Twenty ETC Source Four LED fixtures with attached CYC unit are in use on Liolà, with 10 above the 15m x 7m elevated cyc, and ten below, not dissimilar to the demonstration on ETC's stand at PLASA London.
Lighting supervisor Steve Binks told the visiting ALD members that whilst he and his colleagues realised they were taking a risk in using a new product still in final development for their lighting, the result was nonetheless a resounding success. "My initial fear was that the comparative output of the LED would not be enough," he said. "But the LED output was great, even with tricky pastel colours at low levels, and the optics meant that coverage was beautifully even across the cyc. ETC's Associate Regional Manager Jeremy Roberts told us that they rushed the attachments to us and hadn't even had time to give them a final polish, so are only giving approximately 80% output! As the ALD members can see, even with reduced output this product is impressive."
The Lyttelton's technicians replaced what would have been 20 four-cells with the Source Four LED Lustr+, which, Binks explains, "potentially reduces power consumption by 77.5kW - a massive 96% - as well as saving time and money on buying and cutting gel.
"We also benefitted from comparative savings on weight, which gave us greater flexibility when rigging."
ETC's regional manager for UK and Ireland Mark White accompanied the tour round the theatre, and explains, "The visitors were really impressed with power and versatility of the new CYC adaptor, and its ability to cover such a wide space at greater efficiency. While we recommend that the units are rigged 2m from the cyc, and 1.5m apart, the busy repertoire rig meant they were only 1.5m away, and 1.4m apart. But we still saw perfectly smooth coverage, without seams or scallops."
(Jim Evans)
