Working at height to change the lamps and gels for static lights is common practice in UK theatres, but the PixelPars have brought a dramatic change of circumstance to the theatre. For the first time, operators have instant control over the lighting colour via DMX control. The PixelPars are fitted with 40 degree diffusers to give good coverage and are zoned to spread colour evenly across the stage.
Technical manager Steve Smith comments: "We looked closely at the marketplace to see what was available and the PixelPar won the vote of the technical department for its level of output - it was so bright - and for the inclusion of amber or white with the RGB.
"On paper, the chosen solution looked like a big outlay for us but actually, return on the investment made the choice a very easy one. The lamp life is something in the region of 50,000 hours and the hourly running costs coupled with the man-hour saving (when you consider the man-hours involved in re-gelling the stage to give one set of four colour washes) means the savings are immediate and significant."
Rotherham Civic Theatre is feeling the benefit of the lights already. Not only is the lighting quicker to set up - and without so much working at height - the theatre is enjoying a greater diversity of booked acts from night to night.
Smith agrees: "The PixelPars have cut our turnaround time. The theatre can now book a run of back to back one-nighters, as well as our more usual longer runs."
He continues, "The lights will come into their own at Christmas - as the theatre is renowned for its annual panto and pulls in crowds from miles around. Instead of having dozens of colour wash floods in the rig we will just use the 16 PixelPars to give a huge palette of colours, changing as we need to. We now have so much flexibility in terms of colour - the costumes and set will be easier to colour-match to as we can fine tune the hue of the lights."
(Jim Evans)
