SAN MARCOS, TX – Before the Texas Music Theater opened in March to offer live performances from national acts in musical genres ranging from Americana, Texas country, rock, indie rock, blues, Tejano-Salsa-Latin and more, the venue was a nightclub, and, before that, a movie house. Committed to provide a positive experience for both performers and audiences, the renovated space has been equipped with the latest sound and lighting gear, including Elektralite lighting fixtures.
Co-owner Gray Gregson started working with LD Alex Soto nearly three years ago. Although Soto had been unfamiliar with the Elektralite product line initially, he acted on the recommendations of others and chose six Elektralite LXE700 spots and four LXE700W wash luminaries.
"When Gray contacted me through a mutual friend to come down and take a look at the space, it was pretty weak," Soto recalled. "There was a mess of very old truss and rigging that wasn't very accessible and, basically, falling apart.
"The idea was to gut the building completely inside and use the natural large space of the theater to create a great venue that was top-notch. His primary goal was to make it as straightforward and accommodating to a production crew with lighting trusses that were easily accessible and that offered flexible functionality."
The Elektralite fixtures fit the budget at hand, and also served as a flexible and customizable system. "We're using the LXE700 profiles upstage for the moving light package, and the LXE700 washes are downstage for general stage washes, audience blinders and general movement-controlled by a Barco Road Hog console," Soto noted.
"There are no other venues near here like this," Soto added. "A lot of these music clubs are just a bar with a stage. They weren't designed from the ground up with the production in mind as first consideration – from the loading ramps to the way they designed monitor world and FOH. And it's really obvious when production people walk on that stage for the first time. Every act that comes through here now is blown away. They really did it right."
