International News

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Nearly 100 Robe BMFLs – 88 x BMFL Blades and 6 x BMFL Spots – proved an importat part of Fredrik Jonsson’s lighting design for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. The semi-finals and finals were staged in the Globe Arena in Stockholm with a capacity live audience of around 10,000 plus an estimated 180 million television viewers worldwide.

LONDON – From touring productions to festivals and corporate events, Colour Sound Experiment has come a long way from the company’s early years as a supplier of early moving lights to dance parties and raves.  As one of the first companies to invest in intelligent light fixtures in the UK, Colour Sound continues to operate a firm policy of investing in the very latest products on the market to keep the warehouse stock list bang up to date. It comes as little surprise then that the company has chosen to invest in a number of Robert Juliat Merlin 2.5K HMI Followspots.

KORTRIJK, Belgium – Barco announced the opening of its new headquarters in Belgium on May 27. Located at the Beneluxpark in Kortrijk, the 230,000 square meter ‘One Campus’ is a circular building wrapped in glass and surrounded by green spaces. It’s also connected to three other state-of-the-art Barco facilities.

DUBAI – Maestra Group – Dubai and London based event design and technical production specialist – has won a coveted 2016 Middle East Event Award (MEEA) for ‘Supplier of the Year’ which was awarded Wednesday night, May 26, at a high profile ceremony at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai. Pictured here is the Dubai team, taken after receiving the award.

LONDON and MANCHESTER, U.K. – Electronic music innovators Above and Beyond played two high profile UK shows on their much anticipated ‘Acoustic’ world tour at two beautiful and historically significant Albert Halls – the prestigious ‘Royal’ Albert Hall in central London and the charismatic Albert Hall Manchester, a more intimate but equally beautiful space formally a Methodist church. Lighting and visuals for the tour are designed by Neil Marsh, while equipment and crew for these and a warm up in Utrecht, were delivered by Colour Sound Experiment.

HAMBURG, Germany – AIDAprima is the new flagship of AIDA Cruises, built by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding to carry up to 3,300 passengers. Björn Hermann designed the lighting for the launch ceremony in early May on behalf of East End Communications GmbH, working with show production company phase7 and performing arts/technical service company Ambion on the project. He used 50 GT-1 hybrid fixtures and 342 impression X4 Bar 20 LED battens to fulfill phase7 artistic director’s Sven Sören Beyer vision of illuminating the ship with a giant matrix of light.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden –  Visual production company FIX8Group was part of the team operating the video content for all 43 competing acts as well as pop megastar Justin Timberlake’s performance at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 (ESC 2016). The 61st edition themed ‘Come Together’ was held at Stockholm’s Globe arena and hosted by last year’s Swedish champion Måns Zelmerlöf alongside returning host Petra Mede. Reports noted that more than 200 million viewers around the world tuned in to watch the grand final on May 14. This total included the U.S., where the show was broadcast via Logo TV.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The massive live Eurovision Song Contest 2016 (ESC 2016) production relied upon XLNT Advanced Technologies’ CyberHoist II automation system. LiteCom specified the automation system for the semi-finals and finals, which took place at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm on May 10, 12 and 14.

HANNOVER, Germany -– German creative director, JoJo Tillman, brought all his vast experience to bear on the recent tour by Lena Meyer-Landrut, the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest winner. After working with the artist last year, the TV and concert lighting specialist decided on a new approach when the club tour resumed in early 2016, enlisting the help of GLP (and its market-leading LED portfolio) to achieve a unique solution. Knowing that Lena is one of the faces of L’Oréal, and that the light should be concentrated on haloing this feature, he had the Karlsbad manufacturer produce special versions of the X4 atom, replacing the high output quad color purely with cold and warm white LEDs.

SANTIAGO, Chile – Clay Paky’s Chilean distributor, Valook, showcased more than 80 units of the company’s latest fixtures as part of an Open Day event for local rental and production companies, theatres, lighting designers and TV representatives. Organized by Valook – which has been a Clay Paky distributor since 2014 – the event was held on the rooftop of Santiago’s 64-storey Costanera Center Tower. Featured fixtures included Clay Paky’s Mythos, Glow Up, Scenius Spot, Sharpy, Sharpy Wash, B-EYE K10 and K20, Stormy and Stormy CC fixtures.

LONDON and BRISTOL, U.K. – Utopium has invested in new lighting and rigging equipment to bolster the production company’s already extensive inventory. Utopium now stocks SGM P-2s (LED RGBW Floods), Martin MAC Quantum Profile LED moving lights, Chauvet Rogue R1 LED moving wash lights, Robert Juliat Roxie LED followspots, SGM G-Spots (LED IP65 moving profiles), SGM Q-7s (LED IP65 strobe / flood / blinders) and ProLights Z8 LED IP65 wireless battery battens. Pictured here is Utopium’s Colin Bodenham.

MENDOZA, Argentina – Merino Producciones added lighting to its audio production duties for the Fiesta de la Vendimia (Grape Harvest Festival) at Frank Romero Day Greek Theater, located in Mendoza’s General San Martin Park. Merino Producciones’ Mariano Velasco looked after the lighting rig, which included an assortment of lighting fixtures from PR Lighting.