International News

MELBOURNE, Australia — The Melbourne Theatre opened after 15 years of planning and a $55 million investment. Home to the Melbourne Theatre Company, the MTC Theatre houses two performance spaces, foyer areas with bars, a café and two VIP function rooms.

BERGAMO, Italy — Clay Paky sponsored a visit made recently by members of Society of Television Lighting and Design (STLD), a British association, to the Italian Public television (RAI) studios, for an exchange of experiences among professional counterparts.

MIDRAND, South Africa — The visual appearance of a radio personality, or his or her surroundings, might seem to matter little more than the timbre of a silent film star’s voice. Even so, Yebo Radio studios at Vodaworld here opted for an architectural upgrade that transcends what most people picture when viewing TV shows like WKRP and Frasier.

OSLO — When the Nespresso Boutique opened earlier this year, it was still cold in Norway — good for hot beverage sales, but risky for staging an event that would extend the “coffee-café-and-more” retail outlet’s operations into the narrow street by the shop.

EDMONTON, AB, Canada — In the five years since they were formed by Simon Cowell, Il Divo, a quartet of international vocalists, have created fans across the pop music-classical opera spectrum. For their third world tour, LD Dom Smith is once again using an Avolites console to help the group promote its latest album, The Promise. 

MOSCOW — The gear list at the 54th annual Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals and finals included some 2,000 square meters of LED, and the largest assembly of PRG Bad Boy luminaires on any one show yet — 72 of the 48,000 lumen output instruments.

COLOGNE, Germany — LD Manuel Da Costa from mo2 Design used Robe DigitalSpot 7000 and 3000DTs for the final of the latest series of Deutschland Sucht den Superstar, broadcast live on national channel RTL.

SYRACUSE, NY— J. R. Clancy announced that its PowerLift automated theatre hoist will now carry the CE Mark, signifying that the product officially meets the CE Mark directives for safety as required by 30 countries in the European Union (EU), making it eligible for sale within the EU and the European Free Trade Area.

LONDON — LD Chris Bushell lit the recent U.K. tour for the Doves with new i-Pix BB7 wide-angle fixtures. The new fixtures offer a 20-degree angle dispersion, building upon the standard 10-degree version for i-Pix BB7 fixtures.

JOHANNESBURG — MA Lighting’s South African distributor, DWR Distribution, ran the first of a series of grandMA Level 1 and 2 training events recently. The 3-day session took place at DWR’s headquarters and was attended by 10 working LDs and programmers.

LONDON — Having played a key role in concert lighting over the years, it was perhaps fitting that Martin gear be used for the recently-opened British Music Experience (BME), which gives visitors a retrospective look at popular music in the U.K.