ADJ Encore LP12IP Luminaires Selected to Illuminate Prestigious Houston Fashion Show

The society event of the year, Houston’s Trailblazers Awards luncheon and fashion show kicks off the city’s Rodeo season in style. This year’s edition was hosted in the Hilton Americas-Houston hotel and attracted over 2,000 attendees. Honoring individuals who have invested time, talent and generosity in the Rodeo over the years, the highlight of the event was a large fashion show featuring dozens of models as well as cowboy dancers! To illuminate the huge catwalk with an even coverage of high-quality light, local Houston-based production company Stage Directions invested in a significant quantity of ADJ’s lime-infused Encore LP12IP LED wash fixtures, which were supported by the compact but powerful Focus Flex moving heads and battery-powered Mirage Q6 uplighters as well as additional fixtures from ADJ’s sister company Elation.

Established for almost 40 years, Stage Directions has extensive experience providing lighting, audio, video and production services for events of all sizes. Although the company had previously worked with the fashion producer, this was the first time it provided the technical production for the Trailblazers Awards. Keen to make a good impression, company President, Richard Hoggatt, decided to use this as an opportunity to make an investment in new lighting fixtures to provide his team with exactly the right tools for the job.

“This was an important show for us, so we wanted to get everything 100% right,” explains Richard. “We could have covered it with a mixture of different fixtures from our existing inventory, but thought that, to do the job right, we should use the same fixture to light the entire runway. So, I reached out to Mike Turner [ADJ’s Central USA Regional Sales Manager] and with his help chose the Encore LP12 IP, which proved to be the right decision. It is bright, has great color mixing and allowed us to select just the right color temperature. We were able to achieve a really nice and consistent wash across the whole length of the runway. The lime element of the LEDs in these fixtures also makes a real difference over the previous generation of LED pars that we owned. The increased CRI is very noticeable, and it particularly enhanced the quality of the video we captured of the show, it really made it pop!”

The Encore LP12IP is an extremely versatile LED par loaded with twelve 20-Watt 4-in-1 RGBL (red, green, blue & lime) color mixing LEDs. It offers a native beam angle of 10-degrees but is supplied with a 25-degree frost filter that easily and securely clips into the front of the fixture. Compact, yet extremely robust, the luminaire has an IP65-rated casing – allowing temporary outdoor use in any weather conditions – and is supplied with a flexible scissor yoke that can be used as either a floor stand or hanging bracket. For the Trailblazers event, Richard’s team hung 26 of the fixtures on each of a pair of trusses rigged from the ballroom ceiling which ran along each side of the 162’ runway. This allowed Lighting Designer Jose Sanchez to perfectly and consistently illuminate the models across the entire length of their walks up and down the room.

With a keen eye for detail, Richard also decided to invest in new cables for the event, specifically the AC5PTRUE12 from ADJ’s Accu-Cable brand. Ideal for use with LED pars and other fixtures that have a power output socket, this useful cable features both 5-pin DMX and IP65-rated power sockets, allowing a single cable to be used to join both the power and signal connections between adjacent fixtures.

“I didn’t want a big spaghetti of cables, so decided to buy a set of the combined power and data cables from Accu-Cable,” explains Richard. “Having just one cable, of exactly the right length, to run between each pair of fixtures made for an extremely clean setup, and this was the type of event and audience where people notice those kind of things. We also had a very tight window for setting up over the night before. These cables really saved time on the setup, which was very important as we were working to a tight schedule.”

To support the Encore LP12IPs, Stage Directions also utilized 16 of ADJ’s Focus Flex L7 LED wash-zoom automated fixtures. Each featuring an array of seven potent 40-Watt 4-in-1 RGBL (red, green, blue & lime) color mixing LEDs, these versatile fixtures offer motorized zoom for a variable beam angle of between 4 and 35-degrees. For the fashion show, they were rigged in sets of four to additional trusses hanging above the runway, perpendicular to the stage, and equally spaced moving away from it. The set positioned furthest downstage provided supplemental wash coverage for the end of the catwalk, while the upstage fixtures provided illumination for the stage at the front of the room and the podium used by the announcer. The middle two sets of fixtures provided extra in-fill wash, as well as coverage for the side spurs of runway that were located part way down the room.

“We consider the Focus Flex to be a utility light,” states Richard. “It is a real work horse that combines good brightness, excellent color mixing and a wide zoom range in a very compact fixture. On this show we found that it did a great job of matching the color temperature of the light we had chosen for the runway wash, allowing us to fill in any gaps, enhance the coverage at the end, where the models pause to pose, and also spotlight the podium and any other points where light was needed on the front stage. After the rigging is complete, it can be difficult to get a lift back into venues like this to add a fixture or focus a light, which is where the movers become essential to fine tune things last minute.”

To provide a backstage area for the models to prepare, a black drape wall was constructed across the rear section of the ballroom, behind the stage. To add interest to this, Stage Directions deployed 30 of ADJ’s portable Mirage Q6 IP LED wash fixtures. These dedicated uplighters feature wireless DMX and powerful internal rechargeable batteries, allowing for completely wireless operation and therefore extremely quick and easy setup. Behind the drape, six ADJ 32 HEX Panel IP LED wash fixtures were deployed to provide illumination for the models as they prepared to go on, allowing them to check their makeup in a similar level and color temperature of light to that on stage. Completing the event’s lighting system were four Rayzor 760 and eight Rayzor 360Z automated fixtures from ADJ’s sister company Elation.

“Hats off to Mike and ADJ, because we really worked together as a team to pull this thing off,” concludes Richard. “This was a big investment for us, but we were really committed to not skimping in any way. Mike was extremely helpful in exploring all the options with us and making sure we chose the right lights for the job. Then, when we realized that we needed a few extra fixtures at the last minute, he made sure they arrived with us in time. Everyone’s hard work definitely paid off, because the end result was truly fantastic. There was a magical moment when the fashion show started, and everything just came together perfectly.”

Event: Trailblazers Awards Luncheon and Fashion Show
Production Company: Stage Directions www.stagedirections.com
Production Design/Director: Richard Hoggatt
Technical Director: Gustavo Galarzo
Lighting Designer: Jose Sanchez

Gear List
52 ADJ Encore LP12IP
16 ADJ Focus Flex L7
30 ADJ Mirage Q6 IP
6 ADJ 32 HEX Panel IP
4 Elation Rayzor 760
8 Elation Rayzor 360Z

Further information from ADJ: www.adj.com