Two leading UK event technical support companies, Hawthorn and Blueprint, have recently invested heavily in SGM’s next generation LED portfolio, selecting different solutions from the Danish company’s catalogue to boost their rental fleets.
Stage equipment hire specialists, Hawthorn, have made their first purchase of SGM’s increasingly popular P-5 RGBW and TW (Tunable White) wash lights, acquiring a total of 72 heads, and immediately pressing them into service to fulfill a creative concept by one of Denmark’s leading lighting designers, Søren Peglau, during London Fashion Week.
Sean Ferris, Hawthorn project manager for the recent event at the Danish Embassy, states, “We saw these lights being demonstrated when they were first launched and I knew immediately that we would be able to use them within some of our show designs.
“We first showcased them at the Danish Embassy and then used the P-5 TW’s again on an event in Brighton. We like the Tunable Whites because you can vary the colour temperature from warm to cold white. These are great as studio effects because you can achieve exactly the correct light for coverage.
“I find the P-5s incredibly bright and versatile and they have a beautiful dimming arc. They are generally a really punchy unit with 43° lenses which means architecturally they light building façades beautifully and drawing just 400W they also boast a great power consumption to brightness ratio. The option of three different lenses and a barn door simply adds to the value hence the reason there is already a growing demand for the P-5’s.”
The P-5’s were also used in a recent Cambridge lighting festival championing sustainable lighting by Anagram, Hawthorn’s Cambridge division. Anagram worked with the e-Luminate Festival team to create an interactive lighting installation at St John’s College where the chapel tower changed colour as it interacted with the choir in the chapel during evensong. The tower was lit by the P-5’s which were controlled by an AMBX server listening to audio in the chapel though ambient microphones. Hawthorns are also planning to use them at a London beer festival.
At the same time, SGM UK confirm that they have made a further sale to Blueprint, run by Chris Morgan. Blueprint already had 250 LT-200 pixel tubes (and 84 SGM ILD Drivers) in their hire stock as well as LT-100 1-metre tubes and around 100 SGM LB-100 LED Balls, but have now increased to 400 of the 2-metre tubes. These have been involved in high profile events ranging from Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium to Battersea Power Station for Cancer Research UK’s Full and Half Marathon as well as the recent London Fashion Week event at the Danish Embassy, where they supplied nearly 200 tubes and 80 ILD Drivers (working alongside Hawthorn).
Morgan states, “We had always intended increasing our inventory; we have enough controllers to service any event and are getting lots of interest both from customers and other rental houses, for both the Balls and Tubes. The LT-200 is an amazing effect. At the Danish Embassy visitors were impressed even before we turned them on!”
In fact one of the highest profile deployments of the LT-200s, he confirms, has been on chart topping artiste Katy B’s recent Crying For No Reason music video. Another, which also featured LED Balls, was a major TV dancing contest’s Christmas Special.
info: www.sgmlight.com