Since the demonstration in 2005 by Yam and co-workers of room-temperature phosphorescent emission in C^N^C pincer complexes of gold(III), there has been significant interest in materials of this type. As in related complexes of platinum(II), the key to unlocking phosphorescence was to employ sufficiently strong field ligands that would raise the energy of the d-d states, which quench the luminescence excited state by thermal equilibration or energy transfer. In the complexes reported by Yam et al., this was achieved using a phenylacetylide co-ligand (Fig. ).