Entertainment lighting supplier White Light has announced the latest addition to its comprehensive rental stock: the Vari-Lite VLX.
Billed as ‘the next generation of solid-state lighting from the company that started the revolution in automated lighting,” the VLX is Vari-Lite’s first LED fixture, a high-output wash light offering stunning colours and intensity, combined with low energy consumption and high reliability.
White Light’s VLX stock saw its first action on Eddie Izzard’s new UK tour ‘Stripped’. Lighting designer Keith Johnson specified the units, and has been delighted with the results. “Fantastic,” he notes. “Very fast. Very bright. Very, very reliable.” Johnson has 28 units, which he is using predominantly as audience lighting in the large arenas that the show is playing. “They fill any arena; the zoom range is huge, with the spot good and beamy in haze. Additive colour mixing means they just get brighter the more colour you add. All of the primary colours are perfect and give very deep saturation. They are about as bright as any wash I have used – and the VLX proves that nothing will strobe as fast an LED!”
As a bonus: with far fewer moving parts than traditional moving lights, and lower operating temperatures, the units are incredibly reliable: “we have not swapped a VLX yet,” Johnson adds. “And there are no expensive lamps to replace, and the units are always the same intensity!”
Using seven custom 120watt RGBW LED chipsets, the VLX offers 14,000 lumens of output; Vari-Lite’s patent-pending beam homogenization system gives smooth colour mixing free of the colour-shadowing effects present in some LED fixtures, complete with a dynamic CRI adjustment allowing the unit’s colour temperature to be adjusted. Beam control gives a 23-58degree zoom range. Movement comes from the well-proven Vari-Lite drive system, familiar from Vari-Lite’s other current fixtures.
“We’ve been delighted with the VLX,” comments White Light’s Hire director, Dave Isherwood. “They combine Vari-Lite’s traditional strengths – great colour, great beam, great movement – with the advantages of LED light sources, including reduced energy consumption and very long lamp life. They are a step forward in moving light technology, and we’re glad to now be able to offer them for hire – continuing White Light’s goal of providing lighting designers with the very latest tools to create their work.”
The Vari-Lite VLX joins the increasing range of energy-efficient LED fixtures offered by White Light, the range covering everything from moving lights such as the GLP Impression to video battens such as the Fusion 672, versatile wash fixtures such as the i-Pix BB4 and cyc lighting such as EvenLED, also in use on the Eddie Izzard tour.
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