Chroma-Q Inspire House Lights Silently Thrill at Opera North

UK – England’s national opera company, Opera North, has upgraded the lighting system in its Howard Assembly Room performance space within Leeds’ Grand Theatre, by installing the award-winning Chroma-Q Inspire Mini premium performance RGBW LED house light.

Opera North is one of Europe’s leading arts organisations. Committed to producing work of the highest quality, it is a vibrant, lively company which actively challenges conventional perceptions of opera. Breathing new life into the classics, Opera North is also a strong advocate of lesser-known works and a champion of musical theatre.

In 2016, the venue took action to replace its ageing LED PAR house lights – looking for a totally silent solution with a wide beam angle and a rich colour palette that would bring out the warmth in the wood decor, which is abundant in the Howard Assembly Room.

Opera North had investigated a number of fixtures from different suppliers, but they knew Manchester-based Massive Technical Solutions (MTS) well from previous projects, so asked for the company’s opinion. MTS specified the Chroma-Q® Inspire Mini fixtureTM and then approached UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd., to demonstrate and supply it.

“Demonstrating the Inspire range is a joy – they are a premium product and as soon as you show what they can do, in our experience the client is impressed”, explains AC-ET’s Technical Sales Executive, Benjamin Taylor.

“I demonstrated the Inspire Mini’s incredible dimming ability by doing a completely smooth and step-free 20 second fade from 10% to 0%. This really exhibits what it can do, and showed Opera North the impressive creative possibilities and quality of the units”, he continues.

Jamie Saye is Senior Technician at Opera North: “One of the problems with our old LED PARs was that they had such a narrow beam angle that we ended up with strips of light directly underneath them, and little to no coverage in between the lighting bars.”

“We trialled multiple different solutions from a variety of different brands, but as soon as we got the Inspire Mini fixtures in to test, I knew we'd found the right units to meet our needs. They tick all of the boxes with regards to being silent due to using convection cooling; they have an amazing 65 degree beam angle, which is so wide that in the end we opted to get some snoots!; and their ability to emit such a great colour palette, from deep saturated blues to more subtle warm pastel oranges, is second to none.”

“It's amazing that with the Minis we have fewer lights, but achieve nearly twice as much coverage at the same intensity. We now have 15 of these units split across five of our LX bars, and the cover across the entire audience is really quite impressive.”

In addition to the improved efficiency of the latest RGBW LEDs utilised by the Inspire Mini fixtures – and the efficient overall design of the units themselves – another advantage that the Inspire Minis offer over the older LED Pars is their innovative homogenised output. The light beam from them is a single pure colour beam with no shadows or colour separation – perfect for when the audience is reading from a programme.

Both models in the Inspire range utilise the DMX 512-A protocol for control, allowing them to integrate seamlessly with an existing stage lighting infrastructure, and be controlled by any DMX-supported lighting console.

“Whether we use the Inspires for house lighting, to colour match our globe lighting, or in theatrical shows, they’re offering a really great effect,” Jamie concludes. “We couldn’t be happier.”

The Chroma-Q range of premium performance solutions is designed and built to exacting standards in North America, and has been adopted by many leading designers and specifiers for some of today's most demanding and prestigious lighting applications. As a result of this, the brand has received awards from several industry associations.

Other venues investing in the Chroma-Q Inspire house light include the Stavanger Concert Hall's 'Kuppelhallen' performance space in Norway; the Rondo and Tyrol MAMMA MIA! THE PARTY, restaurant show dining experiences in Sweden; the historic Pieterskerk venue and ICER innovation centre in Holland; and various Houses of Worship in North America.

Get your demonstration of Chroma-Q Inspire range and other models at the following upcoming tradeshows:

CITT Rendez-Vous 2016 – Winnipeg, Canada, 18th – 20th August
Booth 1, (Distributor, A.C. Lighting Inc.)

IBC 2016 – RAI Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9th – 13th September
Stand 12.E71, (Dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies)

PLASA 2016 – Olympia, London, England, 18th – 20th September
Stand E30, (Dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies)

WFX 2016 – Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 21st - 22nd September
Booth 701, (Distributor, A.C. Lighting Inc.)

LDI 2016 – Las Vegas, USA, 21st - 23rd October
Booth 2252, (Distributor, A.C. Lighting Inc.)

Alternatively, to arrange a demonstration or for details of the nearest Chroma-Q open house events, contact:

(International Sales Enquiries)
A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0)1494 446000
international.sales@ac-et.com

(North American Sales Enquiries)
A.C. Lighting Inc.
Tel: +1 416 255 9494
northamerica@aclighting.com

Or for more information and to find your nearest reseller, visit www.chroma-q.com.

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Chroma-Q and all associated product names are recognized trademarks, for more information visit www.chroma-q.com/page/trademarks. The rights and ownership of all trademarks are recognized. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information is correct, Chroma-Q accepts no liability for errors or omissions. Technical specifications and data are provided for guidance only. Because we constantly aim to improve our products, we reserve the right to amend or alter at any time and without prior notice, the specifications of any product. E&OE.