September Issue - PLSN.com

And Move It Did
Vari-Lite Launched an Industry
and Thrives in it Today
By KevinM.Mitchell
As the legend goes, the “eureka” moment
happened at a barbecue when
Showco founders and employees
first hit on the idea of adding two extra
motors to a fixture with dichroic filters
that could move and change colors. By December
of 1980, a rather large (by today’s
standard), rather noisy, Frankenstein-like
prototype of a fully automated lighting
system was completed, and the history of
event lighting would never be the same.
The team flew their baby to London
and showed the genesis of this lighting
revolution to, appropriately enough, the
band Genesis. A mere two cues were programmed
into it, and when the demonstration
was completed, band mate Mike
Rutherford reportedly said: “I expected the
color change, but by Jove, I didn’t know
it was going to move.” The next Genesis
tour would feature the first Vari*Lite Series
100 consisting of 55 VL1 luminaries and
a computerized control console. The opening
night of the world tour was on September
25, 1981, in Barcelona, Spain.
The rest as they say,
is history.
Watching it unfold from the other side
of the fence was Bob Schacherl. While today
he’s vice president of world wide sales
at Vari-Lite, in 1981 he was one of the
owners and the president of what would
later become High End Systems. “When
Genesis burst onto the scene as the first
concert tour with intelligent lighting, we
were blown away—both from a professional
stand point and as a ticket holder.”
He says he understood the impact
immediately, as the industry was firmly
rooted in the fixed installation world and
now there was a great opportunity to
explore the new technology. Of course,
those early products were problematic,
and Schacherl points out that being on
the cutting edge of anything means a
certain amount of risk taking. “It’s well
known that the early products weren’t
really reliable, and that’s why we rented
them instead of sold them.” To compensate,
Vari-Lite would send out technicians
with every show, thus ensuring that any
problem that might come up was taken
care of right then and there. “So every client
was satisfied.”
In 1986, computer advancements allowed
Vari-Lite engineers to develop the
Series 200 system, which included the
VL2 spot and the VL3 wash which allowed
two-way data communication with
their new Artisan control console.
In 1991 came the VL4 wash, and it
was that year the company was presented
with the first of three Prime Time Emmy®
Awards for Outstanding Achievement in
Engineering. The following year came the
Series 300 and the VL5 wash, which featured
radial dichroic color changers, compact
size and the much-desired, mostly
elusive, silent operation. From 1997
to1999 the company expanded with additional
offices, and unleashed such products
as VL7, VL6B, and VL7B.
Then in late 1999,
“hell froze over.”
“The market was changing, and Vari-Lite
responded by reversing their long-held policy
of just renting or leasing products. They began
promoting their new for-sale product
line with a marketing campaign entitled ‘hell
freezes over.’ ” Schacherl says. Around that
time, Schacherl left High End and soon after
ended up at Vari-Lite.
Meanwhile, in 2000 at LDI, the Virtuoso
DX console was introduced along with the
VL2000 spot and wash. VL2000 wash would
receive the Eddy Award for Lighting Product
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VLO VL1 VL4
36 PLSN SEPTEMBER 2006
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