EDINBURGH, Scotland – Robert Juliat's new LED profile, the Aledin, was put through its paces by a succession of technicians at the Edinburgh Fringe this year at C venues C aquila in the Roman Eagle Lodge on Johnston Terrace. C venues is one of the largest of the Fringe's venue producers and C aquila is its latest venue. Like many of the Fringe venues, C aquila is a "made" space, so it needed to be operated off very limited power supplies. Two theatre spaces, a box office, catering and bar facilities had to run off only one 63A single phase.
The design team included Nick Read, head of hire and events for Northern Light; Hartley Kemp, artistic director and lighting designer; Sara Rushton-Read, journalist; and Richard Williamson, C venues production manager.
Their design goal was to support the visuals needed for up to 12 productions each day during the three weeks of the festival while meeting the limited energy specs for the venue.
The equipment lists evolved from "shopping trips" to PLASA Focus, Leeds and ABTT London, where the team picked out LED and low-powered tungsten units that combined low power usage with reliability and speed/ease of installation and programming.
"The Robert Juliat Aledin absolutely fitted the bill," said Read, "and is unique in that it is an 85W LED source within a standard profile body."
Two Aledin 11°/26° units were installed on the front-of-house balcony where they were used on every show. Its low wattage means that up to 15 units could be run from a single domestic power outlet.
The daily turnaround of shows gave the venue technicians only 15 minutes between shows to re-focus, re-color and plot. Under these conditions, the user-friendliness as well as the performance of the Aledin were put to the test.
"Aledin has a good flat field, which is unusual for a LED source," said Read. "The coolness of the gate meant we could put our fingers inside the unit to adjust the gobos quickly, and the gobo projection quality was excellent. Color filters can be put inside the unit so it is cut smaller than standard profiles, using less gel, and does not burn out or need replacing. It also has a good dimming curve, so dimming was very nice.
"We felt it was very straight forward and easy to set up so were pleased with both the time saving and the performance it offered. All in all we concluded it was a very interesting unit."
The Aledin LED profile is available in warm or cool white, and also as a retrofit kit from the standard Robert Juliat 600 Series and Quincy profiles.
For more information, please visit www.robertjuliat.com.
