New Zealand’s Vibrant Lighting, based in the South Canterbury area, have been providing lighting and entertainment solutions to the area since 2000. They are often asked to quote LED PARs for schools, and had already noticed that there was a significant price gap between Chinese brand LED, and decent quality fixtures, especially if you are looking for a unit with a zoom. Being smart, they had already decided that the cheap end of the market was not worth it.
“We specifically looked for a zoom PAR because we are a small company so we need our stock to be reasonably flexible, and we do work in a variety of spaces, including some quite small venues,” commented Sarah Edwards, Designer/Project Manager at Vibrant Lighting NZ. “There is a big gap in the market regarding beam angles of non-zoom LEDs (nothing between narrow and wide), and most of them have a big disparity between beam angle and & ‘field angle’
Fortunately Sarah had worked in the UK where the company she worked for stocked Martin RUSH PAR 2 RGBW Zoom LED PAR cans. Although a larger company, they operate on a similar business model to Vibrant, and tend to buy good quality kit, and treat it very well. Sarah phoned them to ask if they had encountered any issues with the lights in the two years they had owned them. The answer was ‘no , not at all, very solid’.
“So they were a bit of a known quantity, which was a big plus point,” added Sarah. “We demo-ed one from Show Technology. Both Tristan King and I thought the unit was a little on the heavy side, but very well built, which lends itself to longevity as hire stock. I was impressed with the lack of hotspot, and the fairly sharp beam edge. I also think they look fine mixed in with tungsten units, and do a passable tungsten themselves. The low end of the dimmer curve is not too bad for a LED, although not as good as a MAC Aura, or the Clay Paky B-Eye K10s we have in our hire stock.”
Sarah looked at similar units from other manufacturers.
“But the beam is not very even, and from a lighting design perspective, I am really not a fan of the hotspot/beam angle vs field angle,” she said. “I’d much rather use a bit of frost to control the beam edge, which brings me to a small down side of the RUSH – it has a gel holder – but no gel frame, just to mess with your head.
“This was a bit of an issue on the first job we used them on – the Grand Final of the Young Farmer of the year in NZ. I had to fabricate some frames to put a bit of frost in, to soften the edges of the beam. But I’d rather have to do that than have a light that sends a soft spill everywhere. We used them to give a colour overlay on the banquet tables, in combination with some gobos, and a tungsten ‘houselight’ wash. Show Technology were very good and provided us with an additional six units to do the job with, which took care of my shortfall, and which I’m very grateful for.”
Sarah states that LED cans need to be work horses as they go out so often. She says that Vibrant’s RUSH PAR 2 have been out repeatedly on almost every hire since they have bought them. “As a designer, they are great to have because they are so flexible,” Sarah remarked. “I have used them for mood lighting, uplighting and stage backlight for camera on corporate gigs, as blinders or front light for band, and they are very useful in theatre designs. As with everything LED the power draw is low, and in small venue with limited power, we can do a whole gig with these.”
The photos are of the Grand Final of the Young Farmer of the Year, three days of events which cumulate in a dinner and an awards ceremony for about a 1000 in a venue in Timaru.
Photos: Brad Reeve.
