DENVER – Brown Note Productions, Inc. purchased four Robert Juliat Merlin 2.5K HMI touring followspots and quickly put them to work for Dead and Company at CU Boulder and Pearl Jam headlining The RIDE Festival in Telluride, CO.
More details from Robert Juliat distributor A.C.T Lighting (www.actlighting.com):
Brown Note Productions added the Merlins to its rental inventory for touring and festival clients. “They are the first Robert Juliat fixtures in our inventory,” notes president Ryan Knutson. “We have a long-standing relationship with A.C.T Lighting, so when they brought the Merlins to us we took notice.”
Robert Juliat Merlins are powerful, rugged followspots targeted to the touring market. They have stainless steel housings with strong aluminum frames and a rock-solid design. . A.C.T. Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Robert Juliat fixtures in North America.
Knutson was impressed by the fixtures’ feature set, ease of control and optics, which are “great advantages to its design.” He was also attracted by the Merlins’ touring packaging and road-readiness. “These attributes are crucial for a touring and festival production company like Brown Note Productions,” he explains. “The lightweight unit makes them easy to set up and handle. The Merlins are also incredibly easy to train, which cuts down on the time it usually takes to train local spotlight operators.”
Brown Note Productions purchased the Merlins for The RIDE Festival, but when the company was notified that Dead and Company wanted to bring them in for spotlights, the delivery date was moved up. “A.C.T was crucial in meeting our updated deadline,” says Knutson.
Dead and Company, featuring original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, drew sell-out crowds to two stadium concerts at Folsom Field on the CU Boulder campus. Brown Note Productions was brought in by AEG as the rental vendor for spotlights, the audio delay system and a replacement video screen for the second night. The company provided two Merlins and a spare for the show. The Merlins were positioned above FOH and used as the primary followspots lighting the band.
The 5th Annual RIDE Festival, in Telluride’s Town Park, was headlined by Pearl Jam the first of its two nights and by Cage The Elephant the second night. As The RIDE Festival’s lighting vendor, Brown Note Productions supplied lighting based on the design and specifications of Pearl Jam’s lighting designer, Kille Knobel. Brown Note Productions used all four Merlins to fill the followspot spec for Pearl Jam and Cage The Elephant. They were positioned above FOH and used to light the headliners.
Knutson reports that “the Merlins have lived up to our expectations and have been very well received by our operators as well as our clients.”
