Environmental Lights will celebrate their 15th anniversary in a couple of months, and while their LED strip light put them on the proverbial map, there’s a lot more to them than just those. But that’s a good place to start: their LED strip, or “tape light,” is beloved by designers and is pretty much ubiquitous these days. They produced their first one the year after the company was formed in 2006. “It was a warm white product,” says Michael Krupinsky, VP of Marketing. “It was a different world back then, and we could see the potential of the product, even though the quality and features weren’t there yet. That is why we dove deep into designing our own products to perform the way we wanted them to, with quality that we insisted on. We constantly listened to our customers and made changes and enhancements according to their needs.”
The flexible linear LED lighting tape is customizable and suited for darn near everything. They have built an arsenal of these in a range of colors, temperatures, densities, and thickness. “Our RGB and multi-color LED strip lights lets customers have full control over the color of their lighting,” says Krupinsky. “With three or more LEDs on each node, designers blend colors to achieve the perfect hue.” Mix RGB with the addition of a 4th, 5th, or 6th color, and things get even more interesting. And here’s a bonus: they come in standard and waterproof options. Today the best-selling ones are the RGB to 5-in-1 LED Strip Light and the 6-in-1 LED Strip Light.
Otherwise, Environmental Lights creates LED lighting systems to fit the client needs. This includes industries such as retail, entertainment (studios, sets, and live tours), exhibit, hospitality, and gaming. Principals of the company like to point out that it was founded on engineering and it is “the lifeblood of the organization” and “rooted in engineering theory but experienced in real world applications.” Their integrating their LED lights into materials is creative and memorable (How about that T-Mobile pink display that’s in all their stores? Yup — Environmental Lights.)
Core Values
Founder Greg Thorson received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Brown University and followed that up with an MBA and MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He married Anne, who has a BS in Management from Texas Women’s University, and together they created the company in 2006. They recently stepped away from the day-to-day of the business but do sit on the board. Today, the company is run by Jamison Day (CEO) and Jordan Brooks (President).
Krupinsky says they typically work with different customers finding solutions to what they need in terms of lighting, power and control. As for him, he was brought on board at Environmental Lights in January 2017 to help with brand building and growing the market. Last fall, Pfingsten Partners, a private equity firm, purchased Environmental Lights. It’s been a good fit, as they’ve taken what was working with the company and built on its strengths. “They have developed a great organization on the foundation of quality engineering to solve customer challenges,” Krupinsky says. “We’re all about understanding the needs of our customers and coming up with solid solutions creating products that are needed and doing custom projects as needed. Service is a big part, because we have clients that often need things really fast. And it’s all about collaborating with our clients.”
To do such a good job with external customers, they know they must first do a good job with their internal ones — each other. “Our core values help guide us and maintain our culture,” Krupinsky explains. “We actively promote our values and developed a system where employees can nominate other employees for an award based on one of the principles. That person gets recognized by the company, receives a certificate and is entered to win in a raffle we do every quarter.” He provided a list of the winners, adding that they “give you an idea of the culture of support and encouragement we have been able to develop.”
He says that people don’t always realize the thought, research, and planning that goes into the new products created at Environmental Lights. The end result: Problems are solved — even unusual ones. A few years ago, typical LED lights would flicker when taken in by the camera lens, and the team was the first to solve that. “It had to do with the PWM dimming frequency the lights were using. We developed DMX decoders that were 5kHz, and that made that flicker go away. Our Studio Pro line of decoders now go up over 20kHz, keeping up with the cameras that have gotten faster and faster… that’s a really good example of us taking on what seemed like an unsolvable problem.”
Along those lines, they’ve also launched a lot of RGB and Multi-Color LED Neon products. “Lighting designers always wanted more color options in our LED neon products — RGB only gets you so far,” Krupinsky says. Recently launched was their EcoFlex 4-in-1 LED Neon. It comes in multiple color options: RGB + 3000K, RGB + 6500K or RGB + Amber. “We’re really excited about how the EcoFlex 4-in-1 product provides designers with the expanded color mixing options for LED neon.” Krupinsky also speaks in terms of “vertical markets,” and how the process of working to find a solution in one area, like retail, can suddenly yield a great solution for scenic, and vice versa. “We develop something for one market and then go, ‘Oh wait’ — it also appeals to these other markets.”
Award Shows, Super Bowls and Vegas
Environmental Lights products have been used to support visuals at big awards shows and other productions including the Oscars and Super Bowl halftime shows. They’ve been on tour with the popular South Korean boy band Got7 and appeared on WrestleMania 34. Also in 2018, they made the stage cooler at those iHeart Radio Festivals. They are working with top production, lighting and scenic designers like Emmy-winner Andy Walmsley. “He has been doing a lot of work in Las Vegas on shows like Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, Salt-N-Pepa’s I Love the 90s, The Jacksons, and more,” says Krupinsky. “What he’s been able to do with our products is absolutely thrilling.”
Walmsley expands on this. “I recently designed the new Nick Cannon daytime chat show and, as with most of my sets, I designed a lot of LED tape into the design, some in light boxes.” That show, now set to debut in late 2021, was designed with three miles of Environmental Lights light products, a lot being part of a glowing halo concealed back into the walls. “I always spec Environmental Lights products on my blueprints, but at this point, they are pretty much industry standard with 90 percent of the shops I work with using Environmental Lights as their supplier.” (Walmsley may well hold the record for designing shows in Vegas — currently he’s up to an even 20.)
Environmental Lights breakthroughs include their REVI Remote-Voltage Illumination System, recognized at the 2020 CE Pro Best Electronics Systems Technologies Awards at the CEDIA Expo. The REVI Remote-Voltage Illumination system is pretty cool — it is a downlighting solution designed for AV integrators. The control-agnostic system features RDM-enabled remote, class 2 power distribution capable of driving multiple fixtures from independent, programmable channels. It also includes a variety of à la carte configurable downlighting fixtures. And, typical of all Environmental Lightings products, this product is designed to be easy to install.
Custom Work
The company also has a reputation for creating custom products and adapting current offerings to meet specific specific client needs. “The drive is always to make our customer’s lives easier,” Krupinsky says. “Mild” customization happens often. If a set needs one LED strip for a 16-foot run in one spot, but some others that are just four-foot, and all brought together with a matching panel, for example, Environmental Lights can take care of it. If the LED neon wire needs to come out of the back instead of the side, that’s easily done. “In addition to cutting product per spec, we also take care of all the necessary connectors, and then make sure it can all be installed as easy as possible. One thing I like hearing from customers is how straightforward our products are.”
Looking ahead, Krupinsky says they are exciting about growing in general, and growing their scenic division specifically. “Scenic is a big part of our strategy, and we are working to understand and anticipate the next round of products for those shows and tours. We never rest on our laurels — we keep an eye on the future and circle around in discussions about what that might be in addition to always finding ways to make what we do now even better.” One area they are looking at in particular is DMX controllers and pixel control. “We’ve partnered with companies like DiGidot to see how we can take pixel control projects to the next level and worked to figure out how to create better power supply solutions.” For the latter, they have their PowerPro 12V and 24 models. They’re a DMX decoder and power supply in one unit, and both can daisy chain several units together to fill the power that you need for a big output.
“We do a lot of high-profile shows like America’s Got Talent and The Voice, movies, TV shows and series and game shows,” says Rob Dempsey, sales manager. “Those projects all have one thing in common: They highlight industry technological advances quickly, so working with them makes us stay on the cutting edge of LED. We make the curve because our clients are always raising the bar in wanting their projects to stand out.” Dempsey mentions that, previous to the pandemic outbreak, they were increasing their work in touring concerts and lots of other live events, including trade shows. More recently, they’ve been assisting live television events as they start to populate the landscape. “At the MTV Video Music Awards, they did some really cool virtual performances, and we did all the lighting for that. What I’m noticing is, with the lack of a live audience, lighting needs to be more dramatic than ever. Environmental Lights are on the cutting edge of what is possible, so brainstorming with talented designers in different venues allows for really inventive collaboration. The lights and sets are ending up having more of an impact, inspiring a more engaging performance.” With their products being involved with the Grammys, Emmys and other award shows, Dempsey adds, “it’s an incredible feeling to know we’re involved with something that is reaching so many different viewers across the world.”
The team at Environmental Lights clearly enjoys the collaborative aspect of it all. “We have great relationships with not only designers, but fabricators as well,” says Krupinsky. “We work hand-in-hand with fabricators to figure out how to best integrate our lighting with their designs to create really stunning set pieces. From concept to reality, we go through many revisions, always tweaking designs and making sure we have something that is most impactful to the audience.”
For more info, visit www.environmentallights.com
