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NEWS
continued from front cover
Rob Baxter. Nordstrom and Baxter discussed
the idea of using conventional lights in a
pre-rigged truss configuration, but there
was the contentious issue of portability.
To load-in and rig enough truss and lighting
for the basketball events normally takes
two days, a lot of stage hands, and a lot of
space. The Staples Center is used for a lot of
events between basketball games, and the
gear was not allowed to live in the ceiling
for these events.
In their first meeting, Baxter proposed a
folding truss system whereby the lighting and
dimming could live in the truss while the truss
could be folded and transported in a neat,
compact package. While he acknowledged
that the bugs would have to be worked out,
he advised that with a little R&D and a lot of
patience that it could work. The Staples Center
wasn’t entirely convinced until they tested
a rental system to see how it would work.
When Bryant first walked in and saw the
test of the new lighting system on the court,
he was impressed.
“Oh s---,” Bryant said, laughing at the
change. “This is going to change the edge in
the building immediately. This is awesome.
This is it,” he said.
“It puts it all right here,” said Baxter, referring
to the fact that the majority of the light
is focused on the court while the house lights
are much lower and have a blue color. (To see
the video of Bryant seeing the system for the
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
Lighting Creates a Whole ‘Nother Game for Lakers
first time, visit www.plsn.com/Kobe)
After the game, they were given the green
light to go ahead with the system under the
condition that they had to be able to load the
entire system in and out in six hours.
Baxter then designed a system of five eightfoot
sections of truss that fold, stack and roll on
a single truss section. The individual sections
hinge and pin using Tomcats’ spigot and pin
locking system. Each 40’ truss is wheeled into the
vomitory and a rigger drops the hook on a prehung
chain hoist. When the hook is connected
to one side of the truss, the chain is raised until
the first section of truss can be spigoted and
pinned from an eight-foot ladder. Each section
is connected until the entire 40-foot section is
completed. Three 40-foot sections join to complete
one of two 120-foot sections of truss.
The 120-foot section of truss houses 14
light bars, each with 12 ETC Source Four PARs
with a narrow lens, and 168 channels of Leprecon
ULD dimmers modified with Socopex
connectors. Each section of truss takes about
15 or 20 minutes to assemble.
From the first game, the changed atmosphere
had a noticeable effect. “You can see
the change in the crowd,” Baxter said. “They
reacted tremendously to it.”
There were a few complaints from the audience,
Baxter confided, just because the moving
lights are so bright by contrast to the conventional
lights, but the positive feedback far
outweighed the negative.
Ian Levitt, the director of game operations
for the Lakers headed the lighting project,
while Gary LeMond of IATSE 33 was the head
electrician and crew head. Tad Inferrera, IATSE
33, is the Lakers lighting director.
ELS supplied the lighting gear (Rafael
Garcia, sales/project manager; George Gray,
rental/project manager) and Frank Dawson
of Kish Rigging was the rigging project
manager. Tomcat fabricated the truss (Will
Todd, Tomcat USA project manager) and AC
Power Distribution supplied the PD (James
Davey, AC Power Distribution president/project
manager). Gear was also supplied by TMB
(Tommy Stephenson, TMB sales).
In addition to lighting director Randy Nordstrom,
Amy Richards and Jared Sayed assisted
in the lighting design while Chip Foody was
the chief electrician and system installer.
Strong Buys
Technobeam
Rights
AUSTIN, TEXAS and OMAHA, NEB.
— High End Systems Inc. and Strong Entertainment
Lighting have completed a
transaction to enable Strong to manufacture
and sell Technobeam®, a moving
mirror luminaire, which HES released in
1998. Strong has purchased all rights to
Technobeam including all tooling and
product trademarks. Also, Strong has
sublicensed all intellectual property associated
with Technobeam.
Strong expects to reintroduce the
product early this spring and continue
using the Technobeam brand name.
States John Wilmers, CEO of Ballantyne
of Omaha, Strong’s parent company,
“This will be the same Technobeam
that the industry has come to appreciate
over the past eight years. It will be manufactured
using the identical parts and
tooling that High End used, making this
one of the most reliable lighting instruments
in the industry.”
HES CEO Frank Gordon says, “In the
past eight years, we have shipped more
than 10,000 units and rarely experienced
service issues. It truly has been a work
horse for the industry.”
Wilmers further comments, “The reliability
and quality of Technobeam makes
this a consistent product with our overall
offering. We have always been focused on
products that are backed by best-in-class
service and support people and practices.”
Strong expects to be shipping and
selling Technobeam in the next 60 days.
HES operations personnel will work with
Strong employees during the pilot build
of the product.