John Huddleston, director of lighting services at Upstaging in Sycamore. Ill., says he’s been watching the credit crunch but has only seen it impact those… Read More »The Credit Crunch is Real, but Not Universal
LOS ANGELES — It may not whisper Currier & Ives, but the Christmas tree at Nokia Plaza near Staples Center, switched on by Britney Spears Dec. 4, is heralding the opening of L.A. Live with an intense, pulsing video spectacle called The Light of the Angels. The show links video imagery from the 54-foot-high metal tree’s 11,187 XL Sphere units to 12 surrounding video screens, which are permanently installed. The free spectacle is appearing nightly through Dec. 31.
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.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL — Once Upon A Dream, one of the shows playing in repertoire for guests on Princess Cruises’ 3,080-passenger Ruby Princess, which launched in November, requires moving walls to transform the set into a variety of different shapes and sizes — all on the high seas, of course.
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.
CLEVELAND — When the newly renovated Hanna Theatre reopened earlier this fall, the moving set pieces for the opening production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth were lifted by 48 PowerLift Automated Hoists, which were provided by J. R. Clancy, Inc. and installed by Beck Studios.
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.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM — The intersection of I-25 and I-40, called the “Big-I,” is getting more eye-appeal after dusk with a landscape lighting project controlled with the help of W-DMX from Wireless Solutions. The project, a joint effort funded by the state of New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque, lights walls, trees and art pieces using a single W-DMX wireless transmitter and multiple W-DMX receivers.
WARSAW, IN — Da-Lite Screen Company named Wendy Long as the company’s vice president of marketing. Long began her career at Da Lite15 years ago. After serving as sales partner, Long was named product manager, and, in 2006, director of marketing.
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.