Last week I took a few flights for an open house in New Orleans (VERY humid!). As I was boarding one of the fine United 737 jets, I noticed a placard just inside the door. It noted that the plane was fitted with the new “Boeing Sky interior” (Google it). I looked around and along with larger overhead baggage bins and a higher ceiling there was all LED lighting in the cabin. It wa...

With the advent of LED fixtures being integrated into theatres, designers have and will start to use them in their original designs. Once the design is complete and the show is finished with it’s run, what next? It may go on tour and unless the light rig or the designer is traveling with the show, there may be an issue. In the pre LED days, a plot would show the color filter brands and...

As I show the new LED products around to various schools and theatres, it occurs to me that LED sourced fixtures have made equipment choices much more complex. In the old days (3 years ago?), incandescent sources had pretty much the same dimmer curves, similar wattages, color temperatures, no onboard cooling, and price ranges were a bit closer. Let’s break these down…. Dimmer cu...

I met with a lighting designer last week and he had an interesting approach to LED fixtures. He said that he prefers to use white LED fixtures and gel them to whatever color he needs. I asked him why and he gave me several reasons.
–You cannot mix all colors available in a swatchbook by using RGB or RGBA primary colors. You can get close but lighting designers prefer to be usin...

I predict! There will be a time when the Altman 360Q and the Source Four Ellipsoidal fixtures will be the most sought after fixtures in the industry! WHAAAT? Let’s look at the world of sound. There was a time that the big selling point of solid state amplifiers was that they did not have tubes to burn out and generate heat YET “they still sound the same”. Well, talk to any ...

My 17 year old son’s rock band performed at a high school “Rock Off” at the Cleveland House of Blues recently. I was standing behind the sound and light boards as that is usually the best spot for sound. The light board op had a list of cues for each group’s set when they came on. Imagine my surprise when he brought up the cue list for the lighting that my son wr...

I just read with great interest an article where some well known NYC designers were discussing the new lighting tools that are available. There was an interesting thread of concern that I noticed. When you dim LED sources, they loose the warmth that an incandescent source (amber or red shift) had. As I pondered this, I realized that it seems that the arts and entertainment ...

By now, you know that we are adding more and more LED source fixtures. We feel that it is the future (and the present) in entertainment lighting. Here is a very interesting article asking leading designers from various fields about their opinions on where lighting is going. Take some time and read it.
http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20111215/leading-luminaries

The other day, I was at a Home Depot looking at the new LED lamps sources for my living room. I was amazed at all of the new information that the manufacturers include with them now. In the old days they listed wattage and voltage (12 or 110). As we moved into fluorescents, they added cool white and sometimes daylight white (full spectrum) info. Now with LED sources, we have lumen output (pr...