Rocking in Melbourne

Once again the Mandy boys are spread all over the place. Greg's about to begin reprogramming Cats in Seoul, Dan has returned from Rock Eisteddfod heats in Brisbane and Wollongong and is now working at the event in Sydney, while I've shipped off down to Melbourne for a week and a bit of RockE south of the border. I'm typing this from FOH about an hour before the third heat begins which features eleven schools from around Victoria. It's my first season of RockE and hopefully not my last - it's been heaps of fun working with the different schools and I'm pretty amazed at how hard a lot of them try to stage a huge show. So far, I've seen UFOs and SETI experiments, tons of global warming, a 12 year old version of U2, a few circuses, some Irish dancers and a salute to Judy Garland.... surely the only gig with more variety is Eurovision... Looking forward to spending the weekend off with the crew and then returning to Sydney for a week before heading off again to Korea and Japan for another month. More blogs to come... till next time rich

All change in Seoul

I'm about to start my last show of Cats in Seoul this evening, with Greg coming back out to take over for the next month or so. It's been a good run so far despite a pretty crazy bump in week when we transferred the show from Daegu to Seoul. I've had a bit of a chance to explore the city - we even managed to find the disco district which was filled with every kind of disco lighting toy ever made... some real antiquities to be found - even an old Lee Colortran lighting console that was sitting for sale by the side of a road! This weekend I'll be working on the PLC College musical which will make use of some interesting projection that I'll be controlling. After that, there will hopefully be a few slightly less-hectic weeks where I can start some planning for the huge number of end of year jobs that we already have planned. Meanwhile, it's time to go... we've got a show to do...

Hillsong half way..

Well its Wednesday afternoon and I'm having a great time here at ACER. Kelsey, who is operating MAXEDIA, decided that she could do some words on the Martin LC panels. So what else to put up except....

Hillsong Conference

Greg is busily in the middle of bumpin for the Annual Hillsong Conference at ACER Arena. HE was the first to get his FOH position set up complete with coffe and internet. The crew from Lots of Watts and Chameleon are busy building some funky shapes using Martin LC panels. Its a fidly and slow job but will look amazing when finished later tonight. We cant wait!!. Greg at the control of his empire Greg MANDYS the ACER

On stage with Cats

Greg and I met up in Daegu this week as part of the Asian Cats Tour. Greg has operated and overseen the last few weeks and I'll be taking over from this Sunday. We've had a chance to do a bit of sightseeing, gamble with our lives with the Korean road system and eaten lots of things that we didn't really know the origin of. The show moves to Seoul next week so we have one more week of Daegu shows and a pretty intensive bump out and in ahead of us. Below is a photo of the crew - GY and myself with Ryan (systems) and Wing (head followspot operator). If you happen to be in Korea, stop in and say hi! Cheers Richard

All over

After our birthday party last month we've headed off all over the place. With Dan holding the fort back in Sydney, Greg headed of to light the Asian touring production of Andrew Llloyd Webber's Cats in Daegu, about 1000km south of Seoul in South Korea. I ventured back to Birmingham in the UK for the BBC Summer Festival to light the show's Supertheatre with Blacksheep Productions. After a week of gardening, food and style shows in the miserable, rainy, cold UK, I've just flown to take over from Greg in Daegu - not before enjoying a rare day off at Alton Towers - a massive theme park in the UK! We have a week to go in Daegu before the production moves to Seoul. It's going to be a fun month of shows, sightseeing and not knowing exactly what we're eating... Greg is madly working to finalise lighting designs and production drawings for the massive Hillsong Conference which he heads home to light this weekend. We're all incredibly busy, but loving every minute of it. On top of all this, Dan is working on several projects - a couple of which have to stay in the 'secret' category for the moment, but that we know we are going to have a ball with later in the year. That's all for now - we'll get some Korean photos up soon! Cheers Richard

Mandylights turns 1!

What better way to celebrate the company's first birthday than to enjoy a spectacular meal amongst friends in a great restaurant? With greg heading off to light the Cats Asian tour tomorrow afternoon, we're enjoying a rare night with everyone in Sydney.