Elation Gives Star Performance At Alabama Theater
MYRTLE BEACH, SC -- One of the Southeasts premier entertainment venues, the Alabama Theater was established in 1993 by country music stars Alabama in Myrtle Beach, SC, where the group had played at a small club before rising to national fame. Voted the citys #1 Live Theater Attraction, the theater hosts a nightly award-winning musical stage show, as well as a regular schedule of special guest concerts by Alabama and other top artists, produced by Gaylord Entertainment.
To keep its production design on the cutting edge, the Alabama Theaters in-house lighting system is evaluated on an annual basis and upgrades are made based on available capital. This year, one of the main goals of lighting designer Han Henze (Keylight LLC, Nashville TN, www.keylight.info ) was to replace the outmoded color scrollers used on the theaters stage with more advanced moving head wash fixtures.
“From a design standpoint, color scrollers can be somewhat limiting and ineffective,” said Henze. “My plan was to upgrade to automated moving head color washes, while keeping the cost within the theaters budget.”
Henze was able to meet this goal with Elation Professionals Design Wash 250, a 250-watt discharge intelligent moving head. He had used Elation Design Series moving heads on other jobs in the past and was impressed with their affordable price points. Nineteen Design Wash 250s, purchased from The Mitchell Group (Nashville, TN), were installed above the Alabama Theaters stage in place of the old scrollers.
“The purchase price on the Elation products was very attractive to the theaters management,” said Henze. “When you look at the cost of a scroller nowadays and add a par can, dimmer, cable and everything else, youve basically paid for one of these Design Wash fixtures. And thats not to mention the feature sets on the units, which offer quite a bit. In other words, with the Elation moving heads, they got so many more features for their money!”
Among the added features on the Design Wash 250 are a CMY color mixing system, motorized zoom with adjustable 18° to 28° beam angle, 630° pan and 265° tilt, frost filter, and 180° beam shaper. Immediately, Henze put the beam shaper to use to give the show a more professional, polished look. “One of the things I wanted to do this year was smooth out the washes so we could get nice, even lighting for the people in the balcony without any hot spots. With the Design Washs beam shaper, I was able to do this.”
Another noteworthy improvement was overall enhanced brightness. Said Henze, “Todd Copeland, the theaters in-house lighting director, immediately noticed the increase in output and color temperature on the stage. Everyone from management and Gaylord Entertainment was quite impressed with the brightness.”
The addition of the Design Washes allowed Henze to eliminate a large number of par cans from the Alabama Theaters lighting system. This, in turn, brought additional benefits, such as a savings on the cost of gel and a reduction in the time spent focusing lights. According to Henze, during his previous re-designs of the theaters lighting system, it had taken five to six hours to focus all the fixtures, whereas this was trimmed to two hours with the new moving heads. “With moving lights, you dont actually have to get up on stage and focus them,” he noted.
Elations Design Series fixtures have “opened a lot of doors” for his business, said Henze, allowing him to bring the cutting-edge look of a moving head light production to smaller and budget-conscious customers like the Alabama Theater. “There are a lot of tours and venues in my region who say they cant afford moving lights, so theyre stuck in that 80s-type look. But Elation products have such an affordable price that they can get the kind of look they want without busting their budget.”
For more information, contact Elation Professional at (866) 245-6726, or visit www.elationlighting.com.
For information about Keylight, LLC, visit www.keylight.info