STOCKTON, CA — Since arriving here for the 2005/2006 season, the Thunder hockey team has resonated with Stockton area sports fans, leading the ECHL league in attendance for four consecutive seasons. The team plays every game before a packed house at Stockton Arena, a 10,000-seat facility located along the city’s downtown waterfront. This past season, the team’s management called on Stockton-based Illuminate Production Services (IPS) to design and install a new lighting rig around the scoreboard and video screens at Stockton Arena.
“Previously, the Thunder had rented a lighting rig each season,” said Rick Franke of IPS. “But this wasn’t efficient, so they were looking to purchase their own lighting.” According to Franke, the team was looking for a solution that was lively, using color, motion and texture, and affordable.
Franke and Stephen Jester, Stockton Arena’s technical director, used lighting products from Elation Professional and trussing from Elation’s sister company Global Truss. A 51’ diameter circular truss rig was constructed with Global products to frame the arena’s Daktronics scoreboard and video screens. Sixteen Elation Design LED 36 high-output RGB LED color changing fixtures were installed in the rig as truss warmers. Additionally, six Elation Power Spot 700 CMY II 700W DMX moving heads were hung from the truss.
The DLED 36s, which are equipped with 36 1W Luxeon LEDs (12 each red, green and blue), are used to create a spectrum of RGB-blended colors to light up pre-game and intermission events. For instance, during the playing of the National Anthem, “they do a cool red, white and blue staggered look on the truss warmers,” said Franke. “The truss really pops with the LED warmers inside.”
One of the factors behind the decision to give the DLED 36s the nod was their ability to fit so neatly inside the truss. “They make great truss warmers for larger venues,” said Franke. “We use the DLED 36s with a mini clamp, and they go right inside your 12-inch box truss.” Another feature that sold the client on the DLED 36s was the control and power supply in each unit. “They liked the fact that everything was packaged in the light itself.”
The Power Spot 700s — which offer CMY color mixing, a 14°-32° linear zoom, frost, iris, prism, and color, gobo and animation wheels — are used for effects lighting. The client had originally wanted 2k fixtures, “but when we did a shootout with the (700-watt) Elation 700s, they felt they were just as bright as the competitor’s 2ks.”
Franke also chose an Elation product to control the system — Compu 2048FC PC-based lighting control software, used to sync the lighting to the arena’s Daktronics screens. The Compu software’s Easy Show time line sequencing feature also cues scenes to music and video files, and its multi-media-triggering capability helps the staff at Stockton Arena run the show.
“We’re sending the video to the Daktronics screen and playing the audio straight from the laptop,” Franke said. “And of course all the lighting cues are being triggered as well. We did the programming for the game opener, but this makes it really easy for whoever’s running the system to just be able to press the space bar — and it goes.”
After completing the Thunder project, IPS was asked to program lighting for the Lightning, an arena football team that also plays in Stockton Arena. “The Lightning liked the rig so much, they wanted to use it too,” said Franke. “They’re getting great use out of these lights.”
For more information, please visit www.elationlighting.com.
