Chauvet Professional Opens New Showroom-Learning Center

Chauvet Professional recently sponsored a highly personalized hands-on lighting workshop at its new southern California showroom and learning center.

The Chauvet Professional Concert Lighting Workshop gave students from four colleges in the Los Angeles area a unique opportunity to design a sequence to music of their choosing on the Chauvet Professional demo rig, working with GrandMA2 programmer Joe Spangler.  Each student group got to work one-on-one with the programmer to light his or her song on an impressive rig that featured a variety of Chauvet Professional products including NEXUS panels, different COLORado fixtures, Legend 230SR Beams, Q-Wash 419Z moving yoke washes and the entire new Rogue series.

“Our goal was to provide these students with an opportunity to get hands-on experience working with an experienced lighting programmer who’s been there working in real world projects, and to put their work in front of an audience of seasoned professionals,” said Chauvet Professional’s Customer Engagement and Education manager Jim Hutchison, who designed the rig used at the workshop. “These students got an excellent experience interacting with the audience of people who are out there creating the A-list productions; it could not have been more fun!”

One of those professionals, Anne Militello, head of Lighting Design at the California Institute of the Arts’ School of Theater worked closely with a CHAUVET Professional team led by national sales manager DeAnna Padgett to organize the educational event. “Anne was instrumental in making this happen,” said Padgett. “She helped us get other schools in involved in this educational experience.”

Other schools and educators participating in the concert lighting workshop with the California Institute of the Arts included: Los Angeles City College with James L. Moody, technical director; the University of California Irvine with professor Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz; and the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts with Tom Ontiveros, M.F.A assistant professor of lighting design.

“The educators brought a wealth of experience to this event,” said Padgett. “Jim Moody has had such a distinguished career, beginning as a Broadway lighting designer, then touring with the likes of the Eagles, Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder and the Beach Boys. Anne Militello has done so many wonderful things in theater around the world and on tour with artists like k.d. lang and Pearl Jam. For students to be able to sit down with people like this and get involved in a hands-on learning process is priceless.”

Students were definitely center stage at the event, and there was a large presence of industry talent in attendance there to support the work.  “It was a fantastic event with a very intimate feeling of industry community,” said Hutchison.  “Everyone who came was there to enjoy the work, give feedback to the students, and to just spend time growing the future.  This was a great event for the students, the industry community really came together for this one, and we can’t wait to do it again!”

Making the experience even more invaluable was the attendance of internationally acclaimed lighting designers like Bob Barnhart, Oscar Dominguez, Joshua Hutchings and Jim Lenahan.  “We were thrilled that these designers came to the workshop,” said Hutchison. “However, this event wasn’t about ‘big names,’ it really revolved around the students and the educational experience. The designers who were at the workshop had a blast; it kind of gave them the thrill of discovering this wonderful creative process that we call lighting design all over again.”