International News

KINGS LYNN, Norfolk, UK — The Glade Festival, a celebration of electronic dance music festival that started out as a stage at Glastonbury, was staged in Houghton Hall this year, and a key supporter of the 2011 event was Central Presentations Ltd (CPL), which is based in West Midlands and Bristol, UK. CPL coordinated and supplied a full technical production package encompassing video, lighting and sound for the Overkill stage.

LONDON — White Light has recently added 50 Martin Professional MAC III series fixtures to their inventory of Martin Professional lighting gear. The new purchase includes both MAC III Profile and MAC III Performance fixtures, Martin’s 1500W high-output profile moving heads. Lighting professionals will be able to get a closer look at the new MACs, as well as a host of other Martin gear, when the Martin Road Show visits the White Light facilities on Thursday, June 30, 2011.

SYDNEY — With a production valued at over $25 million, Kylie Minogue’s Aphrodite-Les Folies Tour 2011 features over a million moving parts, including 30 high impact water jets, rain curtains, fountains and nearly 600 light sources. The custom stage, which by itself cost over $10 million, is designed to be technically advanced, complex and precise.

LONDON — After his sell-out success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it was just a matter of time before Britain’s most notorious pub landlord, Al Murray, was given his own TV game show. Now the British stand-up (or rather his beer-swilling alter-ego) is hosting his own pub quiz on UK comedy channel Dave.

BERLIN, Germany — The 15th Showtech, a biannual trade event which ran from June 7-9, drew more than 7,520 attendees to the Exhibition Center Berlin. The turnout was just a slight dip from the previous record (7,813 in 2009) and included a noticeable increase in international visitors. Surveys also revealed less economic gloom among attendees and exhibitors.

ABU DHABI, UAE — The 842-meter-long, 60-meter-high Sheikh Zayed Bridge, which connects mainland Dubai to the island of Abu Dhabi and acts as a gateway to the city, features a color-changing lighting design using fixtures from Martin Professional, including 204 Martin Exterior 600 and 130 Martin Exterior 200 color changing luminaires, as well as 956 Martin Cyclo 01  linear fluorescent luminaires.

SYDNEY — It sounds like an LD’s nightmare: an array of cheap moving light fixtures blasting forth with flames instead of beams. But for FireDance, a display produced and created by Howard & Sons Pyrotechnics for the Vivid Festival at Sydney’s Campbells Cove in the Rocks, the flames were 100 percent intentional.

VIENNA — Lighting designer Helmut Krammer used over 100 Robe fixtures – a mixture of moving lights and units from Robe’s innovative LED series – for the 2011 Summer Night Concert, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra in the Baroque gardens at Schönbrunn Palace. The event was attended by 150,000 people and broadcast by ORF to approximately 60 other countries.

ISRAEL — Robe moving lights once again were the primary moving light fixtures used for the Israeli Opera’s “Aida” at the 2011 Dead Sea & Jerusalem Opera Festival, a co-production with the Les Choragies d’Orange in France, staged in the outdoor purpose built amphitheatre at the foot of Masada Mountain by the Dead Sea, Israel.

ISTANBUL — “Nomads,” a well-known Amsterdam nightclub, has chosen Istanbul as its second city, and the new venue has been equipped with Coemar’s moving lights, lighting singers and musicians who perform nightly amid a blend of modern and traditional Turkish design features. The club is using Coemar’s iSpot 575 MB fixtures, with a Director 768 mixer for control.

MOSCOW — Martin Professional’s representative office in Russia recently celebrated its first anniversary at a special party with partners and friends at club Lookin Rooms in Moscow. Key rental companies, representatives of installation firms, major dealers, industrial retailers and journalists were on hand to share in the celebration with Martin’s Russian team.

LONDON — Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting equipment and crew to four major festivals on a recent weekend – Rockness in Inverness, the re-launched Glade in Norfolk, “Get Loaded In The Park” in Clapham, London, plus the VIP areas at the Isle of Wight Festival.