Said Gerrit Schottert, who runs Lightco: "We bought them straight off the stand, checked and tested them at our facility in Utrecht and then shipped them straight to the theatre. We had already done a demo of both the XL1200 and XL700s, and the clients had conducted their own research on the internet."
For the Zuidplein there were several advantages in this approach. "Firstly, because these were demonstration models we could supply at a good price, and at the same time they had the confidence that the fixtures had already been burnt in. But most important was that the theatre needed them quickly - and we were able to get the heads to them within two weeks."
The theatre has always run a progressive policy - and since it operates as a production (rather than receiving) house, it is able to generate sufficient capital to fund its own capital acquisitions such as this. Their lighting rig now represents a substantial mix of generic and moving lights.
It was Fred den Hartog, the theatre's head of technical services, who first requested the PR Lighting demo; Lightco took the fixtures to the theatre, hitched them to the grid and ran them off the resident Flying Pig Road Hog desk (also supplied by Lightco).
"We made our own personality files and stored them in the Road Hog," says Schottert. "The technical team at the Zuidplein were particularly impressed by the advanced optical path, the CMY colour mixing, excellent zoom and general light output of the XL1200. Also they were very happy with the excellent CTO mix - you can mix with 50% CTO on the XL1200 and it produces a nice equally-balanced beam."
(Jim Evans)
