USA – Port Lighting Systems in Seabrook, New Hampshire has taken delivery of 16 Clay Paky Alpha Spot QWO 800s for its inventory. The company offers entertainment lighting production services for special events, corporate meetings, trade shows, concerts, theater and social events.
The Alpha Spot QWO 800s are an 800w light source featuring the latest MSR Platinum lamp. “We purchased them for production and rental,” says Port Lighting Systems President Todd Gerrish. “We’re more of a production company than a rental house. We have in-house designers and work with outside designers, too. We select fixtures primarily for the kinds of jobs we work on; we do a lot of event lighting and need fixtures that are versatile. We want to have an inventory of products that will work best for our clients.”
Port Lighting Systems carefully considers each new addition and holds shoot outs of various fixture brands to determine the best choice. “We check the fixtures pretty thoroughly,” says Gerrish. “We were looking for a bright, mid-range fixture and had seen the 800 once before. We liked the specs and liked the look of it; it was a good candidate to add to our inventory. So we arranged a shoot out.”
Gerrish and his colleagues were impressed by a number of the 800’s features. “It has really quality optics; the prism is really nice,” he reports. “The light is even throughout the prism, which we didn’t see in other lights. The zoom range was important as well – we do a lot of jobs in short-throw venues and wanted something that would work well in all locations.”
The Port Lighting team also cited the fixture’s autofocusing systems. “The light stays sharp no matter what the zoom area is,” Gerrish notes. “Color correction was very smooth, and the frost was great.”
They also remarked on how quiet the fixture is and liked the balance of brightness to size and weight. The output of the animation wheel also came in for plaudits.
“The QWO 800 seems to be really well thought out, well designed and well made from top to bottom,” Gerrish declares.