International News

LONDON — The U.K. electro-pop band Hot Chip has been using Robe moving lights on the latest U.K. leg of their 2008 Made In The Dark world tour. LD Neil Carson specified the gear, which was supplied by GLS.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Gearhouse South Africa supplied all technical production — staging, rigging, lighting, video and audio — for Lionel Richie’s South African tour, which played a mix of indoor and outdoor venues. To support the tour, GHSA pooled resources from their Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban bases.

LONDON — Summit Steel is supplying production rigging for Monkey: Journey To The West, a fusion of Chinese opera and a circus with a mix of animated video cartoons and live performances. It’s currently being staged by AEG Promotions UK in the 3,300-capacity Kayam Tent outside London’s O2 Arena.

GRONINGEN, The Netherlands — Four of Robe’s new DigitalSpot 7000DTs have been added to Dutch singer Jan Smit’s ongoing tour by Utrecht-based lighting and set designer Marchel Daalhuizen. The DigitalSpots are being supplied by Dutch rental house Triple Showtechniek who bought them via Robe’s Benelux distributor, Controllux.

LONDON — For The Colour of Money, a new ITV prime time game show, lighting designers Tom Kinane and Svend Pedersen opted against moving lights and smoke. Instead, they used over 50 I-Pix BB4s and BB7s to match up with Patrick Doherty’s heavily LED-based set, creating washes and effects with the LED-based fixtures.

YEREVAN, Armenia — Although the Karen Demirchyan Sport & Cultural Complex, built when Armenia was under Soviet rule 1983, has won awards for some of its unique design features, it also did without some frills, like heating, for its first 20 years.

BERLIN — Nils R. Schultze is an artist who has been using light instead of water to transform public fountains for the past several years. The Berlin fountain pictured here has been transformed by a light sculpture using color-changing illuminated strands curving in a five-meter radius. Other fountain projects use a skyward spray of light instead of water.

LONDON — A projection by XL Video UK illuminated a variety of responses to a two big questions posed by artist Martin Firrell on the exterior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The questions posed were, “What are the things that make life meaningful, and what does St. Paul’s mean in contemporary contexts to us in 2008?”

LONDON — Unique Venues in London (UVL), an organization that represents 68 percent of the city’s leading event venues, was planning its own event for 250 guests, staged at London’s Transport Museum, and was looking for a lighting supplier. White Light, which had lit previous UVL events at the Kew Gardens, the Science Museum, the London Eye and at the Transport Museum as well, once again got the nod.

MINSK, Belarus — The Scorpions performed before 7,000 people at the Sport Arena in Minsk as part of the German band’s Humanity World Tour, and moving lights from PR Lighting, supplied by local distributor FE Belimlight, gave LD Ranier Becker the speed and precision he was looking for to help the band make its point.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — With campy set elements ranging from ersatz letters spelling E-L-T-O-N to a monstrous set of inflatable boobs, it’s unlikely that many people are paying much attention to the truss on Elton John’s Red Piano tour. But it’s also safe to say that the visuals for the show as a whole would not be the same without the truss and the 20-way Kinesys automation system provided by Summit Steel that moves set elements around.

GALATI and TECUCI, Romania — Daily life has changed for most of the residents of Galati and Tecuci, located near the border with Modavia and Ukraine, and so have the nights, with color-changing washes used on landmark buildings. The installation uses IP65-rated projectors from Clay Paky equipped with color diffusion filters, including 15 CP Color 150s and eight CP Color 575s.