Founded in 1967, the Parker Playhouse is a fixture of the local Fort Lauderdale, FL, arts community, hosting a variety of Broadway shows, plays, concerts, dance, and educational events. Last year, a $30 million renovation and restoration project transformed the building from a historical playhouse into a modern live music venue.

Now known as The Parker, the theater has more than 1,100 seats and began welcoming audiences back this fall with a variety of events. As part of the effort to transform The Parker into a multifaceted venue equipped to serve the needs of modern live productions, The Broward Center for the Performing Arts, which has managed The Parker since 2005, upgraded its loudspeaker and stage lighting systems.

Joshua Delasant, CTS, who served as project leader for contractor Peerson Audio, said the renovation was completed in two phases. Phase 1 included the integration of a new AV system for the back-of-house area and existing lobbies, while Phase 2 included the overhaul of the auditorium AV and the addition of expanded lobby areas.

[Making Magic at the Frankfurt Opera with d&b Soundscape]

Chris Carlton, owner of Carlton Audio Services, developed the d&b loudspeaker system specification to meet venue’s budget while providing excellent coverage. It includes 16 V8s deployed eight deep left and right, a single custom red Vi7P point source loudspeaker at center, seven 8S units for front fill, and three SL-GSUBS subwoofers under the stage in a horizontal array. D80, 30D, and D20 power amplifiers along with DS10 signal conversion and distribution complete the audio package.

The three-way passive V-Series comprises both line array and point source systems for medium to large-scale sound reinforcement applications, with complete efficiency and broadband directivity control to low frequencies. “The choice of the d&b V-Series system was easy for us,” explained Anton Foresta, head engineer for The Parker and director of production – affiliated venues. “The goal was to put a system in place that would meet any rider’s requirement. Nine times out of 10, d&b is on every rider as the first choice, so we wanted to provide the first choice.”

The Stage Equipment & Lighting (SEAL) division of Pro Sound Inc. designed The Parker’s lighting system featuring Martin ERA 800, MAC Aura, and ELP CL lights. The main component of the new lighting setup is the Martin MAC Aura single-lens wash light, with 16 on electric line sets and four on a motorized truss. Featuring a broad RBGY color spectrum and eye-candy Aura effects, the MAC Aura combines multicolor beam LEDs with a backlight LED array to generate deep washes, subtle shades, and more.

“The Auras are our main wash,” explained Robyn Allemand, technical coordinator, The Parker. “We placed them on most of our electric line sets to give an even wash and also because they can zoom in really well. It’s great to have the option to provide movement. We wanted to make sure the line sets were even in rows that fit onstage to allow for a fun look or a general overhead wash look.”

[Soundworks Doubles Up on Martin Audio WPL at Norfolk Jazz Fest]

Eight Martin ERA 800 Performance LED profile fixtures were installed in a V-shape pointing upstage for wide washes, powerful beams, and eclectic patterns. The CMY color mixing and six-slot color wheel provide numerous blending options, while static and rotating gobos, as well as full stage framing blades with +/- 60° rotation, make the ERA adaptable to any production.

The Parker’s lighting system also includes 38 Martin ELP CL LED ellipsoidal profile lights. The ELP is equipped with the gear-driven Fine Focus, which allows for adjusting and locking in the focus instantly, as well as an RGBAL Luxeon Rebel LED engine for a vivid color palette.

“One of the primary goals of the renovations was that concerts hosted by The Parker started getting bigger and requiring higher production values for today’s touring artists,” said Foresta. “When people see that you have Martin fixtures, that's as far as they need to go. Everybody already has the profiles for it. It makes it really easy for touring companies coming through with their own consoles to take over and merge the system to their files.”

Based on the recent decision by Governor Polis to close the Colorado Convention Center this fall, LED Specifier Summit show management today announced that it will move the Denver event, which was originally scheduled to stage October 15, 2020, to the spring of 2021.

LED Specifier Summit is a regional one-day immersion in lighting education and solutions geared toward specifiers of commercial, architectural and decorative LED lighting products. The event helps lighting professionals stay current on the latest LED lighting trends through registered seminars and face-to-face access to 100+ leading international lighting and controls manufacturers in a relaxed, casual setting. Access to the show floor is free to qualified attendees who register prior to the show. A nominal fee is charged for the conference sessions, which offer a variety of learning units - AIA, BOMI, IDCEC, IES and NCQLP.

More details will be available soon. Interested participants can check the event website for updates or add themselves to the Show News email list.

For more information about the Denver LED Specifier Summit, visit https://www.ledspecifiersummit.com.

The LED Specifier Summit brings its one-day immersive lighting educational program back to Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center on Tuesday, September 25. This lighting education and solutions event is geared toward specifiers of commercial, architectural, and decorative LED lighting products. The summit is designed to help lighting professionals stay current on the latest LED lighting trends, both through seminars and face-to-face access to leading manufacturers in a relaxed, casual setting.

The one-day summit will feature panel discussions and seminars with industry experts, focused LED lighting exhibits, hands-on product demonstrations, and peer-to-peer networking.

“The one-day summit is jam-packed with information and knowledge that can be applied immediately to projects, product selection, and making the right decisions," show director Lea Tranakos said.

For more information about the Seattle LED Specifier Summit, visit https://www.ledspecifiersummit.com/northwest/.

The What: Blizzard the Motif Atelier 16FX and 8FX, next-generation LED linear wash lights.

The What Else: With two sizes, 1-meter (16FX) and 0.5-meter (8FX), the AtelierTM offers RGB+WW 4-in-1 color mixing and pixel effects via 15W, individually controllable high output LEDs. It mimics tungsten-source lighting to produce soft, warm white tones or add more warmth to the blend of any RGB mixed color. Motif Atelier’s asymmetrical 10x40° optics are suited for vertical wash applications along walls, scrims, and other boundaries. It projects a 10° soft edge when parallel to minimize spill away. When perpendicular, Atelier’s 40° angle along the long axis mixes individual LEDs into a homogeneous wash or allows multiple swaths of color to overlap for spectacular gradients and pixel effects.

The IP65-rated wash lights can withstand the harshest environments and feature DMX connectors and powerCON TRUE1-compatible power connectors with sealing rubber covers. The durable housing has a fanless, natural convection cooled design.

The Bottom Line: The Blizzard Motif Atelier 16FX and 8FX are available for pre-order now through any Blizzard authorized dealer or online at blizzardpro.com.

Located in the Hali region of Suðursveit in South-East Iceland, Thorbergssetur is a culture center and heritage museum dedicated to the region’s history and the life and works of writer Thorbergur Thordarson. With a unique, theatrical-style exhibition which includes glimpses into the life of the Icelandic author, the museum recently decided it was time to update their lighting design. Wanting to install a completely new LED system, Luxor lighting designer Alfreð Sturla Böðvarsson created an elegant, story-telling design using Gallery LED and PHX 150W LED profile luminaires from Altman Lighting.

“A director who I've worked with a few times was working in the museum this summer, and he asked me to give them advice on how to replace the outdated 12-year old system with a modern LED lighting scheme,” said Böðvarsson. “They wanted to emphasize the many scenes and rooms of the museum exhibition with naturalistic, accent lighting and the Altman Gallery LED and PHX LED fixtures worked great.”

The Gallery Series is a family of LED luminaires designed to serve as the most versatile solution available, through profile, beam wash, wall wash, and flood options across a variety of color temperatures. With a 92+ CRI engine, 4,000 lumens of output and dimming options that include local on-board dimming, Mains Dimming, DMX/RDM, 0-10VDC and DALI, the Gallery Series also offers a number of mounting options making it an ideal lighting solution where aesthetic and performance expectations are high.

“From the start I decided that it would be best to use spot fixtures with shutters, as I needed to light the exhibition sets in a theatrical style,” continued Böðvarsson. “I also had the added constraint of keeping all the lighting angles very steep where the museum visitors would be walking, in order to minimize glare and guest interference in the lights. We needed to emphasize both the depth and quality of the sets, so I decided to keep all the fixtures in the ceiling, as I believe exhibition lighting should be as invisible as possible.”

As one of the only convection-cooled LED profile fixtures available today, the PHX 150W LED profile is ideal for venues desiring superior, energy-efficient lighting in an acoustically sensitive environment. With a standard fixed beam, zoom ranges from 15-35 or 30-55 degrees, a 360-degree rotating barrel, and a die-cast aluminum frame, the PHX 150W LED profile is also available in a diverse line of LED choices, including RGBA, RGBW, 3000K, 5600K, and tunable white versions.

“I chose the PHX 150W 5600K profile fixtures as they were powerful enough for the larger strokes of outside light hitting the sets,” said Böðvarsson. “In a few instances, I gelled the lights to bring down the temperature, and then added gobos for a bit of variety and the feeling of the sun shining through trees. Additionally, the Gallery Series seemed like the perfect choice for the smaller accent lighting tasks, and I was pleasantly surprised with their power and quality of the light.”

Getting started in the installation, Böðvarsson and the team at Luxor knew exactly where they needed to place the lighting fixtures in order to complete the design. Knowing that the museum wanted the retrofitted design to stand the test of time, they were confident they had the right solutions to complete the story.

“The luminaires are attached to the ceiling all over the exhibition with 26 of the 15-35-degree Gallery spots, and 10 of the 36-degree PHX 150 spots proving just enough to complete the job,” said Böðvarsson. “As the lighting is never touched, the instruments are all locally dimmed, and the PHX spots are running at approximately 90-100 percent, whereas the Gallery fixtures are at various intensities. Both lighting solutions were very easy to work with, and the museum is extremely happy with their new exhibition lighting design that will last for many years to come.”

Located in New Orleans, the Audubon Zoo offers visitors a mix of animal encounters from around the world and are known for their unique natural habitats. With the recent addition of their latest exhibit, the zoo would be opening a 42-foot, transparent flyway titled “Criaturas de la Noche” filled with more than 200 short-tailed bats. Needing a nocturnal lighting design that would entice its inhabitants to come to life, the design engineers worked with LEA-Inc. who provided a combination of Chalice RGBW recessed and pipe-mounted LED luminaires from Altman Lighting.

“We have done quite a few projects over the years with the Audubon Zoo, but nothing as unique and specific as this installation,” said Mike Gonzales, LEA-Inc. controls specialist. “The project was part of a $3 million addition to the zoo called the Jaguar Jungle, designed to showcase animals from South America. We were brought on to the project by the engineers who asked us to create a spooky, nighttime lighting design for the ‘Creatures of the Night’ Bat House, and the Chalice RGBW fixtures were the ideal solution.”

The Chalice LED Series from Altman Lighting is a range of downlights available with mounting options that include pendant, recessed, aircraft cable, wall, and yoke mount. Dimming choices range from Mains Dimming to DMX. Also available with a variety of LED color or white light options, plus numerous lens or reflector choices, the Chalice LED Series is versatile and easy-to-integrate.

“It was the zoo’s vision that when you walk into the exhibit, it needed to look as natural as possible to make the visitors feel as if they are walking through the Mayan ruins on a dark and creepy night,” said Gonzales. “Coming into the room from the outside, it takes your eyes a moment to adjust, but once they do, you really get the full effect with all the sights and sounds, and it looks great.”

As construction moved forward on the bat house, the design team began to finalize the placement of the lighting instruments. Requiring a RGBW recessed fixture for the internal areas of the habitat, there was only one technology innovation that emerged to meet the challenge.

“Inside the actual bat enclosures, we have a total of 13 recessed Chalice 50W LED RGBW fixtures,” said Gonzales. “We then have 12 pipe-mounted Chalice fixtures for the walkways, and they are all controlled via a DMX lighting control system. It was a design necessity that we have an RGBW recessed fixture for the bat enclosures, and the Altman Chalice LED stood alone as the lighting technology that could meet the specification.”

With the installation complete, the programming of the lighting design became an integral part of the exhibit’s success. Understanding that the animal activity inside the bat house would be essential to giving visitors the desired effect, the circadian rhythms of the nocturnal creatures is cued by the programming.

“What was most interesting about the design was that the animals inside the exhibit are on a reversed circadian rhythm,” said Gonzales. “Since they needed to be active during daytime when the visitors are at the zoo, we created the nighttime looks to trigger their normal nocturnal activities. Once the park closes, the Chalice fixtures then begin their color temperature transition shifts into daytime looks so that the animals can go to sleep, and the process continues on a continuous 24-hour cycle.”

Now open to the public, the “Criaturas de la Noche” Bat House is filled with vampire bats, ringtail cats, red-eyed tree frogs, giant cave roaches, and even Costa Rican zebra tarantulas. All part of an exciting glimpse into life after nightfall in the jungle, the Creatures of the Night are not the exhibit’s only unique inhabitants.

“Since this was one of the premier attractions of the new addition to the Audubon Zoo, we needed to create a memorable visitor experience,” said Gonzales. “Going through our research, we couldn’t find any other lines out there in the recessed format, so by offering a RGBW recessed fixture, the Altman Chalice LED Series was perfect for the project.”

DCR Nashville is providing an array of equipment for American singer-songwriter Halsey's 2018 touring schedule, including festivals and her continuing "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom World Tour." Gear includes Claypaky Mythos 2 and Scenius spots, grandMA2 consoles and MDG ATMe haze generators. All of the brands are exclusively distributed in North America by ACT Lighting, Inc.

Halsey's "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom World Tour," in support of her second studio album of the same name, began last fall and will conclude this September. It is her second headlining concert tour.

Production Designers Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of S Rae Productions designed the show, which makes extensive use of LED video. Large stairs have LED video on the risers, and a large LED wall upstage is comprised of two screens split at the center. Above the stage are five straight trusses with lighting, which mimic the stairs giving a very linear look to the overall design. Craig Rutherford is the lighting director.

DCR Nashville has supplied the tour with 14 Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures and 32 Scenius moving head spots. "The lights have been popular items in our inventory for some time and have also toured most recently with Brantley Gilbert and Chase Rice," said General Manager John Schirmer. "The Mythos 2 are rock solid, and Scenius always does a great job; everything has been fantastic on Halsey's tour."

Jennifer Moore, DCR Nashville's VP of sales and the account executive for Halsey said, "At DCR we are about developing relationships through inspired solutions and experience. With Halsey we get to call on each of those components to provide our client with a show that her audience will remember for quite a while. Claypaky fixtures play a big part in that equation."

Ten of the Mythos 2 are active fixtures mounted in the upstage truss, which rises above the LED stairs. A dozen Scenius spots are on the downstage truss and a dozen on the midstage truss. All of these lights provide SFX and beam lighting for the show.

Two Scenius are offstage left and right in truss chairs with specially fabricated handles, and two more are positioned at FOH with the same custom handles. These four serve as traditional spots.

A grandMA2 light is used for opening acts and as a spare system for Halsey. A grandMA2 full-size console with six NPUs controls lighting and the LED stairs. "We have a lot of multi-channel fixtures plus the LEDs on the stair rises so we needed the NPUs," said Schirmer. "We also have two grandMA network switches to manage the amount of data being passed between MA-Net and Art-Net to control the whole system."

DCR also furnishes two MDG ATMe haze generators for the tour. "I love them, they're great units," said Schirmer. "Atmosphere is generated during the entirety of the show."

The What: LumaStream, makers of low-voltage LED lighting systems, has introduced the Parallux LSF14 suspended linear fixture. Ideally suited for conference rooms or like applications, the Parallux LSF14 is designed to eliminate unpleasant shadowing and provide enhanced in-room uniformity by utilizing an optic that radiates 70 percent of the light downward and 30 percent upward. The Parallux LSF14 is constructed from aluminum with a laser-etched glass diffuser that remains translucent until the fixture has been energized.

The What Else: The LumaStream Parallux LSF14 has been engineered to work with the same power supply as the company’s popular downlight fixtures, resulting in an efficient “turnkey” complete lighting solution. Each power supply output is individually addressable, enabling integrators to program scenes such as ON, OFF, PRESENTATION, or other, and easily interface with their control platform of choice. Because the Parallux LSF14 uses LumaStream’s patented remote driver technology, the cool-running, energy-efficient fixture is well suited for an array of commercial applications in a variety of sizes. The Parallux LSF14 fixture is 4 feet in length by 1 foot in width and 1 inch in height.

“The Parallux LSF14 is an elegant suspended fixture solution for any boardroom or conference room—and it provides the ideal combination of both subject and ambient lighting,” said LumaStream CEO George Gordon. “Our integrators now have a complete array of best-in-class lighting solutions that are control system agnostic and work seamlessly together to create the finest overall lighting experience for their clients.”

The Bottom Line: With LumaStream, integrators have full control over an end-to-end, architectural LED lighting solution that is modern and energy-efficient without the need to be dependent on a licensed electrician. LumaStream’s LED lighting solutions are based on patented technology that enables smooth, faultless dimming as well as the distribution of low-voltage DC over long distances between remote power supplies and premium light fixtures without any degradation in performance.

Featuring fully scalable power supplies available in DMX or 0-10 volt configurations with up to 12 channels, the LumaStream lighting platform runs cooler and performs to specification longer than competitive LED lighting solutions, according to the company. Most critically, LumaStream supports its integration partners with comprehensive lighting design services as well as technical and sales support teams, giving them access to high-level expertise and a pathway to success in the lighting category.