Located in the heart of Calgary's downtown Cultural District, Epcor Centre is a six-level complex occupying a full city block. It is one of the three largest performing arts centres in Canada and the largest in Western Canada.
The Centre's head electrician, Kris Ladd, discovered the B-EYE K10 Easy in a demo video taped at LDI. Matt La Brie, in the Calgary office of Christie Lites, brought some fixtures to the Centre for Ladd to look at, and he was impressed.
"We try to stick to buying the well-known and well-supported brands," Ladd explains. "We were looking for LED wash fixtures the size of the K10s: not big 50-pounders and not little tiny ones. We wanted to use them for uplights, where smaller is better, but we also needed them to have the punch to hang overhead and do washes.
"The K10s had good intensity for their size and a very even wash throughout the zoom range," says Ladd, who "tag teams" shows with his alternate, Matt Gilbutowicz. "They can get really tight - down to a 4° beam - so they're more than a flooding fresnel. They're very versatile."
He also liked "the shape effects attributes, so you can get patterns going on the lens or projected onto people." Although this particular model of the K10 does not have a rotating head, the shape effects "gave a bit of movement to the light," Ladd points out.
Since their delivery this summer, the K10s have been used on the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra's pop shows, a slate of rock concerts and stand-up comedy shows where they "colour wash the stage or uplight the drapes behind the performer," says Ladd.
The B-EYE K10 Easy are mounted on truss, placed on the floor behind a drum riser or even positioned on speaker sub woofers as a side front light. "Lighting designers who come here with shows are enjoying them," he reports. "It's often the first chance they've had to see the K10s, and they tell me how bright and punchy they are."
The K10s mark Epcor Centre's first purchase of Clay Paky fixtures. "It was important to me that A.C.T Lighting has a service centre in Toronto," says Ladd. "The fact that A.C.T Lighting Canada can provide full-service support was a factor in choosing the K10s."
Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky area manager for North and Latin America, added, "It's great to be associated with such a high profile center. There have been a lot of great Canadian projects and we thank our partners there for their great work and designs."
(Jim Evans)
