Signify, the world leader in lighting, today announced that Collin College, in Plano, Texas, has chosen a broad range of Vari-Lite and Showline fixtures as part of a major stage lighting upgrade to its main performance venue, the John Anthony Theatre.
This advanced technology will be used to provide high quality illumination for all productions by on-campus arts groups at the busy 350-seat auditorium. Among the new LED fixtures are SL LEDSPOT 300 moving heads and SL PAR 155 Zoom fixtures, providing spot and wash lighting duties respectively. Also included are the SL BAR 640 cyclorama lights and SL PUNCHLITE 220 fixtures, chosen to provide modern, energy-saving replacements for outdated equipment. “The upgrade to the SL 640 strips has dramatically improved our ability to illuminate the cyclorama for every event that runs through our venue,” says Hull.
The theater’s event program includes plays, dance and musical performances, as well as a variety of special events such as regional festivals, graduation ceremonies, guest lectures and visits from State Senators. With such a variety of performance type, and the demands of the lighting rig fluctuating from one day to the next, speed of setup is a major consideration. For this reason, when it came to choosing the high-output, non-LED moving heads in the lighting rig, familiarity with the theater’s existing VL770 Spot fixtures made the choice of the new VL4000 Spot an easy one.
“We wanted a mix of high output fixtures to complement our VL770 Spots, and the VL4000 did not let us down,” says Hull. “We appreciate the ease of setup and flexibility of the lights. They are very bright and really easy to program. Students can easily navigate from one fixture to the next, saving valuable setup time. When a fixture can be set up and moved by a student quickly, that is a huge selling point for us.”
Colin Kavanagh, General Manager of Signify said, “At Signify our focus is on making products that meet real, everyday needs of our customers. This versatile venue is yet another application in which our innovative, high-quality, low energy lighting technology is fulfilling a variety of requirements for lighting professionals.”