The course, hosted by Spotrental, the largest stockist of Strong products in Europe and one of the manufacturer's official European distributors, was attended by participants from the UK, Holland and Greece, as well as US-based experts from Strong itself.
The course is the latest in a developing programme of training that will be extended to cover Australasia, The Caribbean, Central and South America and South Africa in the next 18 months."We started the scheme in 2005 when we realised that no-one was providing this training," says Jack Gallagher, product manager, Theatrical Lighting, at Strong Entertainment Lighting "When we expanded the distribution process at PLASA this year the demand for training was still high and Spotrental were kind enough to offer us their premises to hold the course in Europe."
According to Patrick Jordan, managing director of Spotrental: "Not only does the course mean that new followspot sales can be commissioned by qualified technicians, but it provides opportunities to resolve warranty and other end-user service issues."
Feedback from the trainees themselves has been highly positive. Greek lighting specialist Dimitrios Kapetanelis, electronics engineer with Athens-based Lights International, said: "It was very good training. I needed to know about follow spot technology to improve our servicing capacity and assist our sales drive. I could not have learnt about this technology in any better way."
Jack Gallagher said: "This course was our most successful to date. There are always issues that are not self-evident or not clear from reading the manual. We now have a number of technical engineers throughout Europe capable of taking care of their own equipment and helping each other out."
(Lee Baldock)
