St Andrew’s Primary School felt it was time to modernise their theatrical lighting system, so they called in Clarity to advise. A totally new LED colour changing theatrical lighting system was suggested with easy to use controls and the flexibility to expand in the future.
There are many advantages of LED over older halogen systems, but the major advantage is that most LED lanterns can be changed remotely to any colour beam. In addition, LED operates at lower temperatures, is far cheaper to run as it has low power consumption, and the LEDs will last an average of at least 20,000 hours whereas conventional lamps last on average of 300 to 500 hours.
Clarity installed two internally wired six-metre long lighting bars at high level from the roof beams. These can support a considerable number of fixtures but as a starting point three Par lanterns for each bar were recommended. High brightness LED Pars can be supplied in various formats, but for the school’s needs Clarity recommended starting with an RGB version; this includes red, blue and green LEDs. Pars can be used not only for a stage but also to flood the walls, ceiling and floor with an almost infinite array of colour for a truly tremendous effect.
To keep the operation of the lighting simple, a six-button wall-mounted panel (pictured above) was installed that allows anyone to operate the lights simply by pushing the buttons to select any of numerous pre-programmed lighting scenes. This is ideal for simple day to day use, including assemblies as well as annual school productions. With this wall panel installed the lighting system can also be operated wirelessly with an iPad, and the iPad screen layout was customized to the requirements of the school.
