International News

LONDON – Video director Ben Miles turned to Martin Professional's new EC-20 LED video panels to create a backdrop video wall for electronica band Leftfield's recent tour of the U.K.

BLACKBURN, U.K. – HSL recently purchased 12 Robert Juliat Lancelot 4K followspots from U.K. distributors White Light, part of HSL's £2.5 million investment in the last quarter of 2010 to service its ongoing work.

QINGDAO, China – The Studio 6 TV Station, which broadcasts six regional channels throughout the Shangdong area, has upgraded its lighting rig with new fixtures from Robe. The new fixtures were specified by Studio 6's lighting designer Liu Zheng Mao and his team, and supplied via Robe's Chinese distributor, Leafun (formally known as Leifull).

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – The floating Bradesco Seguros Christmas Tree, a 15-year holiday tradition, returned to the balmy environs of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. The tree had already set a record for Largest Floating Christmas Tree according to Guinness World Records, and the 2010 tree measured 85 meters in height.

MONTE CARLO – The Grimaldi Forum recently hosted the inaugural Monaco International Clubbing Show (MICS). Clay Paky played a key role, and Pio Nahum, commercial and marketing director, offered his perspective of changes within the club market, including a trend toward live music and stage lighting in club environments.

CASTEL GOFFREDO, Italy – The X-Factor is taking a bigger place on the international TV stage, having reached a total of 23 different countries from its U.K. origins. Coemar fixtures were specified for the X-Factor broadcasts in Italy – where the show first aired in 2008 – and the recent introduction of the show in Ukraine, which appears to be another ratings success.

SERIATE, Italy – Along with the risk of elimination – and the loss of all the accrued quiz show money to the eliminator – contestants on L'eredità (The Inheritance) on Italian TV (RAI 1) get cast in different colors every time they make a mistake. Director of photography Vittorino Piccolo, meanwhile, is mostly concerned that there won't be any errors in the color specified – or, worse, a fixture failure that would bring the whole TV show to a halt.

SINGAPORE – Impact Engineering, which supports productions in Singapore, Hong Kong and China, has purchased 116 Robe moving lights, including 50 ColorSpot 700E ATs and 66 ROBIN 300 Beams, in a deal handled by Louis Teo of Robe SEA.

LONDON – Back in mid-2010, Danish lighting designer Christian Bonde prepared to scale up the design for the Bullet For My Valentine's shows, which had appeared at a variety of club-type venues in the U.S., in preparation for European arenas.

KARRINYUP, Western Australia – The Lady Wardle Performing Arts Centre, a 509 seat auditorium at the St. Mary's Anglican Girls School, graduated to a new quality of light with recent gear from ETC Selador and Vari-Lite.

SINGAPORE – Robert Juliat provided the big guns for two big occasions when its largest followspots – Lancelot 4000W HTI and Cyrano 2500W HMI followspots. – were specified for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games.