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PR Lighting XL 700's on Major German 'Schooljam' Challenge

$PR Lighting XL 700\'s on Major German \'Schooljam\' Challenge$

SchoolJam is Germany's national festival for school bands, which is organised annually by the Keyboards, Gitarre & Bass and Sticks magazines in cooperation with VIVA, Musikmesse Frankfurt and the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat). The aim of SchoolJam is to find Germany's best school bands and, via their first live appearances, give them a launch pad for their further development.

In December 2007, a jury of musicians, celebrities and journalists listened to the numerous CDs and invited the best 120 bands to take part in live concerts, with eight bands each appearing in 15 German cities between January and February 2008. After the heats, this was whittled down to eight bands, who competed in the final round at the Musikmesse in Frankfurt.

At the famous international music expo, the groups performed live under PR Lighting XL 700 spot and wash lights, provided by German distributors, Focon Showtechnic. They were competing for the right to open the famous Rock am Ring Festival and to win a trip to the American Summer NAMM Festival in Nashville this July, to perform live on stage. The band who emerged victorious was Glory of Joann.

All the technical requirements for the event were handled by Ebi Kothe from Cologne-based production company, EMP.

The ground to ceiling headroom measured barely six metres (and a stage depth measuring the same) but fortunately it was possible to extend this with a podium; however, EBI still needed to create a complete ground support and rigging system to carry the lighting and video framework, taking DVI feeds.

Under the control of grandMA, a flexible lighting design was conceived for operator Torben Lehmann, with the entire data communication running over ArtNet.

Kothe had seen PR Lighting's new XL 700 spots and washlights on the Focon stand during Musikmesse/Pro Light+Sound and was immediately impressed.

"Thanks to the support of Focon, we were able to distribute 25 of the new XL 700 spots and 23 PR Lighting XL 700 washlights on the back- and mid-trusses, as well as in the ground positions," said Ebi Kothe. "We were delighted to be giving these fixtures their first major outing on a large-scale concert event."

Both the XL 700 spot and wash use short arc discharge lamps with an advanced optical system. Features of the spot include: large-scale linear zoom, CYM colour mixing, rotating gobo wheel plus fixed gobo wheel, bi-directionally rotating indexable prisms, frost and colour correction filter, focus and dimmer - and iris.

The high-output washlight comes with CMY colour mixing system; two colour wheels with six colours plus white in each wheel - these can createa half colour effect with variable speed and bi-directional rainbow effect. It is also equipped with a smooth linear dimming and the beam angle can be remotely varied between 10 and 42 degrees and linearly adjustable between 15 and 42 degrees.

Both product features ultra-quiet and smooth operation with advanced control technology, an energy saving design, LCD menu, sensor system for fault diagnosis, display set-up without main power, isolating protection when ground is not connected and modularised construction.

Commented Focon's Tino Spahr: "As one of the newest distributors of PR Lighting products, we were delighted to get the opportunity to show the XL 700 fixtures at the SchoolJam festival. It was the first use of such a large amount of PR Lighting luminaires in Germany and we were amazed at the brightness, speed and reliability of both the spot and washlights.

"That experience convinced us that the XL 700 range can compete with any professional moving light - and do so at a really attractive price."

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PR Lighting XL 700's on Major German 'Schooljam' Challenge

8th July 2008

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