There are many lighting choices for a church wishing to go “all out” in its lighting support of worship services. If high-intensity lighting and sophisticated moving light effects are required then, in most cases, the tools that are necessary to create these effects include fixtures run by powerful arc lamps. These fixtures, designed primarily for the rock n’ roll industry, are extremely powerful and versatile, allowing the user to create bright, sophisticated lighting atmospheres.
However, this technology comes with a price. The fixtures that fit in this category retail between $6,000 and $14,000 a piece. In addition, their maintenance costs can be quite expensive. It’s no wonder that until recently, only the most affluent churches were able to afford this equipment.
Several companies have recently been flooding the market with technically sophisticated automated lighting fixtures that “wow” even the most demanding concert lighting designer. An abundance of automated lighting manufacturers have entered the market, resulting in a fierce price and technology war. The primary winner of this heated competition is, of course, the consumer. This current market has created opportunities, in what was once an industry with a narrow user base, for even modest houses of worship to rent and purchase this technology.
One of the newest players in this competition is a small company from the Czech Republic, Robe Show Lighting, which came upon the lighting industry like a storm. Even though Robe may be an unfamiliar name to many churches, the company has for years been selling automated lighting fixtures as an original equipment manufacturer for such European lighting companies as Futurelight, Movietec, Saggiter and TAS. Robe has now decided to sell directly to the consumer in the United States. With its full range of technically sophisticated automated lighting fixtures, Robe has evolved as a powerful contender.
Recently, Church Production had the opportunity to test one of Robe’s most popular products, the ColorSpot 575 AT. These fixtures have been recently purchased by numerous churches across the United States. In most cases, this model was chosen by these churches because it incorporates most of the features from Robe’s chief competitors at a price dif- ficult to match. As we wanted to see for ourselves if these features are indeed well designed, we put the ColorSpot 575 AT to the test in our theatres and light lab at California State University, Long Beach.
First, let me explain a few basics about the ColorSpot 575 AT. This is a moving-head fixture based on a 575-watt metal halide arc lamp. This lamp is extremely efficient, and coupled with Robe’s sophisticated dichroic glass reflector, produces an amazingly powerful and even field of light. The ColorSpot also includes a motorized zoom with apertures of 15, 18, and 22 degrees, one rotating and index-able seven-position gobo wheel, one static nine-position gobo wheel, two dichroic color media wheels, a variable speed rotating three-facet prism effect, a variable frost feature, a very fast and accurate shutter (dimmer), a motorized iris, and a remote focus feature. The unit will pan 530 degrees and tilt 280 degrees.
These features are roughly equivalent to much higher priced moving lights offered from Robe’s competitors. In fact, the only feature that we found missing was a CYM (cyan, yellow, magenta) dichroic color mixing module. CYM allows you to fade from color to color. However, the ColorSpot’s two color wheels produced a very wide range of colors; most quite usable for theatrical purposes. So, unless you must fade from color to color, this system is probably flexible enough for your purposes.
After testing the optics of this fixture in our light lab, we decided to test this fixture in a “real-world” situation on a new theatrical production in our large studio theatre. The ColorSpot 575 AT was powered up for practically ten hours a day for five solid weeks in cueing sessions and rehearsals, so it received a more-than-thorough testing. We discovered absolutely no problems with this fixture. In fact, it never failed in any of our tests. This is a first for our labs (and was quite a disappointment to my lighting design students).
We were all impressed with many of the ColorSpot’s features. The fixture’s variable zoom and focus parameters were amazingly efficient, producing a consistent field of light throughout its wide zoom range. Focusing between gobo wheels produced even blending and morphing of the two gobo patterns. The frost feature was widely variable (although light leak and glare was somewhat excessive at full frost). We were also very impressed with its variable rotating prism effect, creating wonderful animations of light patterns.
As the ColorSpot was hung from a lighting pipe approximately 32 feet above the audience, its operating noise was quite acceptable. We found the fan noise of this fixture relatively quiet. The ColorSpot was only obtrusively loud when activating the strobe effect. But then again, we have yet to hear a strobe effect from a moving light that was not noisy - and how often will you use a strobe effect in your worship service anyway?
We also found the ColorSpot very easy to install and control. We used an Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) Expression 3 control console for this show and loading the personality for this fixture was very easy. (The “personality” of the fixture is the specialized code that controls all the separate parameters of that particular light).
Once loaded, controlling the light was a breeze. We could accurately manipulate each parameter and achieve exact and consistent movement. Due to its sophisticated motors, the fixture never displayed stepping and was silky smooth in its movement. In addition, the pan and tilt motors on the ColorSpot are very fast (for a large moving head fixture). The light consistently hit its homing spots every performance.
The designer and director desired several lighting effects in the show, and the ColorSpot performed magnificently. One of my personal favorites was a rotating prism effect during an especially beautiful musical and movement section. The liquid morphing of gobos through the prism was sensational. On the other hand, there were several instances when just a plain, unfiltered arc light was required for a special moment. The purity of the beam was gorgeous, with no visual abnormalities.
The Robe ColorSpot 575 AT is a welcome fixture to the church market, and has a MSRP of $6,279. Robe’s new moving lights have already created a buzz among church lighting designers. The Cathedral of His Glory in North Carolina has already installed a complete Robe automated lighting system into its worship space (see the CPM September/October 2004 issue). I am quite confident that we will be seeing more great products in our houses of worship from this exciting new company.
David Martin Jacques heads the graduate stage design program at California State University, Long Beach, and is a lighting consultant for houses of worship across the United States. He has also designed theatre and opera productions in the United States and Europe. David may be contacted at djacques@csulb.edu.
