International News

FRANCE – The curtains have reopened in style at Paris’s legendary Le Lido cabaret venue carried by Triple E tracks and motors. The famous Lido on the Champs-Élysées closed at the end of 2014 for renovation, which included remodeling the ceiling and installing new track systems. The venue now boasts a brand new show created by Dragone, the cultural creation company founded by Italian-Belgian theatre director Franco Dragone, who also directed the show.

AUSTRIA – At this year’s Lake Festival in Austria, Laserfabrik used four RTI NANO RGB 30 laser systems together with Lasergraph DSP controllers for covering the whole venue and creating spectacularly colored effects.

NIGMEGEN, The Netherlands – Doornroosje (Sleeping Beauty), a live music venue in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, has performance spaces with capacities for 1,100 and 400 revelers. Director of Lighting Robbie van Reen, who has worked full time for the venue since 2009, oversaw the installation of Robe fixtures in both spaces. The main room added 12 MMX Wash Beams, 16 MMX Spots, 14 LEDWash 800s and two more LEDWash 300s to the six already there, for a total of eight. The smaller room has been equipped with LED fixtures, including 8 DLF Washes, 14 DLX Spots and six LEDWash 600s. van Reen is pictured here, at right, with Jeroen van Aalst from Robe’s Benelux distributor Controllux on the left.

NEW YORK – The Mallorca, Spain-based company, Airstage, which has a production facility near Stuttgart, Germany, says its radio-controlled, helium-based Airstage AirOrbs are taking flight in venues around the world, including Radio City Music Hall as part of this year’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Flight control for the lighter-than-air orbs can be programmed or manual, and a soft propeller design lets event organizers use them without a net.

TURIN, Italy – Agorà supplied D.T.S. EVOs for Eros Ramazzotti’s recent performances in Italy and beyond. The artist resumes his ‘Perfetto World Tour 2015’ in early 2016. The lighting operator, Nicola Tallino, has been using the EVOs for bright beam and backlight effects.

LONDON – For a celebration of ‘Back to the Future Day’ (Oct. 21, 2015), Tattooed Bakers crafted a cake in the shape of a DeLorean sports car. Instead of candles, Vision SL used four COLORado Deco Quad 1 Tour  fixtures as front headlamps, two MegaStrobe FX12s for rear brake indicators and two COLORband PiX IP linear washes for bumper lights. Two Geyser RGB foggers, meanwhile, simulated plumes of smoke emanating from the cake-car’s exhaust.

LONDON – Live event production specialists PR Live supplied all technical elements – lighting, sound and AV – to the recent Friends Fest event, a five day expo-style extravaganza staged at the Boiler House in Brick Lane, east London which celebrated the hugely popular landmark American sitcom, ‘Friends’.

IPSWITCH, U.K. – HSL supplied ten Robe 600E Spots for a recent production of he classic Cy Coleman musical, Sweet Charity. Along with the moving lights, which were used extensively, the production also featured video scenery using Martin’s EC20 LED video panels.

LONDON – For American Nile Rodgers’ U.K. performances earlier this year, LD Massimo Tomasino was pleased to discover that the Clay Paky fixtures that he specified – which originated in Italy, just like the LD himself – were readily available in the British Isles. He noted that, on the rare occasion where the Alpha Spot HPE 1200s he requested were not available, other Clay Paky fixtures, like the Alpha Spot HPE 700, usually were, and they served as a fitting substitute.

REGGIO EMILIA, Italy — Campovolo 2015 was a 3.5-hour musical celebration of Luciano Ligabue’s 25-year career. Staged at the Reggio Emilia Airport on Sept. 19, the celebration featured a lighting design by Jo Campana. The 150,000 tickets sold for the single-day event had a collective valuation of more than 7 million Euros, setting a record. Agorà Service provided the lighting equipment for the event, which included 220 Sharpys and 60 Alpha Beam 1500s from Clay Paky, the Osram-owned, Italy-based lighting manufacturer.

LONDON – London’s Barbican arts center has invested in Robe DL4S LED profile and Pointe multi-functional moving lights. They play a key role in the lighting system for the 1,943 capacity Barbican Hall concert venue.

BERLIN — For Sunrise Avenue’s show at the Wuhlheide in Berlin this summer, part of the Finland-based band’s Fairytale – Best of tour, Stephan Aue used Martin MAC Viper AirFX hybrid fixtures and RUSH MH 3 beam fixtures.