Ayrton and MDG chosen for college upgrade
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Pensacola Christian College was founded in 1974 to provide a Christian-traditional liberal arts education. Named for the founder’s father, the Dale Horton Auditorium is the home of the college’s fine arts events, recitals and other programs.
“The auditorium is a 3,500-seat, multi-purpose space that mostly had technology original to its building in 1986,” says Justin Schwartz, design engineer at All Pro, an audio, video and lighting systems integrator serving the needs of organisational, commercial, educational and governmental clients nationwide. “They were overdue for a change and wanted to transform the auditorium to better serve its multiple uses.”
One goal was to replace all the conventional lighting with LEDs. “The catwalks are on two levels with the farthest at a pretty steep angle to the stage; they struggled to get good light downstage and on the thrust,” Schwartz explains. “Performers were actually trained to keep their heads tilted up to catch the light. The auditorium couldn’t change the catwalks, but they could put moving heads on automated truss.”
All Pro began by getting a generic model of the auditorium and spending 60 hours rendering the room to show new lighting placement. “They liked the idea of hanging truss out in the house and having fixtures at the proper angles for key lighting,” Schwartz recalls. “We worked with staff and administration on approvals and did more detailed renderings showing every fixture in the truss in its exact location, all custom coloured to match the ceiling.
All Pro annually sponsors a technology expo at the Pensacola Bay Centre where many leading vendors display their products. ACT attended the January 2023 expo and, at All Pro’s suggestion, brought the Ayrton Huracán LT so the college’s tech team could see it in action. “They watched it shooting 200-300 feet across the arena and were blown away by everything about it: its long throw, even, flat field and control of colour temperature. They agreed to install Huracán LTs, and Ayrton was able to custom powder coat them to match the ceiling.”
All Pro installed four fixtures on each of three new 30ft Tyler GT trusses in the upper balcony. “They are used as simple washes for downstage and the thrust, and they are also integrated with a Follow-Me system so they can act as follow spots,” says Schwartz. “Now, the Huracán LTs are in an optimal position with great output, clarity and punch onstage. The fixtures have exceeded everyone’s expectations.”
The lights will make their big debut with the college’s spring theatre staging of The Sound of Music in May 2024.
The auditorium had been using an inexpensive hazer, which was always smoky on stage, when the college tech team saw MDG’s ATMe hazer at the same All Pro expo where they had been impressed by the Huracán LTs, they were impressed anew by the MDG product.
“I have a history with MDG and knew their quality, so we installed two ATMe hazers, one running at stage left and the other at stage right,” Schwartz points out. “Now, they’re able to easily and fully haze the auditorium in 10 minutes or less and have the haze hang in the room for a long time. There’s no smoke cloud but a very even haze that feels very natural. All the theatrical lighting really pops and looks beautiful.”
