Ayrton Ghibli lights Minneapolis convention
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AV service provider CMI Communications of Rochester, New York asked Light and Shadow, LLC of Winter Garden, Florida to provide turnkey lighting design for the convention as the company has in the past. During the three-day event the daily morning Mass and business sessions were broadcast on EWTN, CatholicTV and other outlets. The convention hall featured a 120ft-wide stage with a 115ft projection screen as a backdrop.
“We needed a high-quality broadcast light that we could also use for the opening dinner,” says lighting designer, Shawn Seithel. “We were looking for a replacement for our previous go-to fixture, and a Ghibli demo by ACT Lighting sparked our interest.”
During the demo, “Ghibli did everything our usual go-to fixtures did and did it better. Ghibli was brighter, had a nice flat field and its framing shutters were a huge plus. It looked like a well-rounded light for every kind of event we do,” Seithel says.
For the convention Seithel rented 78 Ghibli fixtures from three vendors placing them on mid-stage and downstage truss and on two trusses running the length of the hall. The fixtures did stage and procession washes and served as face lights for the Mass, business sessions and opening night dinner. The Ghibli units also provided wall textures for the latter.
“The Ghiblis delivered a great stage wash and room lighting – we were able to cover more area than usual because of a few degrees more of zoom,” Seithel explains. “We liked their flat even field for the Masses and meetings, and the fixtures’ textures and patterns were also really nice for the gala dinner.”
He notes that, “with our previous fixtures we spent three hours or more dialling in colour before we even got to intensity. With Ghibli we just brought them up and spent about an hour getting the temperatures and colours right, then everything was the same across the board. Despite using three different vendors who supplied Ghibli units of different ages, the fixtures matched exactly in output and colour temperature. That was a huge time saver, and I was thoroughly impressed.”
Seithel says the Ghibli fixtures “performed beautifully” during the convention and have become “our light of choice” going forward. “It’s the one we’ll request for all of our events.” As Light and Shadow expands its own equipment inventory, Ghibli will also be under consideration for future purchase, he reports.
