International News

UK – Blackout’s team designed a custom-built touring truss structure for the firstseries of ‘Sky Art’s Portrait Artist of the Year’ competition, due on screens this autumn. The reality TV show visited four locations across the UK – London, Cardiff, Glasgow and Dublin – with more than 2,000 entrants battling out to win the title.  The winner will see their work displayed in the National Portrait Gallery and awarded a £10,000 commission to produce a portrait of award-winning author Hilary Mantel.

MADRID — Since its debut in September 2012, reality TV singing competition “The Voice,” or “La Voz,” in Spain, has become a social phenomenon. To help accentuate the live performances, live drama and the jury of popular Spanish singers, Madrid-based rental, sales and installation company Citylight installed a complete Harman Martin MAC lighting rig.

SOUTH KIRBY, Yorkshire, UK – LS-Live was chosen for both production rehearsals and staging rental for four headline acts at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in Pilton, Somerset. The three-day event in June is one of the largest greenfield festivals, which this year attracted 175,000 people to experience an eclectic line-up of live music, entertainment, stalls and art installations.

LONDON – Production manager Kevin Hopgood has been working with Mark Knopfler since 2006 and has developed a strong relationship with Paul Crockford, Knopfler’s manager and his team. With Hopgood’s recent move to SW19, it was a logical step for the newly formed production company to take on the logistics of Knopfler’s current tour.

SAO PAULO, Brazil – Brazil’s new music star, Luan Santana, performed July 7 for a DVD shoot at Fazenda Maeda in Itu, near São Paulo. Spectrum Design e Iluminação provided lighting, which included 36 Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 1500s, 60 Clay Paky Sharpys and other lights.

WEST LONDON, U.K. — Entec, based here, continued its 20-year working relationship with British band Blur, supplying lighting equipment for the band’s 30-plus performances in 2013. The shows have included dates across Asia, Europe, South America, as well as a headline slot at Coachella; the photo here is from a 2012 performance in Margate, U.K.

COLOGNE, Germany – To create “Lux Eucharistica,” a dynamic audio/visual show gracing Cologne Cathedral’s recent Eucharistic Congress 2013, the management called on illumination-art specialists Friedrich Förster and Sabine Weissinger of Casa Magica of Tuebingen, southern Germany. They, in turn, enlisted Matthias Strobel, an ETC Ion control desk expert to help program the projections and Selador light.

LONDON – AEG Live appointed London-based LarMac Live (LML) to help produce three themed environments at the 2013 Barclaycard ‘British Summer Time’ series of concerts in London’s Hyde Park. Staged by promoters AEG Live, the 10 days of activities – two weekends of three shows each headlined by The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Lionel Richie and Jennifer Lopez, Elvis Costello and Ray Davies – took the whole Hyde Park ‘live’ concept into another dimension.