 Based in the Dutch city of Weert, Munttheater is a mid-size theater that hosts both touring professional shows and local amateur productions. Thanks to a municipal authority grant, the organization has recently invested in an upgrade to its inventory of automated luminaires motivated by a desire to move to energy efficient LED technology and futureproof its lighting department. After extensive research, which included hiring the fixtures for a one-off production, the theater’s technical team decided to purchase ADJ’s versatile LED-powered Focus Profile and Focus Flex L7 luminaires.
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Founded in 1974, Munttheater Weert is located in the heart of the city and seats an audience of approximately 440. A large proportion of its programming is professional touring plays, musicals, dance shows, cabaret acts and musical performances, which usually bring their own moving lights where required. However, the venue also hosts a significant number of productions for local amateur theater companies and dance groups each year, for which the internal team provide full technical production services. To facilitate this, they carry an inventory of moving heads – profile and wash fixtures – although their current fixtures had been in service for a long time and were overdue replacement.
“We have been looking to upgrade our moving lights for a while,” explains Ruben van Cauteren, one of the theater’s in-house technicians. “We heard that lamps for our current fixtures could soon be taken out of production, and we wanted to upgrade to LED models, so we have the latest technology and are ready for the future. The budget was set for the purchase of second-hand fixtures. However, after looking at various renowned brands we could not get the number of fixtures we needed to replace our original set. Fortunately, I had done some freelance work for Willem Smits at WSS Audio & Light and knew that he was looking into buying some new ADJ fixtures for his rental inventory and that really intrigued me. So, after he’d made his investment, we arranged to rent a set to try out on a show last March and we were truly stunned when we saw them in action. We realized that ADJ was the perfect brand for us and contacted Willem again to ask for a quote for purchasing Focus Profiles and Focus Flex L7s. This time we were pleasantly surprised! For the price of just a few of the big brand fixtures we could have the full set we wanted from ADJ.”
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Munttheater purchased six of ADJ’s Focus Profile luminaires. Each of these feature-packed automated profile fixtures is powered by a potent 400-Watt LED light engine that generates an impressive output of 20,000 lumens. It offers a versatile array of creative features, which include four rotating framing shutters with shape rotation, an animation wheel, motorized zoom (beam angle 7 ~ 45-degrees), motorized iris, motorized focus, CMY color mixing and variable CTO color temperature control, and an additional color wheel loaded with six dichroic filters. It also boasts two separate GOBO wheels (one with interchangeable indexed-rotating GOBOs and the other with static metal-stamped GOBOs), a replaceable (medium) frost filter and two independent indexed rotating prisms: 3-facet circular and 6-facet linear.
“The Focus Profiles are real work horses that can do everything we want them to do to give us the exact scene we want to create on stage,” comments Ruben. “The framing shutters are very precise and versatile, the movement is smooth, and the output is fantastic. The colors are also amazing, even for darker colors the light output is great. We have a very deep purple used for one of the scenes in our current production and it just pops out of the stage. They also have great GOBOs, an even beam, and very sharp edges. We are really pleased with them, they are just amazing fixtures.”
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The theater also invested in twelve Focus Flex L7 luminaires, which each feature seven potent 40-Watt 4-in-1 RGBL color mixing LEDs that can be controlled independently. Thanks to the inclusion of the lime LED element, these fixtures offer phenomenal color mixing potential, a high CRI of 84 and an output of up to 3,500 lumens. Designed to provide lighting designers with both flexibility and creativity, they are capable of generating both wide washes and narrow beam effects. Motorized zoom allows the beam to be altered remotely between a wide 55-degree field angle and narrow 6-degree field angle. The fixtures’ extremely quick motor movement allows for the creation of stunning high-impact aerial effects, while 16-bit fine motor control ensures precise positioning.
“I love the Focus Flex L7s,” enthuses Ruben. “They are small, light, and can create both very punchy beams and nice wide washes that are still extremely bright. The colors are great, with the lime LED chips really helping with those deep saturated colors – reds and blues. I also really love the pixel control and the movement is extremely fast! They are hugely versatile fixtures that can be used for static front wash on a stage play, fast moving beams on a dance show, and everything in between. We can use them for every kind of production, which is what we wanted for the theater when we first decided to upgrade our moving lights.”
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Munttheater’s new fixtures were delivered and commissioned by the WSS Audio & Light team in early December 2023, and have already been utilized for multiple productions. These included a Christmas musical concert where the Focus Flex L7s were used to fill the stage with vibrant colored beams and the Focus Profiles served as spotlights as well as specials adding GOBO projections to the stage. Another recent production involved a series of sketches that called for a variety of different static looks, the framing shutters on the Focus Profiles were utilized to highlight precise areas while the Focus Flex L7s provided full stage color washes.
“The Focus Profile and Focus Flex L7 are both really good fixtures in their own right,” concludes Ruben, “however I think it’s also important to say just how well they work together. They complement each other perfectly, matching in terms of output and color, but also each offering specific features that mean together they provide us with a truly versatile rig that can be applied to literally any production. We at Munttheater are very pleased with our new fixtures and would like to thank the local authority of Weert for giving us the opportunity to make this important investment.”
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