ECI Cultuurfabriek includes a theatre, stage, two cinemas, café and gallery space all under one roof and hosts a variety of cultural events from music, dance and theatre to workshops and special project days. Restoration of the former factory, actually a historically significant building, took two and a half years to complete.
"This was the perfect moment for the new location to start with a complete LED installation," says Maarten Janssen, head technician and stage manager at ECI. "Because I had some knowledge of LED from working previously at a lighting company (Xilver BV), it was a lot easier to come with ideas about what we could do with LED within the constraints of our budget. During preparation of the building process and during construction itself, I was responsible for the entire lighting design, including contacts and implementation of the system."
The venue's two main entertainment spaces are the 240-seat Theatre and 600-capacity live music POP stage, where, despite its name, all manner of music is on the menu from famous Dutch bands to internationally known artists. "In the Theatre we required seven-colour LED lighting but in the POP stage we could have a little simpler RGB, RGBA or RGBW colour mixing. We needed it to be a high quality fixture and proper aftercare/service was important," Maarten explains.
Installed In POP are high power RGBW Platinum Wash LED Zoom moving heads and compact CMY colour mixing Platinum Spot 5R Pro luminaires with zoom. Some 62 EPAR QA LED PAR lights with RGBA LEDs are mounted in the rig with a further 8 positioned on the floor. In the Theatre are also installed Elation Platinum Wash LED Zoom fixtures along with ELED DW Par 56 lights.
Lighting supply and installation of the system was undertaken by Lightco, the lighting sales division of the Ampco Flashlight Group. "We decided on the Platinum Wash LED Zoom because of its high output and even illumination, which makes it work well as a nice wash spot," comments Marnix Kuling, Lightco account manager on the install who created the lighting design together with ECI's Maarten Jansen. "The Spot 5R has all the functionality required for the high-energy atmosphere in POP. Furthermore, it is energy efficient and has a long lamp life of 2000 hours. We used the Elation EPAR because of the even illumination, good smooth dimming and the fact that it has no fan."
(Jim Evans)
