USA – Lighting designer Jason Rothberg has selected the Clay Paky Alpha Spot QWO 800 fixtures for the current tour of indietronica band Passion Pit. Atomic Lighting of Lititz, Pennsylvania supplied the lights, which are garnering raves from Rothberg on the road.
Passion Pit is continuing its national tour after releasing its second LP, “Gossamer.” More dates are planned for 2013.
“I’ve never toured with Clay Paky lights, but these have been fantastic,” Rothberg reports. “They’re different from other lights of this type. They are smaller and brighter, and the zoom is amazing. They can go from a super tight beam to a super fat beam in an instant. They’re brighter than anything else we’ve encountered.”
Rothberg, who is also the tour’s lighting programmer, had previous positive experiences with Clay Paky 700 fixtures but calls the 800 units “even better.” He’s deploying them in a V-shape in truss towers “like a pyramid. The rig wraps around the band – they like to be tight together.”
Clay Paky’s Alpha Spot QWO 800 uses the latest MSR Platinum lamp, an 800W light source that produces an intense sparkling light – brighter even than older 1200W lamps. The Alpha Spot QWO 800 is equipped with optical features placing it at the top of its class, including a very wide zoom range from 7.6º to 55º. The fixture is small, lightweight, silent and has low power consumption making it an excellent tool for TV, theater, corporate events and many other demanding lighting applications.
Rothberg also praises the fixtures’ gobos, which offer “a lot of great looks. The focus zoom is awesome, too – in gobo you can zoom in and out and it stays in focus.”
The QWO 800s have been performing well on the road, he says. “We haven’t had any issues. I haven’t taken the spares out of the truck.”
A.C.T Lighting is the distributor for Clay Paky in North America.
Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky Area Manager for North and Latin America, comments, “We’re proud to see the QWO 800s have been embraced so quickly. I look forward to seeing the fixture on many more tours.”