Following an enthusiastic response and non-stop crowds in the PRG booth all Friday and Saturday, the LDI team was awarded the LDI Best Debuting Product - Staging and Rigging for the new PRG GroundControl Followspot System. Presented at the LDI Awards event on the show floor and accepted by PRG product manager for Luminaires Chris Conti, who thanked PRG's Technology Development team, based in Dallas. He also thanked the industry colleagues who contributed feedback during development, especially Lighting Designer Bob Barnhart and the Full Flood team for their inspiration towards developing this revolutionary product.
The PRG GroundControl Followspot System allows the spot operator to be in a remote location up to 2,000' away while operating a high output PRG Bad Boy Spot automated luminaire as a followspot.
Later in the evening at the 15th Annual Parnelli Awards, a gala event and dinner held at the Rio Hotel & Casino, PRG was named the Video Rental Company of the Year. The Parnelli, named after Tour & Production Manager Rick 'Parnelli' O'Brien, holds prestige in the production industry as it reflects being nominated and voted upon by colleagues industry-wide. The award was accepted by Nick Jackson, Senior Vice President, PRG Music Group.
"This is a real honour," notes Mickey Curbishley, CEO of the PRG Music Group. "Though the award was for our work on U2, it's really a reflection of everything we do on every level. Congratulations to our entire PRG team, certainly to everyone who worked so hard on the amazing U2 tour and a big thank you to everyone for voting for us as number one. You all keep us at the top of our game."
The U2 tour's stunning video visuals, achieved by the tour's video director Stefaan 'Smasher' Desmedt, leveraged the scrim-like qualities of the PRG V-Thru LED Video modules. Built into two screens, each 96' long by 23' tall, consisted of 240 individual 28mm V-Thru panels with a 66% transparency for true scrim-like effects. Placed on either side of a 96' long flown catwalk.
(Jim Evans)
