On Friday, June 29, team CHAUVET took a break from lingering around LEDs to enjoy a good old fashioned summer barbecue. Our team gathered at CHAUVET Headquarters to enjoy some delicious food, warm weather and great company. Check out some photos below.
Tropical Isle Original, located on Bourbon Street and “Home of the Hand Grenade, New Orleans Most Powerful Drink”, uses over 30 CHAUVET fixtures throughout the club/restaurant. Over each door as well as downlighting the tiki statues behind the stage (13 total) are ILUMINARC Ilumipod Logic Tri-4 wash lights, over the bar and behind the bamboo palapa are 12 ILUMINARC Ilumiline Logic 12 linear wash lights. Supplying power to the ILUMINARC fixtures are four ILUMINARC Logic 1×36 and one ILUMINARC Logic 4×36 power supplies.
Elsewhere, four CHAUVET Professional COLORdash Batten linear wash lights add color to the stage performances, three CHAUVET DJ COLORstrip Mini provide additional wall washes, while three CHAUVET DJ Scorpion Storm RGX lasers add to the club’s atmosphere.
All the fixtures were supplied by Griffith Sales and the lighting designed and installed by Rain Jaudon of Magnolia Music Center – AVIS Division (Audio Video Installation and Service).
Six questions with Roland J. Sosa, lighting designer and owner of Advanced Technology Solutions in Ocala, Fla.
1. How did you get into this field?
I got into lighting as a hobby. A friend of mine owns a nightclub needed help getting the lighting system up and running after years of being held together by “Band-Aids.” It just took off after that and lighting quickly became my passion.
2. What do you think is the next big thing in the lighting industry?
I still think LED lighting is the next big thing. There are still so many different types of LEDs and LED fixtures to be produced and used.
3. Do you have a favorite fixture?
The Q-Spot 560-LED moving head is by far my favorite fixture. It has unbelievably fast movement, a clean and sharp beam and a bright LED light source. With a small army of these fixtures, you can make one hell of a light show.
4. What has been your favorite design/project?
My favorite design so far is Platforms, an 8,000-square-foot dance club located in the Ocala Entertainment Complex. There are 70 CHAUVET fixtures installed in that venue. [To read the complete installation story, please click here]
5. What was the biggest unforeseen obstacle that you’ve faced in one of your designs, and how did you overcome it?
For the most part, my projects have always run relatively smooth. The biggest obstacle I have encountered involved hanging the truss in Platforms. The ceiling wasn’t strong enough to hold the trussing system so it had to be reinforced to withstand the weight.
6. Complete this thought: A show without lights is like…
A show without lights is like an amusement park without rides —no fun!
Twenty-four MVP 18 video panels from CHAUVET Professional lit up the IndieFest event at Chapman University in California. Kris Plourde, president of N-Effect Productions event and rental company, placed created a mosaic effect of individual panels placed on vertical truss. “I needed to create backdrop to separate the library from the band, and this worked out well,” Plourde said. “I like the MVP 18 video panels because i can mount them easily and are very light.” Enjoy photos from the event:
Our dealer from Los Angeles, Kinetic Lighting, recently showcased various CHAUVET Professional lights during a demo. Here are some cool pictures of our lights in action:
This wall has an artsy look under the light from COLORado 1-Tri Tour wash fixtures.
Legend 412 pixel-mapping moving yokes.
COLORado Batten 72 Tour linear wash lights.
The same amazing COLORado Batten 72 Tour lights in green.
COLORado 1-Tri Tour organized and at work.
Legend 412: different angle, the same performant fixture.
Competitive COLORado Batten 72 Tour.
COLORado Batten 72 Tour in blue.
CHAUVET Professional went on the road to interview Louie Uribe, lighting designer for The Clevelander, inside Marlins Park in Miami, Fla., where nine CHAUVET Professional Q-Spot 260-LED moving yokes can be found.
CHAUVET hosted Richard Cadena, from the Academy of Production Technology, for a three-day seminar about “Lighting Design and Applications” at its Florida headquarters. Here are some photos of Cadena, sharing his knowledge and passion for lighting with CHAUVET team members.
Three-point lighting demonstration.
Cadena explaining one way light is measured.
Cadena talking group through measuring lux/footcandles.
In-class, hands-on light lab.
Light meter testing.
Also check out our three-part interview of Cadena talking with our own Ford Sellers.
LD Interview: Take 5 with Richard Cadena, pt. 1
LD Interview: Take 5 with Richard Cadena, pt. 2
LD Interview: Take 5 with Richard Cadena, pt. 3
Maybe it was the impressive 30-feet height, or the colorful light and music show that ran every half an hour, or the 300 fixtures lighting in harmony the 20-by-40-feet space. Or, might have been all of the above that drew hundreds of visitors to our booth at this year’s InfoComm show in Las Vegas.
“I think it was the best booth we have ever done overall, as far as design and execution,” said Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET Professional. “It was well planned and everything came together smoothly.”
We launched the new line of trussing called TRUSST and we announced new fixtures, like PVP S7 high-definition video panels, VID 100 video drape, Q-Spot 360-LED and Q-Spot 460-LED moving yokes, COLORado 1-Quad IP wash light and WELL 2.0 wireless wash light. Our ILUMINARC brand of fixtures suited for the architainment industry saw the addition of two new luminaires, the Ilumipanel 40 IP and Ilumipod 18g2 IP.
The booth was built around a large video wall, made of 142 video panels of various resolutions. A walkway of 38 Legend 412 and Legend 412 VW pixel-mapping moving yokes visually guided visitors to a tall wall made of 66 MVP 18 and 28 MVP 12 video panels, and 48 PVP S7 high-definition video panels. The panels, ÉPIX Bar batten-style pixel-mapping fixtures and VID 100 video drape ran with ArKaos MediaMaster Express software.
ÉPIX Bar lights placed vertically formed a luminous crown on the semi-circular truss, also loaded with Q-Spot 560-LED and Q-Wash 560Z-LED fixtures. Framing each video section were COLORado Zoom Tour lights, COLORado 2 Zoom Tour and COLORado 1-Quad Tour wash fixtures. Twenty-three COLORdash Accent VW discreetly lit the display pieces of truss from the TRUSST line.
Lighting Designer Alex Ares programmed the entire rig with a grandMA console and used about 180 cues. “I think it was one of the best looking booths at the show,” Ares said. “And it worked as a perfect example of what you can use in small tours.” Ares has been the lighting designer for the TV show “Duets” on ABC, the Country Music Awards (CMA), CMA Music Festival and more.
The video content for the seven-and-a-half main show was created in-house, by CHAUVET Video Production Specialist Todd Murray. “We wanted the show to be raw and edgy, and to give the viewer different looks during each segment of the video,” Murray said. “The music was carefully selected to match every segment, and aimed for a concert-like experience, more than a technology-based booth at a trade show.”
Enjoy the video loop and light show which ran in the CHAUVET Professional booth:
Max Morgan is the technical manager at Chauvet and has been with the company for almost three years. Read and get to know a little bit about him.
1. Where are you from?
Spanish Town, Jamaica
2. Why Chauvet?
I didn’t know very much about Chauvet prior to working here. One of my friends working for the company informed me of an open position so I applied and the rest is history.
3. Where did you work prior to joining Chauvet team?
I was a technician for Martin Professional.
4. Favorite food?
My all-time favorite food is fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp.
5. Favorite type of music?
I have two — I love listening to Classical and Reggae music.
6. Favorite thing to do outside of work?
I enjoy going out to dinner. My favorite restaurant is Joe’s Stone Crab.
7. What is one thing about you that people would be surprised to learn?
I’m a tailor. I enjoy sewing and can make clothes, hem just about anything, you name it.
8. A show without lights is like…
A show without lights is like a dark world. It would be a disaster.
Mike Graham, comfortable in the spotlight.
Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET Professional
By now, you know what kind of show you are doing and what it is going to look like. The plot is finished up and all of your gear is in pretty rows of road cases on your show site.
Now what?
Here are a few things you need to know before you start loading in:
1. What kind of rigging kits are you using?
For example, the MVP modular video panels CHAUVET Professional offers use an individual rig kit. That is to say that every point of the panels attaches individually to a clamp and conversely attaches to the hang point of your structure. Another style also used is the rigging bar. Commonly used in higher resolution panels, this system helps keep the panels aligned. On some rig bars, there are no clamps. Instead, eyebolts used as rigging points for cable hold the rig bar to your structure. Knowing this before you get to the show is really important.
2. What kind of structure are you planning to attach your panels? Are you using truss?
If you are planning to use straight truss, you may want to think about getting some schedule 40 pipe and attaching it to the truss as opposed to hanging your panels directly to the truss. This trick is useful because no matter how well you plan it out, there will always be a cross bar in the way of one or more of the rigging kits. Using the pipe will make that problem go away and you will be able to put your panels exactly where they need to be. As we all know, panel placement is critical to the alignment of the show. If you are using curved truss, you may want to think about using aircraft cable and turnbuckles to trim out your panels. Again, placement is important and as sure as you are reading this, there will be a crossbar in your way.
3. How do you plan to run power?
Power for video panels is easy to overlook, and hard to fix if you do. I like to plan exact positions for my power drops in my rig. I also take the step of knowing which circuit powers what device. For example, SOCO 1, Circuit 3 is going to power my stage left stack of 16 MVP 18 panels, which means that Circuit 3 needs to have a powerCON female (blue) connector on it. I can further break that down and use a PowerStream 4 to break that run up a little more. This will also keep my cables cleaner and keep my runs of power much shorter. (I prefer to have my power runs as short as possible.) If you are using a large system, you may have several circuits of power running your system. If that is the case, I strongly suggest running your power from one direction only (left to right, or right to left, as the case may be) so that you can keep your runs clean and simplified. Again, this is where the PowerStream 4 comes in really handy.
4. How about signal?
If you mess up your signal run, you are in for a real bad day. LED Studio—and as far as I am aware, almost every other video panel addressing software—uses the order of signal cabling to locate the position of each panel in your system. It is critical that when you are laying out the signal flow, you follow it exactly. Otherwise correcting this within the software can take hours. You want to have this clear in your preplanning stages.
Now you are loading in. The key here is to know your plan and go by it. As long as you do that, you should be fine. There are always bumps along the way, but all in all, should not be that bad. As you put rows of panels in, it is a good idea to power each line and make sure that all of your pixels are working. Use the test button on the back of the panel to turn the panel to white (all LEDs on). This will confirm that you are good to go for LEDs. Once you have that, I would also suggest that every few rows, you send signal and make sure you are getting information from your server to the panels. Send some content to make sure you have your show. The rest of load in is set and repeat.
Most importantly, be safe in what you are doing. Always keep in mind that you are hanging hundreds of pounds of aluminum, wire, and LEDs in the air above people’s heads. Also, keep in mind that in an outdoor environment, the wind sees a video wall like a big sail. Watch what you are doing. Keep an eye on the weather. Always make sure that your top and side rigging points are secure and no one has left any tools on the panels as they go up in the air.