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Los Angeles, June 6,
2008
Known as America’s National Park for the Performing Arts,
Vienna,
Virginia-based Wolf Trap has installed two full-size grandMAs in its
Filene Center. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of the
grandMA in North America.
Wolf Trap’s typical season includes performances ranging from
pop, country, folk and blues to orchestra, dance, theater and opera as
well as performance art and multimedia presentations. Its larger venue
Filene Center is a 7000-seat indoor/outdoor theater.
“We had other desks and needed an upgrade so we acquired
three
grandMAs, one of them a replay unit, and four NSPs as our house
lighting control system,” reports Wolf Trap’s head
electrician Henry Parks. “Performances here start at the end
of
May, and we do approximately 100 different shows ’til
mid-September. Basically, we have a large conventional rig with lots of
Color Faders and SeaChangers; we have around 1,500 conventional
fixtures and about 40 multi-attribute accessories. Moving lights are
rented on a per-show basis.”
According to Parks, “one of the reasons we chose the grandMA
was
that it had feature sets that other manufacturers hadn’t
implemented. Not having features such as remote DMX capabilities would
have had a major impact on our work. The grandMA’s quick
adaptability to our show needs was also a big selling point as was the
fact that many guest artists’ lighting designers were already
very familiar with it.”
A further selling point for the grandMA was that it enables users to
“easily combine control of all lights -- our rig and any
additional lights requested by the guest artists,” says
Parks.
“Sometimes we’ll bring in from 12-30 moving lights
for
performers. With the grandMA we have the ability to merge these lights
into our system and take over already-channeled devices; sometimes we
don’t even need to go in and patch additional channels.
Lighting
designers can also bring in their own desks, and we can easily give
them control of our units through our desk. I can program on my desk
and then offer it to them as a unit, or they can run on our
board.”
At press time Parks had completed a temporary network link between one
desk on stage and the four NSP units in the dimmer room. “We
have
ShowNet to Pathway nodes talking to our dimmers controlled through our
WiFi system remotes. Every thing came up without any
problems,”
he reports. He will finish the lighting control update before the Wolf
Trap season commences and plans to link up the audio
department’s
new Digico SD7 mixer through the network system.
“So far, everything is working as expected. The consoles came
right online, and they’re running fine,” says
Parks.
“I’m very happy with the grandMA, and my staff is
very
impressed with it.”
“Wolf Trap is such prestigious venue, and is known for its
high
standards of excellence, that anyone would be proud to be actively
involved. We are no exception. When you couple this with the
opportunity to work with Henry Parks, you have an unbeatable
combination. For many years, manufacturers have beat a path to
Henry’s door for advice and we were thrilled when he chose
grandMA for its unique capabilities,” comments A.C.T Lighting
President and CEO Bob Gordon.
Wolf Trap is a public/private partnership between the Wolf Trap
Foundation for the Performing Arts and the US Department of the
Interior, National Park Service.
MA Lighting is
exclusively distributed by A.C.T Lighting.
A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T
Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge
products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company
provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its
clients.
For more information call 818-707-0884.
Copyright © ACT Lighting 2009. All rights reserved.
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