MONDAY, AUGUST 3

Ayrton RawBeam 350: Laser-Source Beam Machine in the Diablo Footprint

Ayrton has been on a tear with laser-sourced fixtures since Cobra made them an overnight sensation in 2022 — and with Kyalami and Mamba following in quick succession, they’ve proven it wasn’t a fluke. The RawBeam 350 is their next move: a compact, flat-beam moving head that sits in the same footprint as the Diablo but swaps discharge for a phosphor-converted laser source. The headline number is 1,340,000 lux at 10 meters (32.8 ft) —… Read more

MONDAY, AUGUST 3

ESTA Publishes Five Standards Covering DMX Cabling, RDM File Transfer, Followspot Safety, and More

ESTA’s Technical Standards Program has published five standards in one batch — covering everything from permanently-installed DMX cabling to RDM firmware uploads to followspot position safety. If your shop deals in any of these areas, these are worth downloading. They’re free at tsp.esta.org. The headliners for the entertainment lighting world: ANSI E1.27-2-2026 finally codifies requirements for permanently-installed DMX512 control cables — the kind buried in walls and conduit that nobody thinks about until something fails… Read more

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4

Elation Adds Tilt Bars to the Rebel Family with the Rebel Line Series

Elation’s Rebel family has been building out steadily, and the Rebel Line Series slots in as the linear complement to the Rebel Wash fixtures — same RGBL engine, same IP55 chassis philosophy, but now in a tilt-bar format designed to lock together end-to-end for continuous beam lines and pixel arrays. Two sizes: the Line 8 (half-meter, 8 cells, 11,548 lumens, 29.3 lbs / 13.3 kg) and the Line 16 (one meter, 16 cells, 25,355 lumens,… Read more

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4

Green Hippo Launches the Estuary Series, Three Media Servers Built Around the grandMA3 Workflow

Green Hippo, now an ACT Entertainment brand, has been quiet for a while, but the Estuary Series makes it clear they’ve been heads-down building something substantial. Three models, a new processing architecture borrowed from sister brand tvONE’s Calico platform, and a direct pitch to grandMA3 users who want their media and lighting ops in the same language. The lineup runs from the MC1, a 1RU unit for studios and corporate work with four 4K outputs,… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Avolites Prism Brings Media Control into the Titan Workflow

Avolites has launched Prism, a media control interface designed to bring video and pixel mapping into the Titan ecosystem without requiring a dedicated media operator or deep media-server chops. It’s aimed squarely at the lighting-first LD who keeps getting handed screens to manage — and that’s a very large chunk of the touring and live event market right now. Prism runs standalone or connects to Titan through Synergy, which means your lighting and media timelines… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Martin MAC One Beam: A LILI Beam Source in the MAC One Ecosystem

Martin’s MAC One family has been a fixture on concert touring rigs since the wash version dropped, and the Beam variant fills the obvious gap: a tight, high-intensity beam in the same compact chassis. At 4.95 kg (10.91 lbs) it’s genuinely deployable in quantity without making your riggers hate you — dense grid rigs, VDO matrix walls, or mixed beam-and-wash setups in a single Fourbar. The light engine is a LILI (Laser Illuminated Lighting Instrument)… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Araneo Studio 1.2.0 Adds Project Mode, Selection Groups, and GDTF Library Management

Luminex has pushed Araneo Studio to version 1.2.0, a feature-focused release that shifts the application from a device-centric tool to a full project-based workflow. If you’re managing a LumiNode or LumiCore infrastructure at any scale, this one changes how you work from the moment you open the app. Luminex also released LumiNode and LumiCore firmware 2.9.0 alongside this update, which adds Araneo Studio compatibility as a core feature — the two releases are designed to… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Luminex LumiNode and LumiCore Get Araneo Studio Config Support in Firmware 2.9.0

Luminex has pushed firmware 2.9.0 for the LumiNode and LumiCore ranges, and the headliner is Araneo Studio compatibility — specifically the online and offline configuration workflow that’s landing in the upcoming Araneo Studio v1.2.0 release. If you’re managing a larger install or touring rig with multiple nodes, this is the groundwork for deploying and pushing configs across the network without touching each device individually. Beyond the Araneo Studio prep, the update tightens up the WebUI… Read more

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6

Ayrton MagicBlade Neo: Five-Head Linear with LiquidEffect Rings and IP65

Ayrton’s MagicBlade Neo takes the modular linear concept in a significantly more technical direction — five independently controllable moving heads packed 3mm apart into an IP65 chassis that weighs 32.4 kg (71.4 lbs) and draws 800W. The headline numbers: 17,300 lux at 5m with all heads at minimum zoom, a 10:1 zoom from 3° to 30°, and a LiquidEffect ring on each lens with 60 individually controllable pixels. That last feature is essentially a MagicDot… Read more

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6

Broadweigh Wired Digital Brings Hard-Line Load Monitoring to Theater and Touring

Broadweigh has long been the name in wireless load monitoring on touring rigs, but wired has always been the preference in permanent theater installations where RF congestion and battery management are a headache nobody needs. Broadweigh Wired Digital addresses that directly — it’s the same trusted load sensing hardware wrapped in a hardwired solution designed to live in the rig permanently. The practical angle here is smart: a venue installs the Broadweigh unit and TwistLink… Read more

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7

Vari-Lite Neo X5 CRE Brings Full-Featured Console to Space-Constrained Installs

Vari-Lite’s Neo X5 CRE is the screenless sibling to the Neo X5, built for control rooms, studios, and mid-size performance spaces where a full console footprint isn’t practical. Same software platform, smaller box. More from Vari-Lite: Vari-Lite and Signify have announced the Neo X5 CRE – a compact lighting console designed specifically for space-constrained environments such as control rooms, studios, and medium-sized performance spaces. The X5 CRE delivers the same advanced features and customizable software… Read more

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8

PROLIGHTS Muse Fresnel70CT+: A Moving Fresnel Built from the Optics Up

A lot of moving Fresnels are really just a profile with a Fresnel lens bolted on front. PROLIGHTS took a different approach with the Muse Fresnel70CT+. They built the optical path from scratch, drawing directly from their static LED Fresnel range. The result is authentic Fresnel behavior: single clean shadow, natural soft fall-off, the whole thing. On paper, a 1,000W 6-color LED source through a 200mm (8″) Fresnel lens delivering up to 29,000 lumens with… Read more