This year, the Thunder wanted to light up their home ice with as much excitement as they light up the crowd. So the team's management called on Stockton-based Illuminate Production Services (IPS) to design and install a new lighting rig around the scoreboard and video screens at Stockton Arena.
"Previously, the Thunder had rented a lighting rig each season," said Rick Franke of IPS. "But this wasn't efficient, so they were looking to purchase their own lighting." According to Franke, the team needed lighting that was affordable, extremely high quality, and alive with colour, motion and texture.
To meet all these criteria, Franke and Stockton Arena's technical director Stephen Jester used lighting products from Elation Professional, along with trussing from Elation's sister company Global Truss. A 51' diameter circular truss rig was constructed with Global products to frame the arena's huge Daktronics scoreboard and video screens. 16 Elation Design LED 36 high-output RGB LED colour changing fixtures were installed in the rig as truss warmers. Additionally, six Elation Power Spot 700 CMY II 700W DMX moving heads were hung from the truss.
Franke also chose an Elation product to control the system - Compu 2048FC PC-based lighting control software. One of the programming requirements is to sync the lighting to the arena's Daktronics screens, and the Compu software's Easy Show time line sequencing feature makes it easy to cue scenes to music and video files. Additionally, the software's multi-media-triggering capability makes it simple for the staff at Stockton Arena to run the show.
(Jim Evans)
