If you were setting out to establish an innovative luminaire company, it is unlikely that you would choose to site it in a country with only a handful of professional theatres, and strategically located over 10,000 kilometres from its major markets. Yet that is precisely the situation in New Zealand, the base from which Selecon has launched its international success. It has turned what ought to have been disadvantages in its location into major strengths.
Selecon luminaires can be found in places as disparate as the Opera Bastille in Paris, the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta, Canada, Boston Catholic Television, the Grand Theatre in Blackpool, the Sydney Opera House and Santa Monica High School in California. The broad range of products it produces, includes families of fresnels, PC spots, fixed, zoom and condensor optic profile spots, stage, cyclorama and groundrow floods, followspots and display luminaires.
"A company like us, with short runs of a diverse range of products is well suited to a country like New Zealand," explains managing director, Jeremy Collins. "We have very good precision extrusion and pressure die-casting industries in New Zealand, and the scales of production that we require (regular short runs) can generally be easily accommodated." This strategy allows Selecon to get the materials it requires, without carrying the overhead of large quantities of stock.
It is that wide range of specialized products that differentiates Selecon from the rest of the field. Over the past decade, Selecon has probably produced more new products than any other luminaire manufacturer. The range of profile spots, for example, includes both the world’s narrowest zoom (5.5° to 13°) and the world’s widest (90°) spots - both available with a choice of four discharge and incandescent light sources. Its cool beam profiles are demonstrably cooler than anything else available, and have spawned a whole new industry in the production of low-cost, disposable gobos, printed with the office printer on cheap overhead transparency film. Most recently, the introduction of the Finelite image projection system and the internal optical dowsers for the Pacific profile spots, have added yet another layer of innovation and differentiation to Selecon’s product range.
Selecon Reid was founded in 1969 by Walter Coleman, who developed a 6" fresnel using a P28-based lamp, to meet the needs of the New Zealand education market. He was also CCT Lighting’s very first export customer. Influenced by the introduction of aluminium extrusions in CCT and ADB’s products, Coleman went on to develop his own range of luminaires using similar construction techniques, although his optics were noticeably brighter.
When Jeremy Collins and Andrew Nichols bought the company in 1985 they had already decided to focus on the export market. It continues to be a point of pride that since that time, Selecon has been at the forefront of innovation. The company’s initial export market was Australia, and later South-East Asia. This was followed by moves into Europe and most recently North America. Today Europe is Selecon’s largest territory, with the UK as its single largest market.
One of Selecon’s most distinctive features is its four-person product development team, led by Andrew Nichols, director of research and development. This group continues to be the driving force behind the company’s innovation and product development. All optical and mechanical development is undertaken by the team, with some of the more specialised electronics, being developed in conjunction with specialist manufacturers, such as Australia’s Dynalite.
Selecon’s philosophy is that by working in-house, rather than contracting out the design of each product, they will build up a coherent design philosophy and a good knowledge and understanding of the underlying technologies. This, in turn, has brought about
