KARRINYUP, Western Australia – The Lady Wardle Performing Arts Centre, a 509 seat auditorium at the St. Mary's Anglican Girls School, graduated to a new quality of light with recent gear from ETC Selador and Vari-Lite. Peter Rubie, head lighting operator for the venue, credited the purchase of eight Selador Vivid 22" and eight Vari*Lite VL500 80V fixtures for making a big difference in the visual capabilities of the venue, which hosts plays, concerts, debates, dance productions, assemblies and lectures and other school events.
The Selador Series high power Vivid LED fixture is designed for stage and studio lighting and is particularly well-suited where strong color and high intensity are required, and the fixtures are also touted of their ability to match warm, tungsten white light, daylight white and soft, tinted gel colors.
"They have made an excellent side light replacing what was once a very patchy PAR-can wash in basic colors," said Rubie. "I love the 7-LED color mixing," he added. "It gives me the ability to accurately match any gel color instead of just the party colors you get from so many LED wash lights on the market.
"As we have such a fast turnaround of shows and a wide variety of styles of dance and theatre, we needed something that would give us lots of flexibility," Rubie continued. "I never thought I'd be using LED for my sidelight of all things, but the excellent fade curve and accurate colors means I can use it in light pastels that look great on the performers and then switch to more saturate colors for the bolder looks."
The VL500 80V is a 1200W automated incandescent wash light intended to be a workhorse wash product.
"Replacing a row of static NSP PAR cans with the VL500s has really helped bring some much needed color and movement into the lighting looks," said Rubie. "The 80Vs are also extremely bright cutting over the majority of the rig in fact we often have to turn them down so as not to overpower everything else," he added. "They're great for that vivid ‘rock n roll' feel as well as being useful as a soft backlight when used with the frost filter."
Rubie also noted that "the units have performed flawlessly since purchase."
For more information, please visit www.etcconnect.com, www.vari-lite.com and www.jands.com.au.
