Spectrum hosts virtual dance festivals
- Details
Established for over 15 years, Spectrum AV is a full-service lighting, video, audio and effects rental and production company based in the village of Udenhout, which is located between Tilburg and ‘s-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands. Although the company supplies a wide range of clients spanning across the entertainment and business worlds, it has developed a particular niche in the EDM festival market.
With a business model designed to make life as easy as possible for event organisers, the Spectrum AV team take care of all the technical requirements of many large-scale festivals and dance parties each year. This means that - like many other productions companies across the world - they were hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are only five miles away from where the first case of coronavirus occurred in The Netherlands,” explains Spectrum AV’s general manager, Lex Willems. “Within a week, every event with above 1000 guests was cancelled in our region and soon after even smaller gatherings were also banned, so we directly saw all of our markets collapse. Fortunately, one of our former employees is now working in the solar panel business and his company was really short of workers, so most of our staff temporarily moved to work there. We are really grateful for this, but our team are missing doing what they love in the entertainment business.”
Spectrum AV’s new live-streaming studio has provided a solution to this problem, allowing different members of their team to come back and get involved with the various shows.
“We have been using ADJ equipment since 2014, when we first invested in the Inno Color Beam LED”, comments CEO Jan van Bree. “We now have more than 50 of them and are still unbelievably happy with that fixture. From there we purchased Vizi Hybrid 16RX units, before making a significant investment last year that included 100 7P HEX IPs and 48 Vizi Beam RXONEs. Now most of our lighting rental equipment is ADJ. We’ve found ADJ products to always be consistent, while the spare parts are both affordable and readily available, which is very important to us.”
For their warehouse studio setup, the Spectrum AV team deployed 12 of their Vizi Hybrid 16RXs. Four are mounted above the DJ, with four more hanging at either side, positioned at two different heights on drop pipes. These are used to create aerial effects that surround the DJ position, as well as for GOBO projections onto the floor of the space and the black draped walls.
“The Vizi Hybrid 16RX is not a new fixture, we’ve had it in stock since 2016, but it can still compete with the newest models on the market,” enthuses Lex. “So not only does it have all the functionality we need, but it represents a great return on investment, as it can still generate revenue four years later. The innovation cycle has not overtaken the product, which is extremely important for us.”
The mid-air effects generated by the Vizi Hybrid 16RXs in the studio setup are augmented by additional beams created by a total of 16 Vizi Beam RXONE fixtures.
To complement the beam effects, the Spectrum AV team have also utilized two of ADJ’s static wash fixture models for their studio setup. Eight 7P HEX IP units are positioned around the outside of the central circular banner frame.
To illuminate the DJs and other performers so that they can be seen clearly on live streams, a number of ADJ’s Encore Series Fresnel fixtures have been positioned throughout the studio space.
