International News

QINGDAO, China — LD Sha XiaoLan of Feng Shang Shiji, who designed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, specified 159 Robe moving lights for the Ocean Fantasy musical show at the 700-capacity Olympic Sailing Centre Theatre.

HONG KONG —AV company PCCW chose a Medialon control system for the digital planetarium system installed in the Stanley Ho Space Theatre at the Hong Kong Space Museum. The theatre, sheltered beneath the museum’s egg-shaped dome, is part of the planetarium area of the museum.

LONDON — A demonstration of Clay Paky’s Alpha Spot HPE 1500 took place recently at the Royal Albert Hall. The fixture, which Clay Paky calls its “top spotlight,” is joined in the Alpha range by the Alpha Profile 1500 beam shaper and the Alpha Wash 1500 washlight.

BERLIN — For this year’s MTV Europe Music Awards, held at the O2 World in Berlin, XL Video’s U.K. and French offices worked together to provide an interactive video backdrop that would give the set a multi-layered sense of visual depth.

MANCHESTER, U.K. —The set for Prima Donna, a new opera written by Rufus Wainright and performed at this year’s Manchester Festival, was lit with 111 panels of EvenLED, a modular LED cyc backlighting system.

BELFAST, U.K. — Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied all lighting equipment and crew to the BBC Northern Ireland Children In Need event, staged at the Kings Hall in Belfast.

MANCHESTER, U.K. — Working with LD Simon Barrington, DBN Lighting is supplying a full lighting system for The Warehouse Project series of dance events through Jan. 1 in the arches beneath Piccadilly Station.  

LIVERPOOL, U.K. — Adlib supplied lighting and sound production for a recent tour by The Maccabees. Adlib’s Andy Rowe operated a lighting design created by Ian Tomlinson. The rig varied from a floor-based specials package that was used in conjunction with the house systems at each venue to a full rig supplied by Adlib for the Brixton and Manchester Academy shows.

LONDON — British alt rock band, Muse, are now on a world tour in support of their fifth album, Resistance. Brilliant Stages constructed the set, working with a design by Es Devlin, under the auspices of production manager Chris Vaughan.

BIRMINGHAM, U.K. — Summit Steel supplied a Kinesys automation system with K2 control and all associated trussing and rigging to fly and track five projection screens in the main presentation area of the 2009 Sainsbury’s Our conference, staged at the NEC.

HELSINKI, Finland —Finnish lighting designer Mikki Kunttu has designed lights, screens and sets for the musical Play Me, a new production staged at the Swedish Theatre, based on a virtual reality game intertwined with a talent contest at the Q-Club.