International News

LONDON — Outdoor lighting installations in London’s parks need to deal with anything from inclement weather to large flocks of pigeons. But a wireless system using City Theatrical’s ShoW DMX helped Storm Lighting brave the elements for the annual tree-lighting ceremony at Trafalgar Square, which averted the need to run cables from the control station at the park’s terrace level to the dimmer location situated under the tree.

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.