Project manager for Elektrik, Benjamin Reinhoff, explains, "The Concert Hall's staff had been looking at changing their lighting for some time now but hadn't found anything quite right. They wanted something with the right light quality and a smooth dimming curve.
"Through consulting firm ÅF Lighting Norway, we showed them a range of different options. Initially, the technicians saw a white LED fixture but weren't happy with the result - the theatre's seating fabric is a special shade of blue, and it didn't 'pop out' quite right. So we did a test with ten ETC Selador fixtures, which, with their seven LED colours, were specifically designed to accurately render or even enhance colours and skin tones. The consultant, Morten Jensen, told us it was the best result he'd ever seen and the only product which even came close to matching the specification."
To control the new fixtures, Electrik installed an ETC Unison Paradigm system and additional relay modules to their existing ETC Sensor dimming rack.
Says Reinhoff, "The fixtures are connected to the both Paradigm and the main lighting control desk. Each fixture can be pixel mapped - so the house lights become part of the stage lighting."
Paradigm is designed to make lighting easy to operate by a wide range of different people, from lighting technicians to front-of-house staff and maintenance personnel.
Norway's national TV broadcaster NRK often comes to the hall to record concerts, and where previously the lighting director would have had big 5K fixtures to wash the audience in blue, such power-consuming lighting is no longer needed.
Dag Jonny Martinsen, technical manager at the Oslo Concert House says, "The challenge we had was to emphasise the symmetry of the room and to be able to really wash it with light. The ETC Seladors perform that task well - we found that the possibilities are almost endless.
"The feedback we've had so far goes from 'wow' from some of the producers, to nothing at all from the orchestra - which is a very good sign."
(Jim Evans)
