“They were asking whether it was a green design and I thought they were talking about the colour of their set until I realized they were concerned with eco-issues,” he says.

On both counts the Impressions ticked the boxes. “Considering how bright and responsive they were they just seemed so lightweight.”

With Paramore he has used 14 Impressions individually mounted on pipes at different heights, to create the illusion that they are floating within the set. “There’s no clamping – each fixture threads directly into the top of the pipe,” he states. The remaining 14 heads are mounted on the overhead truss (including four T-bars).

Collectively, they are used to warm up the set. “You can produce a parcan white from the Impressions — a nice tungsten without getting that rainbow lighting effect.”

“You also deliver a really nice tight beam angle — it really punches.” Chad has been using the fixtures with standard 10° beam angles — but when he realized his conventional automated lights were being washed out by the strength of the Impressions’ 90 high-powered RGB lights, he quickly realized he would need to upgrade.

With the set under Roadhog control, he says, “The speed of the colour and position is a big plus for me as I am using them as my main wash lights — and for an arena size show this is actually quite small. So it gives me the flexibility to use them for big stops and instant colour bumps that would normally require more lights and the need to set up a cue to make it appear instant. So it’s ideal for the LD on a budget.”

Chad originally landed the gig with Paramore back in 2007. “I had one of their songs on my Myspace page and my room mate / best friend Robb Jibson sent me an email saying that that they were looking for an LD/tech that could also do video. I replied — and here I am.”

The band’s popularity in the UK has soared since the box office smash Twilight featured the popular Decode on the soundtrack.

Chad is also highly complimentary about the support he has received from Bandit Lites. “This is actually the first time I have used the company — I used Premier Global, another Nashville based company for the last two tours — but Lester and everyone at Bandit UK have been absolutely fabulous.”

JoJo Tillmann on the GLP Impression and the “Lightsphere”:  The lightweight and compact design and the flexibillity of the impressions is what really made the design possible in the first place. For me as a lighting designer such compact and lightweight equipment allows me to develop new designs and combinations of set- and lighting design, allowing for new and yet unseen combinations of the two. Moreover, the GLP Impression is an absolute reliable product - a decided benefit and absolute must-be for the touring business”.

German full scale rental company “satys&fy”, based in Werne, constructed the “Lightsphere”, engineered by Raphael Dierkes.

In all, sixty impressions and eight impression Lasers saw action in the Audi Forum and later at the party with DJ Tom Novy. Martin Kuhn, who was responsible for the lighting design in the Audi Forum, deployed there forty-eight impressions. There was also a video wall comprising thirty-eight square metres of G-LEC Phantom 30. The lighting equipment was supplied by BTS Medientechnik GmbH of Landsham and Conrad Licht & Rigging Support of Bergkirchen.

The centenary festivities also included a large number of activities in the centre of Neckarsulm. The Audi Big Band, for example, played in the marketplace on the Saturday. A number of other bands were also playing live, and there was street theatre and a cavalcade featuring the Audis of yesteryear — each a masterpiece of vehicle design — to delight the city’s inhabitants and employees of the company. In the Hafenstrasse, Audi served up a special treat: there DTM (German Touring Car Championship) fans could witness pit stop demonstrations and chat with the drivers. A further musical highlight was the appearance of Sasha in Car Park P2 on the Saturday.

Seeing this as an opportunity to try out some new equipment, Watson chose to use the GLP Impression fixture range as one of his main lighting instruments, “I had some of the smaller RGB units, some of the white LED units and some of the big XL units too, which together allowed me wonderful flexibility within the design,” Watson stated.
A fundamental driver behind the creative design of Thom and Andi’s recent work together has been to keep the energy consumption of the shows as low as possible, and this event was no exception, so it was natural that Andi looked to LED as being a primary lighting source.

“The impressions did a great job. They gave me a full colour range from the RGB units which I could then blast through with the white units. The beams were lovely and the color palette allowed me to get exactly the colours I wanted for each song.”

The two main shows took place at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles’ downtown area, whilst the warm-up show took place at Echoplex, a smaller and more intimate venue with less hanging space. Watson chose to take some Impression fixtures from the main system to Echoplex, “They are small enough and light enough by not having a base that we could place them exactly where needed in the small venue. We used a dozen of them and I was really impressed. The end result was fantastic”, he said.

The shows themselves were a major success for those lucky enough to see them and Watson walked away very pleased, “The whole project has been a great success, all of the suppliers I have worked with have been very supportive and my crew of Mark Powell and Ed Jackson kept everything running on schedule.”

Supply of the Impression fixtures, along with all other lighting equipment was by VER of Glendale, California, with support from Elation Professional, the exclusive distributor of the Impression in North America.

He immediately decided to integrate eight fixtures into the stage design — mounted atop a 40ft vertical arch truss upstage. This was one of three arch trusses that formed the set, along with Main Light 2.5 scrims. “The Impressions were used as intense eye candy’ as well as a practical upstage light on many of the scenes,” he explained.

Joe couldn’t have been more impressed with the impact created by these FX. “They have proved 100% reliable. The output was super, with great colour — particularly the blue — and fast pan and tilt; the strobe was also very nice.” Another feature that impressed him was the continuous colour temperature correction facility.

When the LD resumes touring with the band this Autumn, the Impressions will once again appear on his plot. “I am anxious to put the Impressions into my upcoming designs and will certainly be using them then, if not sooner.”

The lighting equipment for the 311 tour was provided by Premier Global Production.

Elation Professional will remain GLP’s distributor for the Impression range. But this development will enable the company to offer Elation much closer support, emphasises Ravenhill, who in addition to heading up the operation will retain his position as GLP’s Director of Global Key Players — ensuring prime customers around the world are kept informed of developments.

Well known for his design and production work on the other side of the Atlantic, Mark Ravenhill says he is relishing the challenge. “It is a great opportunity to further exploit the enormous success of the expanding Impression range and at the same time reunite with my friends and colleagues in the industry over here.”

Joining Mark will be AnnaLise Laundrup, who brings nearly 12 years experience from working with Martin Professional  — for much of the time as International Exhibition and Events Manager. A native Dane (who is multilingual), she has worked all over the world and presently resides in Los Angeles.

In addition, GLP North America will be handling direct sales and marketing of the G-LEC range of video LED products into the marketplace (the company having recently been acquired by GLP).

Commented Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional, “We have had tremendous success with the Impression over the past two years, and with the new Impression RZ120, Volkslicht and Meisterstuck following on from the XL, having Mark and AnnaLise here to help us promote these products to the US market will only help grow our mutual success.”

Says GLP’s business director, Kasper Gissel, “The move is in line with our strategy for growth. The Impression range of LED heads has surpassed all expectations and has quickly become the de facto standard in high-output, low-wattage luminaires — particularly for television, location lighting and concert stage lighting. Therefore Los Angeles is the obvious location for our new office.”

Scandinavian lighting giant, Seelite A/S are the chosen supplier taking care of all lighting requirements for the conference and all of the individual meeting rooms. Seelite’s CEO Jonas Eisenhardt explained, ”Choosing the right lighting fixture was a vital task for this event. Driving efficiency by example for the whole world to see was paramount”. So, it was over to the company’s design team headed up by Lars Nissen, as not only does the lighting need to meet the stringent energy standards, but it needs to be comfortable to work under and also be suitable for TV, as much of the proceedings will be in front of the worlds’ media. “Having a fixture that gives great color rendering, has proper beam qualities, and works reliably for the demands of a global TV audience was of paramount importance in this project”, confirmed Lars.

Looking to one of their most recent investments, it became clear for Lars and his team, that GLP’s impression fixture had the credentials and the capability to satisfy all requirements. This was confirmed after the company completed a series of shootouts with other interested parties, to ensure that the best product was chosen for the job. In Lars’ own words, “The impression ticked every box from every stakeholder. It was one part of the conference that was easy to reach agreement on”.

COP 15 takes place at the sprawling Bella Center in Copenhagen and Lars could see that to light the entire area was going to require a lot of fixtures. Whilst Seelite themselves have a large number of impressions in their own rental stock, they started looking into Europe to find a partner who could help in the overall fixture supply.

AED Rent of Belgium, turned out to be the perfect rental partner that would ensure that this monumental event is one to be remembered. With several hundred impression fixtures already in their rental stock and constantly being rented out, it was an easy decision for CEO Glenn Roggeman to work with Seelite and add more fixtures to his rental stock — in fact 650 more which brings the combined total between the two companies to the approximate 1,000 pieces of impression that will light the proceedings in Copenhagen.

Having recently completed the construction of a new 20,000 square metre facility for his headquarters in Belgium, Roggeman is fully aware of impacting the environment, “Our new facility has been designed to be as carbon neutral as possible and features the latest building techniques including LED lighting, heat exchangers, solar panels and the latest insulation products available”. With this project being driven by Glenn himself, it became an easy choice for him to get involved, “I jumped at the chance to work with Seelite on COP 15, as it is a matter close to my own heart. If we can all do our own little bit for the future generations, then the world will quickly change to be a much better place”.

GLP’s business director, Kasper Gissel, enthused, “It is great to have Seelite and AED Rent working together on this monumental event that could change all of our tomorrows. This is the kind of partnership that we strive for at GLP, and I can’t begin to say how proud everyone at GLP is to have been chosen to illuminate this event “.

GLP’s director of key global players, Mark Ravenhill, added “It is always great working with Jonas, Lars and the team at Seelite. We are tremendously proud that the impression has been chosen as the sole lighting fixture, for its qualities and benefits, and that the event didn’t have to compromise due to lobbying from any of the large companies out there”.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark from 7th to 18th December 2009. For more information go to http://en.cop15.dk

Along with the Impression 120RZ, two other new products were showcased; the Volkslicht, which is a compact Rebel LED moving head priced at budget driven shows which don’t want compromise, and the Meisterstuck, which is designed to meet lighting designers’ quest for quiet LED based optics without compromising on colour or beam quality, and with a zoom range from 7° to 28°.

Feedback for all new products was incredible as they reached the final stages before shipment to customers.

In the Color Lab area, designed by the company’s own Harry de Lon, GLP were also able to show different versions of their white LEDs compared to a tungsten source, allowing designers to really see and feel the quality that exists in LED technology now, and to prove that LED can make a perfect white balance.

To top it all off, the stand demonstrated examples of LED video technology from G-LEC, following the company’s acquisition by GLP. In addition, G-LEC had their own very attractive stand, which proved highly popular.

But it was the Impression Zoom that really stole the show (pictured being demonstrated by Mark Ravenhill, GLP director of Global Key Players).

According to GLP’´s , Kasper Gissel, the Impression Zoom differs entirely from other LED moving heads on the market. “This is because of its high quality and consistent colour mixing across the different beam angles (from 10°-26°) — plus its very soft edge beam.”

In summary, he said, “The advantages of being able to give a live demonstration of the Zoom’s feature-set were clear from the start. This has been a fly-away success.”