Clay Paky Sharpys are lighting up country singer Jason Aldean on the Night Train Tour, a musical powerhouse of a show also featuring Jake Owen and Thomas Rhett with location specific appearances by Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, and Kelly Clarkson. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Clay Paky fixtures in North America.

Aldean is a double-Platinum recording artist who has had nine singles reach #1 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Bandit Lites Inc. is providing him with 24 Sharpys on the tour along with a pair of grandMA2 lighting consoles. A.C.T also distributes the MA products exclusively in the U.S. and Canada.

“The show design by Mike Swinford incorporates a lot of automation,” notes Bandit Lites client rep Michael Golden. “Video panels carry the fixtures.”

Lighting designer and programmer Aaron Swetland calls the show “very dynamic” with “a lot of elements and layers. The automated video screens move in all directions with 24 axes of movement.”

Swetland says the Night Train Tour is the fourth tour on which he’s used Sharpys. “I love that light,” he says. “They have a very narrow beam and great distance. I have them spread out to maximize the effect, and they fill the palette well. It’s great when they work together delivering nice beam angles and great looks.”

Although Swetland has been a grandMA user for some time, he just made the switch to grandMA2. “This tour is my first chance to use it,” he reports. “And it was an easy transition. I got some training on the system at A.C.T, which helped a lot; their support during programming was above and beyond the call of duty.”

Swetland says grandMA2′s effects engine “is my favorite new part” of the console. “It’s a lot easier to get where you want to go. I used the bitmap effects engine to handle a matrix of 5×5 lights. I got good dynamic looks out of that. And the ability to write an effect during preset is a great feature.”

According to the lighting designer, a number of stadium shows are coming up this spring, and he plans to add 88 Sharpy fixtures to supplement his inventory.

About A.C.T Lighting

A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its clients.

For more information call 818-707-0884.

WorldStage, the new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, Inc., is pleased to announce that Gary Kajikawa has joined the company as west coast director of engineering services. In that role his primary responsibility is directing and managing the efforts of WorldStage’s west coast engineering services and warehouse operations, while supporting account management and project management, and all aspect of technical staging projects. Gary will also work with the east coast.

Kajikawa comes on board after at short stint at Video Equipment Rentals following a 13-year tenure as senior project manager of PSAV National Operations, where he was involved with many aspects of staging events, from pre-production and developing tech requirements for an event to installation and implementation, for a roster of top clients nationwide.

Now,eager to join WorldStage, he says. “WorldStage is a nationally recognized organization and the west coast operation is one of only a few teams that can execute the largest shows successfully while being fully capable of taking on smaller shows. They can scale to do any size show with great in house talent, have the flexibility to react quickly and a reputation for excellence in services and in-house engineering support. I’m looking forward to being a part of that.”

Kajikawa’s background as a technical director has exposed him to many aspects of video, film and computer-related production working on national and local commercials and many corporate productions. A graduate of California State University/Long Beach, he previously served as technical director, chief video engineer and telecommunications administrator at Maritz Performance Improvement Company and as technical director/camera operator and corporate officer at The Hoppa Group, Inc.

He also developed technical training for studio operations for NBC and has designed and installed audio and video production and postproduction facilities and designed and implemented computer hardware and software for integration with video and presentations.

WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.

Mohonk Preserve in the Shawangunk Mountains near New Paltz, New York, is marking its 50th anniversary this year with a renovation of its green design award-winning Visitor Center tucked cozily into the woods. Electrosonic was charged with creating several new exhibits for the main floor, which enable visitors to maximize their time in New York’s largest nonprofit nature preserve.

With over 8,000 acres of mountain ridges, fields, streams, ponds and other unique and beautiful places, Mohonk Preserve is dedicated to protecting the Shawangunk Mountains by inspiring people to care for, enjoy and explore the natural world. Visitors can bike, hike, climb, ride horses, run, ski and snowshoe in the Preserve. Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership was responsible for the architecture, interiors, graphic design and exhibit design of the Visitor Center project.

The Visitor Center is a stone and wood structure set on over 40 acres including the J & S Grafton Sensory Trail, LaVerne Thompson Nature Trail and Children’s Forest. The main floor is an open room with an area for membership and visitor information. Large windows in the back overlook the Preserve providing the backdrop for a three-dimensional topographical map that gives bird’s-eye views of trails and major points of interest. Electrosonic added four 32-inch ELO interactive touchscreens to the map. Visitors can access details and photos about the trails and attractions via the touchscreens with content created by the Preserve in collaboration with Richard Lewis Media Group.

At the entry is the “Nature Notebook,” made up of two 46-inch Samsung LCD screens provided by Electrosonic and hung in portrait mode. One side is a Welcome Information Station, which features weather updates and daily information on trail conditions and upcoming events. The other offers visitors a chance to leave observations and questions with a keyboard and mouse, which is displayed like a Twitter feed. The Preserve posts seasonal nature observations as prompts.

Electrosonic installed and programmed the 10-minute orientation film produced by Richard Lewis Media Group, and displayed it in a visitor orientation theater with bench seating. The theater boasts a 26-foot wide curved screen fed by four projectiondesign F12 projectors blended and warped via Dataton WATCHOUT. Four JBL speakers and a subwoofer provide the theater’s sound.

“The theater was our biggest challenge,” noted Electrosonic project manager Jackson Benedict. “It’s a very small space with a low ceiling. We had to use fixed-lens projectors, which meant there was very little tolerance in installing them. We had to build a custom ceiling mount that allowed for projector adjustment in the field, as necessary. Projector airflow in the small space also had to be managed effectively.

“The very sharp curve of the screen provided a challenge for warping the blend in WATCHOUT,” Benedict said. “It was quite complicated. Shifting the projector one inch in the wrong direction would change everything.”

A Crestron control panel in the theater enables guests to start the film on their own. “The screen displays a loop of beautiful photos with a prompt to start the film with the touch panel,” Benedict explained. “There are two operating modes: with or without subtitles.”

A small control room behind the screen houses equipment in a single rack. The content for all of the interactives can be updated remotely to keep content fresh and up to date. “Electrosonic worked with the exhibit fabricators to make sure we had relatively easy access to all equipment for service,” said Benedict.

About Mohonk Preserve
Located in the Hudson River Valley, Mohonk Preserve is the largest member and visitor-supported nature preserve in New York State. Managing over 8,000 acres of the Shawangunk Ridge, the Preserve works to protect the ridge and to inspire people to care for, enjoy, and explore the natural world. For more information visit www.mohonkpreserve.org.

About Electrosonic

Electrosonic is an international audio-visual company that creates tailored, state-of-the-art solutions for a wide range of markets including theme parks, museums, control rooms, and corporate meeting rooms. Since its founding in 1964, Electrosonic has built a strong reputation for working on complex projects, both large and small, and has developed lasting partnerships with customers and suppliers. Beyond complete integrated systems, Electrosonic provides a comprehensive scope of services including technical design, projector lamp sales, maintenance and operational support.

Learn more about Electrosonic. Visit http://www.electrosonic.com

Once again Vista Systems’ Spyder is the video processor of choice at one of the country’s leading energy companies. This time a top independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company is deploying a Spyder X20 8×8 in its collaboration room where staff analyze geological maps in close detail.

“Spyder is used to edge blend two dual-link DVI projectors, each 2560×1600 native,â€� says Mitchell Warren of Ford AV, which designs, installs, services and rents professional sound, video and lighting systems from its base in Oklahoma City. “While Spyder primarily does edge blending, it also does some switchingâ€� for the 192×65-inch display in the high-end collaboration room. Sources for the big-screen display include laptops, high-resolution PC towers with dual-link DVI outputs, and videoconferencing.

Warren notes that Spyder delivers unique capabilities to the collaboration room. “I don’t know of anything else that will edge blend dual-link DVI resolutions,� he says. “Once you get above 1080p you don’t have many options besides the Spyder.�

Mark Seney was Ford AV’s project manager on the job.

About Vista Systems
Vista Systems’ switchers have become the industry standard for live multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching with real-time windowing and composition. For more information on Vista Systems, visit their website at www.vistasystems.net.

American rock bands Three Days Grace and Shinedown are on the road with grandMA and Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures helping to light up their tour. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of grandMA and Clay Paky products in North America.

Three Days Grace and Shinedown are coheadlining a national arena tour, which commenced in February. “Transit of Venus,” the new album from Three Days Grace, debuted at Number Five on the Billboard 200 and includes the Number One Active Rock single, Chalk Outline. Shinedown’s most recent album, “Amaryllis,” produced a pair of chart-topping Active Rock singles.

“Using Sharpy is almost mandatory these days,” reports Mike Filsinger, the lighting designer for Three Days Grace. “It’s an advanced light – pretty much the only technological advancement in lights lately: Clay Paky has really done the R&D to make better fixtures and is now reaping the rewards.”

Bandit Lites supplied 28 Sharpys in the main package and two full-size grandMAs. A primary lighting rig serves both shows; each band also has a supplemental rig. Three Days Grace has eight additional Sharpys in its package; Filsinger’s Sharpys are the dominant light in the rig and are used in the air and on the floor. Shinedown has 24 additional Sharpys, which are used to achieve a variety of moves.

“The band really likes Sharpy’s look and beams – they’re known for being beamy and bright,” says Carter Fulghum, Shinedown’s lighting designer. “The gobos give you great breakups, too. But the Sharpy is so bright that you have to be careful of what other lights you use because Sharpy will overpower them.”

grandMA was also a unanimous choice for the lighting designers. “I’ve been using grandMA forever,” says Filsinger, who also serves as Three Days Grace’s programmer. “It’s definitely the console of choice – it’s the best out there, reliable and versatile. I won’t use any other console these days. I really count on grandMA.”

Fulghum has also been using the desk “for years. I switched over in 2005 and have been with it ever since. You can set up the views the way you want and that makes programming really fast.”

He notes that “we are something on this tour that we’ve never done before: triggering the Catalyst system for the video with the grandMA and using timecode to get things started in sync with the song. It’s a very neat trick.”

Fulgham concludes, “It was great working with Mike [Filsinger], who is so easy to work with on this co-headlining tour. Also great were Aron Altmark, Esteban Caracciolo, Mario Collazo and Bob Gordon for all there help and support through the years.”

At Bandit Lites Brent Barrett is the development officer. “With the increase this year of so many new Sharpys and MA products, Brian Dowd and the whole team at A.C.T has done a great job in several difficult logistical situations for us. They always seem to be one step ahead of any our needs. It really provides us with a level of confidence that makes our job so much less stressful,” Barrett concludes.

About A.C.T Lighting

A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its clients.

For more information call 818-707-0884.

LA pop rock band Maroon 5 has begun its Overexposed tour and Clay Paky Sharpys are along for the ride.

Maroon 5′s new North American tour is in support of the band’s eponymous studio album released last summer. Since its debut in 2002, Maroon 5 has sold over 10 million albums in the U.S.

As always, noted production designer and artistic director Demfis Fyssicopulos took an innovative and forward thinking approach to his design philosophy for the tour, which entailed utilizing the Sharpys.

Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are used on a wall of light upstage of the LED screens; when the screens rotate, 144 Sharpies are revealed. “Pairing the Sharpys with the grandMA2 layout and bitmaps feature was a fantastic thing to do and gave us a lot of creative options,” says Demfis.

Brian Jenkins is the lighting programmer and director for the Overexposed tour. Kevin Cauley is the video programmer, Jhonny Hayes video director, Russel Wingfield video crew chief, Michael Green lighting crew chief and Erik Taylor laser programmer.

Control Freak Systems is providing the video surface management and audio reactivity for the tour. George Toledo is their audio reactive server and Ryan Middlemiss and Stuart White the system master mega-minds. Chaos is supplying the LED screens and camera system, VER is supplying the LED on the band instruments, Upstaging the lighting rig, Pyrotek the lasers and confetti, and Tait Towers the stage and automation. Infect Productions created the video content under Roger Staub.

A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive North American distributor for Clay Paky.

Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky Area Manager for North and Latin America, adds, “Demfis is a great designer and has been a great customer for us. We trust that he’ll always do something interesting with our products. .”

About Clay Paky
Headquartered in Seriate (Bergamo), Italy, Clay Paky SPA has a history of designing and manufacturing innovative professional show lighting. The company was founded in 1976 by entrepreneur Pasquale Quadri who anticipated the enormous impact the evolution of technology would have on the show and entertainment worlds.

For more information on Clay Paky products, please contact:
Francesco Romagnoli francesco@claypaky.it
Davide Barbetta webmaster@claypaky.it

WorldStage, the new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, Inc., has acquired Riedel Communications’ Artist 64 Digital Matrix Intercom system.

“It was time to move to a digital intercom so we chose Riedel, which is an industry standard and recognized as one of the best digital intercom systems available,” says WorldStage engineer Geof Gibson. “Riedel intercoms were used on the Olympics in London and Beijing.”

The Riedel Artist line is a true network infrastructure based on highly-modular matrix mainframes. Individual Artist matrix mainframes can be equipped exactly as needed; not only the mainframes are modular and expandable but also the system’s distributed architecture. The scalability and expandability of the Artist make it a secure long-term investment.

The Artist 64 has a maximum matrix size of 1024×1024 and a maximum of 64 ports per frame. It features hot swap of all modules, redundant power supplies and redundant node controller.

Digital matrix intercoms offer numerous advantages, including high-quality audio; increased flexibility, functionality and reliability; and nearly infinite scalability. In addition, digital matrix intercoms have the ability to interface with a wide array of both digital and analog industry-standard intercom systems.

“The Artist 64 gives us superior audio quality and has incredible flexibility today and moving forward,” Gibson notes. “We have already used our new system for Mercedes at the Detroit International Auto Show and at the Intel Sales Management Conference in Las Vegas.”

WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.

LA pop rock band Maroon 5 has begun its Overexposed tour and grandMA2 and Clay Paky Sharpys are along for the ride. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of both grandMA and Clay Paky lighting fixtures in North America.

Maroon 5′s new North American tour is in support of the band’s eponymous studio album released last summer. Since its debut in 2002, Maroon 5 has sold over 10 million albums in the U.S.

As always, noted production designer and artistic director Demfis Fyssicopulos took an innovative and forward thinking approach to his design philosophy for the tour, which entailed utilizing the grandMA2. “It’s the most advanced control surface in the market,” he says. “In addition to the lighting for the show, a plethora of media servers and custom Control Freak System solutions are all controlled from the grandMA2. Centralized control ensures coherence and a show that looks well put together.”

On the video side of the tour grandMA2 controls four dual-output Hippos, Control Freak Systems’ multitap servers, ADAM servers and Encore DMX bridge. Video surfaces include 80×30-foot Winvision 9mm screen, ten Barco 20K projectors and LED wallpaper.

Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are used on a wall of light upstage of the LED screens; when the screens rotate, 144 Sharpies are revealed. “Pairing the Sharpys with the grandMA2 layout and bitmaps was a fantastic thing to do and gave us a lot of creative options,” says Demfis.

Brian Jenkins is the lighting programmer and director for the Overexposed tour. Kevin Cauley is the video programmer, Jhonny Hayes video director, Russel Wingfield video crew chief, Michael Green lighting crew chief and Erik Taylor laser programmer.

Control Freak Systems is providing the video surface management and audio reactivity for the tour. George Toledo is their audio reactive server and Ryan Middlemiss and Stuart White the system master mega-minds. Chaos is supplying the LED screens and camera system, VER is supplying the LED on the band instruments, Upstaging the lighting rig, Pyrotek the lasers and confetti, and Tait Towers the stage and automation. Infect Productions created the video content under Roger Staub.

About A.C.T Lighting

A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its clients.

For more information call 818-707-0884.

Living up to its branding as Sponsors of Tomorrow, the innovative Intel booth at CES 2013 presented the electronics giant’s forward-thinking products with AV support from WorldStage, the new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, Inc. CES 2013 marked the fourth consecutive year that WorldStage partnered with Intel on its booth; WorldStage also recently provided AV support for the keynote at the Intel Sales Management Conference.

With the promise of connecting to richer experiences with Intel, the company’s presence at CES 2013 in Las Vegas showcased third-generation Intel Core processor-powered Ultrabook devices and tablets as well as several phones and tablets powered by Intel Atom processors.

“The 2011 Intel CES booth we worked on won Intel’s best overall or Grand Prix award at the company’s Third Annual Marketing Innovation Awards,” says Josh Weisberg, President at WorldStage. “So we were excited to build on that momentum again this year.”

This year WorldStage teamed with client Taylor Group and designers 2LK and (Rockwell Design) on the AV components for the Intel booth, handling all of the AV integration. WorldStage provided two media walls composed of Barco C5 LED tiles; one LED wall served as a decorative element to engage passersby and pull them into the booth, and the second acted as the primary presentation screen for an ongoing series of demos, performances and product introductions which were integrated into the Spotlight Theater’s AV system.

WorldStage also supplied a Meyer-based audio system for the booth and presentation area as well as a number of 46-inch thin-bezel monitors.

James Sarro was project manager for WorldStage and managed the AV integration for the booth as a whole, and Terry Nakamura was the LED technician. Raul Herrera handled network systems and video playback, as well as electronic interfacing with the lighting team to manage lighting effects with the Spotlight Theater’s presentations.

Ben Judah and Leslie Di Rado were the executives at Taylor Group.

WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.

A full suite of Alcorn McBride equipment – a LightCue/E, 8TraXX/E, DVM-8400HDs and a V4 Pro controller – is helping visitors who take the Global Village tour gain an interactive understanding of poverty and the need for help around the world. The Global Village is located at Matthew 25: Ministries’ Center for Humanitarian Relief in Blue Ash, Ohio. It is a life-size, three-dimensional re-creation of disaster scenes and poverty in the U.S. and developing countries.

Matthew 25: Ministries was founded by Rev. Wendell Mettey, who developed a system to recover excess products no longer useful to U.S. corporations and redistribute them to people in extreme poverty. Since 1991 the organization has grown into an international relief organization distributing 10 million pounds of products each year. In December 2012 Matthew 25: Ministries exceeded one billion dollars in total humanitarian aid shipped.

Since the organization relies heavily on volunteers in the field and at the distribution center, there’s a continuing need to explain what they do and why they need help. That inspired the Global Village, which brings an understanding of disaster relief and ongoing poverty field work to visitors to the Center for Humanitarian Relief.

The Global Village presents visitors with a series of environments where help is needed. An area showing the damage incurred by the earthquake in Haiti depicts a multi-story building collapse; another demonstrates how people living in extreme poverty make their homes in a landfill sorting through garbage for food and materials they can sell, trade or use for shelter.

Alcorn McBride equipment delivers content throughout the Global Village and makes the experience more immersive. A LightCue/E raises and lowers lights in the exhibit areas as a personal guide takes visitors through the tour. An 8TraXX/E supplies background audio and sound effects to enhance the atmosphere of the areas. Five DVM-8400s source educational video content on flat-panel displays and projectors throughout the village. The entire system is automated via a V4 Pro and Alcorn McBride’s ShowTouch for iOS app. A tour guide simply triggers the pre-programmed tour from an Apple iPad or iPod Touch.

“Matthew 25: Ministries wanted a dynamic system that could be updated,” notes Joe Leonard, exhibit designer, lighting designer and technician with Leonard Design. “The tour guide, who carries an iPad interface controller, has complete control of the experience and can affect the timing of the show to adapt to the visitor. The first scene takes place in a newsroom, then there are a series of simulated disasters – the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina – and a scene showing poverty in North America.”

Leonard knows the theme park world having done projects for Paramount’s attractions, Disney parade floats and high-profile stage design, so he was familiar with Alcorn McBride products. “I knew Alcorn equipment would give us the flexibility for full or semi-automation,” he says. “And it’s been great!”

Alcorn McBride provided two days of hands-on training with the equipment for the Global Village. Day one was devoted to educating Leonard and his staff about the various equipment and how to prepare the audio, video and lighting media. Leonard encoded the video content and recorded individual lighting cues for LightCue/E. Audio files were obtained, converted and organized on the 8TraXX/E. By the end of the first day all of the individual elements were working.

Day two was dedicated to control. The tour guides explained how the show needed to proceed as Alcorn McBride and Leonard created a list of cues while walking through the exhibit area. Leonard was also trained on how to build a simple iPad Touch interface for the guides to use and how to create a ShowTouch interface to handle basic maintenance functions. At the end of the day the Global Village had a fully functional show control system, and Leonard was savvy about how to maintain and modify the system as needed moving forward.

“The training sessions were a big help, but the Alcorn McBride equipment is very user friendly to begin with,” Leonard points out. “Matthew 25: Ministries is very pleased with how things are working. They’re very impressed with the end result.”

Alcorn McBride offers flexible training options. Advanced Control training sessions are held during the year on both the East and West Coast and are complimentary to customers. Introductory Control training classes are offered online and at InfoComm also free of charge. A complete schedule can be found on the company’s website. Customers, like Matthew 25: Ministries, may opt for one-on-one customized training solutions. Contact Alcorn McBride for more information on pricing and availability.

About Alcorn McBride:
Founded in 1986, Alcorn McBride is the leading manufacturer of show control, audio and video equipment for the themed entertainment industry, and a rapidly growing provider of audio and video systems for retail environments and transportation applications. Staffed by some of the industry’s best engineers and backed by outstanding customer support, the company has demonstrated great agility in bringing new designs to market. A hallmark of Alcorn McBride products is their durable, zero maintenance design. The company’s products provide consistent, reliable operation for audio and video playback applications worldwide. For more information, visit www.alcorn.com.