Are you enjoying your holiday break? While you kick back some eggnog and holiday cheer with friends and family with the first semester of the 2012-2013 school year behind you, prepare for the 2nd semester. I am not talking about hitting the books to study for class, that would be lame, or very fortuitous of you. Either way, you deserve the time off.

BUT, why not prepare to win a great prize package while doing what we all love, DESIGNING! With that, I am proud to announce the 2013 Student Lighting Design Competition!

iSquint.net, Stage Directions Magazine, Nemetschek Vectorworks, City Theatrical and Field Template have teamed up to offer one lucky lighting design student a prize package. The winner of the 2013 Student Lighting Design Competition will walk away with a Professional License of Vectorworks® 2013 with Renderworks®, a personal license of Lightwright™ 5, a single license of Field Templates SoftSymbols V3.5, a copy of Lightplot Deconstructed, 2nd Edition and merch from the SquintDepot.

The rules are very simple: produce a lighting design with Vectorworks, Renderworks and Lightwright.  The design can be from a theatrical, live event, opera, concert, what ever you want except an architectural design. The design does not have to be a realized play.  Meaning that it does not have to be produced in order to be submitted to the Student Lighting Design Competition.

But wait, you need Vectorworks, Renderworks and Lightwright to enter the contest to win the very same software!  Easy enough, as a full-time student with an active and valid college or university ID, you can download a FREE* student version of Vectorworks 2013 with Renderworks to learn, use and produce the entry requirements for the contest.  Lightwright also offers a demo version that can be used for producing paperwork for the competition, which you can download here www.mckernon.com. Visit student.vectorworks.net to get a free student version of Vectorworks software.  If you live outside the U.S., you will be redirected to a local distributor in your country to obtain a student version.

So what are you waiting for, download the software now, begin to work on your design while on break! After the New Year, more details about due dates, resources and words of wisdom from the judges will be supplied here on iSquint. Have a Happy Holiday and GET TO WORK!