In-house LD Ian Davis installed eight Technospots in early October and four intellaspots in early November. The 1,100-capacity venue was in need of a full-on lighting system for a while, Davis said.
"I hadn't had my lighting system at 100 percent in at least two years," he explained, "and High End Systems Chris McMeen was the only person who understood my plight. It was a real struggle that had been affecting my ability to do the kind of show I wanted to do." Regarding the Technospots, Davis says, "This is a great fixture at an unbelievable price. It is a small unit that competes in every way with the intellaspots, it has just about all the same attributes and super fast moving parts. With the same gobos, they are the perfect complement to each other."
He is also pleased with the intellaspots. "I am really happy with the intensity. It can really get as bright as I would ever need it to be. Though they are 850 watt fixtures, they are much brighter than the 1200w fixtures I had before. The speed of the zoom and focus are awesome, you can hardly see them change. All the moving parts, for that matter, seem to be really fast."
Irving Plaza has a long history in the New York music scene, starting out in 1860 as a place for concerts and balls. It was rebuilt in 1888 undergoing a string of new identities, from a burlesque house to Yiddish, Soviet and Swedish film theatres and finally a Polish Army veterans community center. Finally in 1978, it underwent another refurbishment to take on its current identity as the major rock concert venue that it is today.
(Jim Evans)
