As part of its continued commitment to the education and promotion of the smart controls and home automation sector, Hamilton Litestat has become a Trade Supplier member of CEDIA, the international trade organisation for home technology.

“We are pleased to welcome Hamilton Litestat on board as a CEDIA member” comments Matt Nimmons, CEDIA EMEA Managing Director. “We recognise that Hamilton has an outstanding reputation for delivering quality products, so to be able to add the company to our list of trade suppliers is fantastic. CEDIA is heading into its 30th year in 2019, and with a wide range of member benefits available to manufacturers, it is a great time for Hamilton Litestat to join the association.”

Renowned as a leading global authority on smart controls and home automation, CEDIA’s members are an important audience for Hamilton as it looks to increase brand awareness and knowledge of its smart control solutions amongst custom installers and professional electricians in the UK and beyond.

Hamilton supplies Smart Lighting Control & Audio systems providing cost-effective, scalable and easy-to-install solutions for mid-range projects. The simplicity of Hamilton’s products means that no programming knowledge is required; the systems are ‘plug and play’. However, for those wishing to undertake more intricate projects, Hamilton’s solutions have flexible functionality and can be programmed for more complex lighting and audio requirements. This can be achieved by a customer installer or with the support of Hamilton’s specialist team.

“Being a part of CEDIA is an important next step for us as we continue to raise awareness and educate installers on Hamilton’s offering within the sector,” says Gavin Williams, Head of Marketing at Hamilton. “For almost 30 years, CEDIA has been a leading light in the industry, supporting fellow professionals with information, research and education, and we’re looking forward to working closely with the organisation to gain additional market and member insights to ensure our products and services continue to best support industry demand.”

Hamilton’s smart control solutions and its championing of the sector has been recognised by the industry by recently winning the ‘Best Manufacturer 2018’ category in the Voltimum Smart Solutions Awards 2018. This prestigious award distinguishes thought-leading brands that consistently bring innovative products and services to market, while being committed to training installer customers and supporting their projects. In the past 18 months, Hamilton has undertaken training, education and youth marketing activities to inform both qualified and training electricians and installers, dispelling myths around complicated installation and programming, and promoting its easy-to-install solutions.

Hamilton will be demonstrating its Smart Lighting Control & Audio solutions at the following trade shows:

• 25-26th April – ELEX Exeter, West Point Arena, Stand:G90

• 30th April – 1st May – EI Live! Farnborough Exhibition Centre, Stand:56

• 7-8th November – ELEX Sandown, Sandown Park, Stand:C26

For more information, visit www.hamilton-litestat.com

Budapest’s Thalia Theatre is in the ‘Pest’ side of the beautiful Hungarian capital and is a renowned producing and receiving house, presenting around 600 different productions per year. It is one of Hungary’s best-known venues for staging musical comedy shows on its busy three stages, the largest of which has a 520-seat auditorium.

The theatre has recently invested in Robe’s DL7S LED Profiles and Spiider LED wash lights – which are the first to be installed in a Hungarian theatre venue. The luminaires were chosen by head of lighting Karoly Bodon and his team, and delivered by Robe’s Hungarian distributor, AVL Trade.

The new fixtures are currently all in use on the main stage, and there are another six DL4S profiles on order which will be utilised for the second stage when its current refurbishment is complete.

The theatre is operated by the city of Budapest, but the new investment was financed by a combination of the district and national government.

The decision to upgrade the main stage lighting came whilst work was being done on the Winter Garden second stage, which is having a complete makeover including a new sound system being supplied by AVL Trade and a complete technical refit. It was decided that the time was also right to replace the old main stage lighting with some newer and more efficient LED options.

Previously, they had only conventional lighting in the main house, so it was a big decision to go for both LED and moving luminaires in one go!

Karoly and his crew started looking at the options.

Robe was a prominent one as they had seen them in action on some recent incoming shows and were impressed with the output and features. “The main issue was that any lights we invested in… had to be as quite as possible. That’s where both the DL7S and the Spiider scored well” he explained.

They also like the fact that Robe is made in Europe, and that the factory at Valašské Meziříčí is only around a 6-hour drive away – not essential, but a nice touch!

They love the intensity and brightness of the Spiider, and the accurate and refined colour mixing of the DL7S Profile.

He also commented that Robe was a “good” price, as they did have a budget cap!

How the fixtures would be used was also important in the selection process. The Spiiders are used for a lot of back lighting and for washing and colouring large surface areas like the stage and various sets. The high CRI of the DL7S Profile was good for key lighting and producing excellent flesh tones.

These are the first Robe fixtures as well as the first moving lights for the Thalia Theatre – the previous investment in lighting was back in 1997!

Karoly remembers this well as he started working there a decade before that… and in these 30 years he’s seen both the technology and the demands for lighting shows change dramatically.

The first time they saw Robe properly was around 5 or 6 years ago, on the booth of AVL Trade at a Hungarian trade expo. At that time, the brand presence in Hungary was still being developed by AVL Trade, who have worked hard to bring it to the forefront of people’s attention.

In 2016 a visiting international production arrived at Thalia with some LEDWash 600s and the lighting crew were all impressed when they saw these working onstage.

Karoly comments that AVL were excellent about demonstrating fixtures and conducting tests whilst they were auditioning new lights and hunting for a new LED solution, and he and eight colleagues considered options from all the major brands as well as Robe.

The first test was the noise factor, and the Robe products came top in that category. They were first tested in the dressing rooms in close proximity and then taken into the auditorium and hung in the roof.

They arrived on site in the late summer 2018, were installed and commissioned, then utilised on their first shows in October, and have been in action ever since. Most of these shows have been lit by the in-house team, so they are getting plenty of experience and discovering the true scope of the fixtures.

Many of the features haven’t yet been used day-to-day, like the gobos or pixel mapping, but they are proving great for “’general theatrical purposes, and we know there are plenty of additional possibilities when we need to step up”, Karoly stated.

With the first DL7S Profiles and Spiiders in Hungarian theatre, Thalia is enjoying leading the way, and they are also the first with a grandMA 3 console!

“Robe is taking theatre applications seriously” commented Csaba Csanádi from AVL Trade, “and that’s starting to have an impact… it’s important to listen to the needs and wants and develop the right tools for this specialist discipline”.

Image: Thalia Theatre’s head of lighting Karoly Bodon in the theatre.

Surviving the ups and downs of our economy is an achievement for any company. So, reaching 30 years in business is a milestone to be celebrated. Emergency lighting designer and manufacturer, P4, is doing just that.

Following early growth of the business, the company moved into its purpose-built HQ and factory in Fakenham, Norfolk, 10 years ago and has continued to go from strength to strength.

Managing Director, Rob Warner, is rightfully proud of the company’s achievements:

“Emergency lighting is something we see every day, but probably don’t give a lot of thought to. But its importance should not be underestimated. It saves life. So that makes our job an important one.

“Through the hard work of our team and a combination of a great, cost-effective service, creativity and innovation, we’ve created a reputation as go-to experts for all sorts of commercial customers, including those in the education, healthcare and leisure industries across the UK.

Thirty years in business is something to shout about. It’s an industry where technology is changing all the time, and we continue to evolve with it. I’m excited to see where the next 30 years takes us!”

German lighting manufacturer JB-Lighting announces its commitment to ArKaos’s powerful Kling-Net protocol, which will now be embedded in its newest product lines including the Varyscan P18 hybrid, the Sparx 18 LED wash beam and the Sparx 30 twin zoom LED wash beam fixtures.

JB-Lighting’s head of sales Jörg Zimmermann explained that this is due to “the current and future requirements of lighting and visual design” which are constantly fluid and need to offer LDs, programmers and operators the most flexible and creative options.

One of those future developments, he observes, will include moving heads increasingly working in conjunction with video content. This is one of the main reasons they have decided “to support all these JB-Lighting devices with a network interface for Kling-Net protocol”, confirms Jörg.

Kling-Net is a revolutionary plug-and-play control protocol developed by digital media specialists ArKaos … for the easy operation of current and future LED fixtures and lightsources.

It allows the distribution of real-time video data to remote display devices – like LED fixtures or LED panels – over Ethernet, adding some ‘intelligence’ with the automatic configuration and connection of display devices to a computer.

It enables the perfect time synchronization of video signals sent to multiple display devices, and avoids using expensive hardware and video converters to achieve this.

Using Kling-Net, a heterogenic network of display devices from different manufacturers can be created … and all controlled from one computer!

One of the many aspects of Kling-Net impressing JB-Lighting was the opportunity to integrate spotlights very simply into a lighting design, removing the complications and time needed by the user to create a device library containing the pixel mapping information specific to each fixture.

With Kling-Net embedded, the fixture itself provides that information.

JB-Lighting products running with Kling-Net will be demonstrated in their showroom during the upcoming Prolight + Sound expo in Frankfurt, 2nd – 5th April 2019.

Leading equipment rental supplier, Visual Elements has invested in a Vista 3 by Chroma-Q® lighting & media control system featuring a Vista EX™ surface – taking its inventory to 18 separate Vista desks.

Established for almost 20 years, Visual Elements provides award-winning wet and dry hire solutions to live events clients across the world – including music festivals, theatre shows and film premieres. It is also the in-house supplier to leading London events venue, Tobacco Dock, whose diverse client list includes awards ceremonies, corporate conferences and consumer exhibitions.

A Vista user since the platform launched in 2004, Visual Elements has one of the UK’s largest inventories of Vista systems, which range from full size all-in-one consoles to ultra-compact control surfaces.

Visual Elements Director, Mike Townsend commented: “Visual Elements has been supplying Vista systems for nearly 15 years. We find it ideal for running large shows on a wide range of events, such as the Pavilion Theatre in Cromer’s world-famous End of the Pier variety performances three times a year.

He continues: “It’s so quick and easy to programme complex lighting designs, and the Timeline feature enables us to perfectly sync the lighting with audio and video running from timecode.”

Mike wanted to take full advantage of the Vista 3 software’s powerful next generation capabilities by investing in a Vista EX control surface, which is purpose-designed to be used with the new software.

He commented: “I’ve found it very easy to make the jump to Vista 3. It offers some really nice enhancements which I’m looking forward to fully exploiting in conjunction with the new Vista EX hardware. It’s also very pleasing that we can easily migrate a Vista (v)2 show over to Vista 3 if we want to continue to use and further develop it.”

The new Vista EX control surface provides large amounts of physical control and flexibility within a compact footprint, for even the most demanding of shows. It features 12 customisable playback faders and 4 function keys which, when combined with the 60 playback buttons, offers up to an incredible 300 user-definable actions per page – providing unrivalled control from a unit that is so small.
Visit www.vistabychromaq.com to download the free demo version of the official software release and find your nearest dealer.

Slovenian lighting designer Gregor “Grga” Smrdelj unleashed his talents for a large high-profile show by Slovenian vocal group Perpetuum Jazzile at the Arena Stolzice in Ljubljana.

With a brief to create something fresh and different, his first choice of moving lights was Robe, and with nearly 150 on the plot … he produced a unique and different look for the sold-out performance based on a three-tiered set design.

Grga works full time with Event Lighting, one of Slovenia’s leading rental specialists… and the show’s lighting equipment provider. It was his first gig with the group, so the pressure was on to produce something amazing and memorable.

Grga integrated LED and video into his proposal for the stage and production design. It was at the first production meeting that he suggested having the singers on the three different levels, which everyone liked, so they went with it. “I wanted to make a statement, and the idea was that the full profile of all 44 singers could be seen rather than just the front row and everyone else squeezed in behind with only their heads showing!”

Grga and video designer and content producer Den Baruca worked closely to choose the right style and pitch of screen, which resulted in a 20-metre-wide by 4 metre strip of 5.9 mm surface above top of the set.

Behind each of the three stepped tiers was a 2 x 2 metre semi-transparent LED net product which allowed Grga to light through from behind.

There was not a lot of rehearsal time, but they did get one rehearsal together with the singers and their visualisation system, which gave some idea of how certain lighting and video effects would work in conjunction with the proposed eclectic musical programme.

Up in the roof of the Arena Stolzice, the Event Lighting crew installed seven straight trusses for lighting positions … two for front lighting, two for back lighting and two for the sides. Ladders were used from the side trusses to get lights into exactly the right low positions for beaming across the stage.

The Robe count comprised 28 x Spiiders, 16 x MegaPointes,16 x Pointes 12 x BMFL Blades, 48 x LEDBeam 100s and 24 x LEDBeam 150s… distributed all over the trusses.

While Event Lighting has a large stock of Robe moving lights … Grga says he would have specified them anyway because they are his moving light ‘of choice’.

The Spiiders were used as excellent ‘all-rounders’ … for top, back and front light.

The BMFL Blades were on one of the front trusses for key lighting. The shutters enabled them to pick out singers for solos and he programmed some highly effective blade chase that looked uber-cool resembling a barcode scanning effect for a couple of the numbers.

Grga loves the LEDBeam 150. “It’s absolutely great little fixture, really fast, fantastic colours and works extremely well with the Spiiders”.

The Pointes were used as the traditional effect light for which it’s known and loved worldwide! Rigged in the rear trusses together with the Spiiders, these were perfect for silhouetting and producing striking beams and dramatic upstage looks.

Eight MegaPointes were on the floor with the other eight on the deck of the top (third) layer of set. They were used for precision looks, some of which were time coded (to the click) to be in perfect unison with clapping and other sonic moments in the singing.

“The aerial looks from the MegaPointes were just what I needed for dramatic punctuations” commented Grga. He likes the fixtures generally for their output and excellent features! “I needed a profile fixture that could complete with the LED screen and hold its own, and MegaPointe hit the spot”.

He observes that MegaPointes also combine well with Spiiders, and using these together is a “great asset” to any designer, easily blending and contrasting beams and washes for so many different scenarios.

The little LEDBeam 100s – used with 10-degree lenses – made good, solid side lighting and for ancillary aerial effects. Grga wanted a strong element of side lighting to the overall picture and using lots of small piercing beams enabled him to create some classy and fluid movement effects.

The LEDBeam 150s – a recent best seller for Robe – were all along the floor decks behind the singers. In addition to the obvious narrow beam effects, they were also used as wash luminaries illustrating the scope and usefulness of the zoom.

Other lights on the rig included 12 x LED strobes, 40 x Sunstrips and eight 4-lite blinders.

Grga’s multi layered approach to the architecture and the lighting enabled him to keep the looks dynamic and dramatic for the intense two-and-a-half-hour performance, which ran straight through with no break or interval.

He programmed and ran the show on a Hog 4 console, provided, together with all the lighting kit, by Event Lighting.

Grga really enjoyed working on this show and all its challenges. The main one was designing an arena light show that was not rock ‘n’ roll but was every bit as diverse and compelling, and to achieve this he mixed that with the more refined disciplines of theatrical lighting.

Grga has worked for Event Lighting for 10 years and is also a programmer and a technician. He designs lighting for around 50% of the shows that the company services and thinks it’s essential to have technical and practical skills as well as being imaginative in order to present realistic and workable ideas that are achievable within the available budgets and timeframes!

Photos: Sasa Huzjak

At the annual Zoute Grand Prix® event at the Belgian coast, some of the world’s most exclusive vintage cars transform the seaside town into a prestigious spectacle. Not only has the number of spectators and cars has increased since the first edition of the event in 2009; so has the grandeur.

Stow International, one of the main sponsors of the event installed an industrial piece of art on the dyke, showing what they do, industrial racking, and serving as pitlane for the participating cars. For this year’s edition, the Stow racking construction was even higher, including two lanes for the technical scrutineering and control to highlight the Zoute Pitlane®. Stow commissioned event agency Bevas Events for an amazing lighting concept that includes 280 CHAUVET Professional ÉPIX Strip IP fixtures. The lighting transformed the pitlane construction into a lattice of linear geometric illumination so that the Stow racking was highlighted from both sides of the dyke.

In order to transform the industrial racking structure, with its quadratic metal trussing, Bevas Events’ Designer Jeroen Van de Velde utilized the 100 LEDs on each of the 1-meter long ÉPIX Strip IP fixtures to create a quiet, stylish linear effect congruent to the structure’s form. Providing the basis for this seamlessly linear form was the solid aluminum die-cast construction of the ÉPIX fixtures – combined with stainless steel hardware – guaranteeing effortless and secure interlocking between the units.

“We specified the 280 ÉPIX Strips to be placed on the contours of the construction because of their incredibly slim design,” commented Van de Velde. “The coupling of fixtures and one cable connection enabled us to create unbroken lines of light to really accentuate the structure while also awarding an element of depth and grandeur to the event.”

In addition to providing structural highlighting, the fixtures provided the basis for high-octane illumination of the cars, heightening their entrance and exit through the structure with bursts of color, which rolled off the glossy paintwork to achieve a tunnel-like motion effect as they passed through.

“The pixel mappable effects and strong saturated colors gave us plenty to work with,” continued Van de Velde. “The fixtures created immense effects upon the glossy paintwork of the cars, and the illuminated construction was positioned in the beating heart of the event.”

On top of the aesthetic requirements, the team at Bevas Events had to take into consideration certain unpredictabilities in selecting appropriate fixtures: the Belgian weather. With their IP65-rated housing, the ÉPIX fixtures provided a guarantee against potential unstable weather conditions, meaning the team could concentrate on placing the vintage automobile classics as main points of attraction.

“The versatility of the ÉPIX fixtures enabled us to provide both impactful structural illumination and lighting of the racking construction and cars,” concluded Van de Velde. “An exclusive event like this deserves special scenery, and we’re exceptionally pleased with the results!”

Photo Credit: Bevas Events

Seventy-four of Colour Sound Experiment’s AquaBeam moving lights, rigged on a twenty-five and a half metre diameter circular truss supported by an 8-legged ground support system, were an integral part of Nest, an immersive lighting, sound and sensory installation experience.

Nest was imagined by artists Marshmallow Laser Feast, in Lloyd Park, Waltham Forest, as part of the Mayor of London’s first ever London Borough of Culture event “Welcome to the Forest”.

The lights were choreographed to run with a special transcendental soundscape created by composer Erland Cooper, who compiled a series of sonic murmurations, working with over 1000 participants including local choirs, schools and musicians.

Matthew Button of Buttonlight was the lighting designer for this ephemeral and magical project, one of a carefully curated collection of unique works celebrating Radicals, Makers and Fellowship.

Matthew has worked with Marshmallow Laser Feast on several previous projects, and he designs their lighting concepts and displays in close collaboration with others in the team, including Ersin Han Ersin and Barney Steel.

The structure and form of the ring of lights was inspired by the impressive architecture of traditional gas holders – an important industrial artefact of the gas-powered age, much loved by many – which are fast disappearing!

Matthew needed fixtures that were bright and would withstand the cold and inclement January weather, and approached Colour Sound, with whom he also works regularly. The AquaBeams were a great solution, and the west London based rental specialist has a large stock of these.

The IP44 rated LightSky AquaBeam is designed especially for outdoor live events and productions like this. It’s been rigorously tested in the most exacting conditions, including enduring months of continuous extreme weather like driving rain, baking sun, dust, and windblown debris.

The lightsource is a 440W HRI which the optics help make extremely bright, and it has two colour systems – a fixed wheel with six dichroics plus open and an adjustable colour temperature between 3200K and 7000K, as well as linear CMY colour mixing, all of which ticked the right boxes for this application which only required white light.

The sound was delivered through a 28 speaker surround array system.

The pre-programmed movement of the lights was controlled via bespoke software developed by Adam Heslop with playback utilising the TouchDesigner platform.

This was triggered by timecode and the Art-Net flow fed into a ChamSys lighting control console to establish the offset movements, so the DMX values received by the lights remained continuous and in unison.

The light beams piercing the night sky started off the show as messy and unpredictable ‘mumerating’ into angular and ordered slices of luminescence. They subsequently became more random again – with sequences resembling birds frenetically building a nest – then morphed into massive beautiful spirographic circular beam motions, twisting and curving intricately around one another.

Like a big dance movement piece with lights, Nest was staged in the middle of the island in Lloyd Park which is surrounded by a water-filled moat.

Matthew explained that everything related to the project was planned in great detail in advance; any technical and physical challenges were overcome during pre-production testing, so the three-day rig period on site ran extremely smoothly.

The lighting and sound equipment was powered from generators located on the park side of the moat, with cabling fed over via a trussing bridge traversing the water.

The “Welcome to the Forest” event ran from 5.30 – 9.30 p.m. for three days and the 15-minute
Nest show ran every 20 minutes on a partially manually operated loop. A trail of small illuminated sonic globes – which also emitted sounds – guided people through the park to find the exact spot.

For the best results people could sit, stand or lie down in the middle of the circle, see the lighting and hear and feel the three-dimensional sonic murmurations…

Attracting massive interest, Nest was enjoyed by an estimated 35,000 people, and such was the popularity of the artwork that organisers had to limit the numbers inside the trussing circle at any one time… to ensure all received the optimum experience.

Photos: Matthew Button, Buttonlight.