Alain Corthout and Ignace D’Haese from Belgian based creative visual design practice, Arf & Yes. This includes 128 x Robe Pointes and 109 x BMFL WashBeams which are right at the center of a complex and eye-catching rig.