International News

LONDON, UK – The Shine 2011 Benefit Dinner, staged at Old Billingsgate Market, featured a gala dinner for 500 guests, charity auction and a performance by 1970’s disco stars Chic. Lighting and event design group Renegade designed the night.

LONDON, UK – Neg Earth included Robert Juliat followspots in its inventory of lighting equipment on a number of large-scale musical events across Europe this year, including tours with Take That, George Michael, Batman Live and Muse.

AARHUS, Denmark – Jyske Bank BOXEN is one of the country’s largest indoor concert arenas. Shaped like an isosceles trapezoid, the venue’s features all but disappeared after sundown. Wanting the outside to match the lighting displays on stage indoors, the venue management sought help from Martin Professional for an attention-grabbing lighting scheme on the outside of the BOXEN.

GYDNIA, Poland – Europe’s largest permanent installation of Philips Selecon energy efficient, high output PL3 LED luminaires helped open the production, Shrek, at the Musical Theatre. Philips says this marks a real transition in the use of LED fixtures in theatre lighting design.

LONDON, UK – Core Lighting and Interactive Technologies have joined the family of exclusive manufacturers distributed by entertainment lighting specialist White Light. Core Lighting manufactures battery-powered, wirelessly controllable LED uplighters designed to remove the need to run cables to fixtures. Interactive Technologies manufactures a range of lighting control devices for markets ranging from architectural to entertainment.
Pictured: Core Lighting photo: from left to right – Nick Letheren (Core Lighting) John Simpson (White Light), Bryan Raven (White Light), Phil Ion (Core Lighting)

SERIATE, Italy – Czech metal band Kabat continues it association with Clay Paky by bringing its lights on tour. Longime LD Petr “Panki” Volek, with the band for 12 years, specified on this tour the Alpha Beam 1500 and Alpha Spot HPE 1200 to light the 360-degree circular stage with thick beams resembling the spokes of a wheel hub.

BONN, Germany – Theatre Bonn has installed 50 of ETC’s newest LED fixture – Selador Desire – and 10 Selador Classic Lustr LED units as part of a massive refurbishment project. The LED fixtures are mixed with conventional technology and moving lights and will be used for the venue’s Opera House, although plans are in place for them to light other stages under the Theatre Bonn roof in the future.

PRAGUE – A popular live music production, “What is My Hit,” is broadcast live on TV every Monday night from Prague, with Robe moving lights making up the main fixtures in the rig. Rental company Q-99 supplied all the show’s lighting, scenic LED and video elements.

LONDON, UK – A performance on the Rainbow Warrior III, Greenpeace’s new flagship vessel, required a “green” lighting solution not only because of who the vessel belonged to, but also because of the difficulty in powering lots of lighting fixtures on the ship deck. Entec supplied a low powered, high impact LED lighting system for a special performance by Damon Albarn’s supergroup, The Good The Bad and the Queen (GBQ).

UDDEVALLA, Sweden – Wireless Solution Sweden lent sponsor support – and a wireless solution – to Scenofest 2011, held this year in Prague. One of the theatrical workshops required a performance in the large Franciscan Garden. As the artistic director did not want DMX cabling across the seven locations within the garden to link with one central lighting console, W-DMX helped provide connectivity.

SERIATE, Italy – BBC Television presenters Sam and Mark are back with a new entertainment show for Children’s BBC, Sam and Mark’s Big Friday Wind Up. LD Dave Gibson’s design incuded Clay Paky fixtures, provided by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).