During the selection process for a major theatrical lighting overhaul for the Performing Arts Theatre Peter McKenzie, sales manager for Philips Selecon demonstrated the energy-saving 1200W 80V Rama High Performance Fresnel as an alternative to their larger, hungrier stage luminaires. This presentation, backed up by an independent assessment convinced the Council to specify and install 36 80V 1200W Rama High Performance Fresnels which have now completely replaced all the older 2000 / 2500W Fresnels in the 1139-seat theatre.
Chris Dbais, venue operations manager, comments, "The upgrade from 2000 and 2500 watt Fresnels to the new Philips Selecon 80 volt 1200 watt Rama High Performance Fresnels has more than halved our power consumption on stage."
On the technical side Alex Fox and Jesse Radatti, senior lighting technicians are impressed with performance, light output and ease of use that these compact, hard-working luminaires deliver to both performers on stage and crew behind the curtain.
"The stage area is much cooler, yet we keep nearly the same luminosity as previously. Quite a few clients we've had onstage have been very surprised when we fly our lighting bars in, to find that we have the small 1200W Fresnels. Their expectation from the light-output was that they'd be 2000-2500watt lamps," says Fox.
Radatti adds, "The individual dimmers per lamp make patching much faster. We simply need to have a straight 240V power point and DMX on the lighting bar and we're set. The fact that we're dealing with 1200W Fresnels also means that we can have two Fresnels per 2400watt circuit, thus saving outlets. The control on the luminaire's dimmer is very easy to use - providing manual intensity control and DMX address changing."
(Jim Evans)
