Fuze Max Profile delivers high-quality white light, rich color, quiet operation and greater versatility for one of California’s most treasured performance venues
The Lobero Theatre has been a cornerstone of Santa Barbara’s performing arts community for more than 150 years. Now, this historic California venue is bringing new versatility and high-quality light to its intimate stage with an installation of Elation Fuze Max Profile fixtures, supporting everything from opera and ballet to concerts and touring productions.
Built in 1873 as an opera house by Italian immigrant José Lobero, the 604-seat Lobero Theatre is California’s oldest continually operating theater and the fourth oldest in the United States. Recognized for its distinctive architecture and historic interior, and a favorite stop for performances between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Architectural Digest named the Lobero one of the world’s most beautiful theaters.
For Lighting Director Brad Spaulding, who has been with the Lobero since 2019 and lights many of the productions that come through the venue, working in such a historic setting is a privilege.
“It’s such an honor to work at a place like this. The people that have performed there over the years, and everyone from the admin staff and all the stagehands I work with, it’s such a great team to be a part of,” said Spaulding, noting that other Local 442 stagehands in town always take a call to work at the Lobero when they can.
Bringing the Lighting System into the 21st Century
The Lobero presents a diverse schedule that includes local and national music acts, dance and ballet, and three full-scale opera productions each year by Opera Santa Barbara. Before the upgrade, the theater relied primarily on tungsten ellipsoidals and PAR fixtures.
When Spaulding joined the theater, he brought moving heads to demonstrate what modern automated lighting could do. Over time, he convinced the theater’s technical director, Todd Jared, and the executive board that it was time to modernize the lighting system, and he was eventually given a lighting budget to specify new equipment. He conducted demonstrations and shootouts involving fixtures from several major manufacturers before settling on the Fuze Max Profile.
“I needed to find something that was bright enough, but also light enough,” Spaulding said, explaining that the theater’s existing rigging presented a particular challenge. “We use standard theatrical counterweight rigging, which limits the amount of weight we can place on the arbors. The Fuze Max were definitely bright enough, but they were also in the weight range I needed.”
One Fixture, Many Applications
The Lobero installed 20 Fuze Max Profiles, with four additional fixtures kept as spares. The fixtures are distributed across the venue’s electrics, providing a flexible lighting foundation for productions with very different requirements.
“We needed a very versatile rig,” Spaulding explained. “We can be loading out an opera today that has been playing for the last two weeks, and then tomorrow we have a touring concert act that's just there for one day. So it needs to adapt from one to the other.” The fixture’s framing system is particularly valuable for the venue’s extensive theatrical work, while also allowing Spaulding to create effect looks for concerts.
High-Quality Light
Color quality was a major consideration, particularly for opera, ballet and other productions where the appearance of costumes, scenery and skin tones is critical. “With the five-color system, it really fills in the spectrum and does a really nice job of making everything look as it should,” Spaulding commented.
The Fuze Max Profile uses Elation’s FullSpectrum multicolor LED platform and an RGBMA LED engine designed to deliver a broad spectrum of whites, skin tones, pastels and saturated colors. With a CRI of 92 and a CCT range of 2400K to 8500K, the fixture gives the Lobero the flexibility to produce nuanced white light and a wide range of colors.
For Spaulding, the fixture’s native color quality is particularly valuable because it maintains high fidelity without sacrificing the output needed for the venue. “I needed really good color rendering for theater and the Fuze Max Profiles definitely have that,” he said. “A lot of the newer fixtures out there with a white light chip have a filter to bring up the CRI, but then you lose intensity. But these have a natively high CRI and they are 21,000 lumens.”
The fixture's additive RGBMA color-mixing system can cover a broad range of looks, and is particularly advantageous when the venue needs rich, saturated color. “The other thing that’s been great about these is because they have an additive color mixing system, you can go into a deep color,” Spaulding said. “You’d lose some output if you were using a CMY system, but with these, it stays a really bright, vivid color. That allows us to cover everything from tinted theatrical white light, down to super saturated colors and everything in between.”
One Fixture Type
The Fuze Max Profiles’ combination of framing, gobo, and color capabilities has reduced the need to supplement the rig with multiple fixture types, allowing the team to achieve a wider range of theatrical looks with a more streamlined setup.
“For theatrical work, we used to hang quite a few additional fixtures for gobos and texturing effects, if I needed a warm color and a cool color and maybe a neutral color, there’s three fixture systems right there we’d need to cover the stage,” Spaulding said. “So now we can do all that from one fixture type.”
Quiet When It Matters, Powerful When It Counts
Noise was another important consideration at the Lobero, where opera, theater and acoustic performances demand a quiet environment.
“I needed quiet fixtures for opera and theater. We do some orchestra and unamplified acoustic performances too, and we don't want to hear all the fans and motors running,” Spaulding said.
The Fuze Max Profiles’ quiet operation helps preserve the venue’s intimate atmosphere without compromising lighting capability.
The Fuze Max Profiles also provide ample output from the theater’s 24-foot trim height. In many applications, Spaulding uses only a fraction of the fixtures’ available output.
“I find that I’m sometimes running them at only 10%, depending on the show, so they're more than bright enough,” he said. For ballet performances, he often runs the fixtures at 8–10% output to approximate the look of a traditional Source Four special, increases output to 30–40% for moody concert looks, and uses full output when needed.
A Rig That Touring Designers Notice
The new system has also changed the experience for visiting lighting designers. With a steady stream of touring artists and productions passing through the Lobero, Spaulding says the response to the new rig has been consistently positive.
“Now when LDs and others see our lighting rig they go, ‘This is great. This is perfect,’” he said. Visiting designers have included Tom Kenny with Roger Daltrey, along with other high-profile touring productions and artists.
That reaction is also translating into a practical benefit for touring productions. With a capable house rig already in place, visiting productions can carry less lighting equipment.
“It was a big jump for the venue, but I think it’s helping us attract more shows. Touring productions see our venue specs now and realize, ‘We don’t need to bring half the gear in the truck—the venue already has a great lighting rig in place.’”
Barbizon supplied the Fuze Max Profiles, with David Smith serving as the account representative. The Lobero team completed the installation in-house and also integrated Obsidian Netron EP2 units for data distribution.
For a venue with a history stretching back to the 19th century, the new lighting system meets the demands of today’s diverse performances while preserving the historic character that makes the Lobero a California treasure.
Photos courtesy of Lobero Theatre
About Elation
At Elation, we collaborate with leading professionals in the lighting industry to help bring extraordinary experiences to life. As a designer and manufacturer of a wide range of high-performance entertainment lighting products, we’re proud to be a trusted partner to top lighting professionals and production/rental houses around the world. Our commitment to quality, innovation, and creative solutions has made us a go-to resource in the industry. We also offer an advanced line of lighting control products through Obsidian Control Systems, and a full range of dependable specialty effects called Magmatic. Elation serves clients worldwide through offices in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Canada, and the Netherlands. We invite you to take a closer look at elationlighting.com
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