MONTREAL – Lighting Designer Karl Gaudreau has added a large complement of Claypaky fixtures to the lighting at Bell Centre for the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. Gaudreau selected Claypaky SharBar advanced moving LED bars, Axcor Profile 900 LED spots and Axcor Beam 300s for the arena. He also took delivery of additional grandMA2 lighting control equipment. ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of both brands in North America.
More details from Claypaky (www.actlighting.com):
Montreal’s Bell Centre is consistently one of the busiest arenas in the world. It is the largest arena capacity to regularly host an NHL team, the iconic Montreal Canadiens who make their home at the downtown venue.
“I wanted to increase the fan experience and be able to create different lighting effects during the games as well as for rock ‘n roll shows,” says Gaudreau. “The design is mostly based on audience lighting that delivers a true 360º experience.”
The lighting designer notes that when adding new lights to the arena, “the idea was to be fully green by using only LED fixtures for as much maintenance-free operation as possible. Claypaky fixtures are also so reliable.”
He mounted 48 SharBars under each vom door and positioned the Axcor Profile 900s, his main key lights, under the Jumbotron LED screen with an existing complement of Claypaky Sharpys. The Axcor Beam 300s are mounted under the followspot deck on each far corner of the arena.
“The SharBar is really perfect for me. It gives me six beams within a single fixture,” he says. “The Axcor Series is one of the best LED spot families on the market. The Profile 900 is really powerful, and the color mix and shape engine are wonderful.”
In addition to the lighting fixtures Gaudreau and Programmer Dominic Lemieux have a new grandMA2 light console, grandMA2 onPC Command Wing, 8- and 2-port nodes and a fiber switch.
“The support from ACT Lighting Canada and Alex Monast was super and very helpful, as always,” notes Gaudreau. Solotech Montreal was the lighting vendor with Dave Briere the Project Manager.
