New Zealand’s Creative Technology, formerly Big Picture and Spot-Light Systems, is known for its imaginative productions and, as such, looks for inspiring products.
Searching for a compact, LED-based, IP-rated and reliable profile fixture, Creative Technology discovered the Ayrton Rivale and promptly purchased 36 units. This light-weight luminaire is capable of outstanding performance, unprecedented for a product in this category. Developed for mixed-use indoors and outdoors, in all conditions, Rivale Profile, with its unique visual signature, is unparalleled on the market.
“The Rivale fits in well with the rest of our inventory,” commented Matt Tong, Lighting Operations Manager NZ. “They’re just a good unit at a reasonable price, and they get used a lot. We have many outdoor festivals in the summer for which they’ll be great.”
Creative minds require creative products, and Matt says the Rivale offers versatility as well as a great gobo selection and colour palette. He also notes that Rivale’s shutters are highly accurate. As to reliability, Matt says they have performed very well.
Creative Technology also required an automated follow spot system that it could use from ground stations. The choice was between Follow Me, Macula, and the Robe RoboSpot system. Out of the three, Matt states that the Macula was the clear winner due to its ease of setup and simplicity of use.
“The Macula system is a lot easier to use than a Follow Me system for both the system tech who’s getting it up and also for the operator who is running the followspot,” he remarked. “The benefit that we saw over the RoboSpot system is that we can use it with any of our fixtures. For instance, we can use it with our Rivale, which you cannot do with the RoboSpot system.”
In choosing Macula, Creative Technology opted for future freedom, as its buying options are not limited to a single manufacturer. Nobody wants to be locked into a specific manufacturer when there are so many options available.
“Macula is a basic system, which is its main selling point,” continued Matt. “Simplicity is its best feature. I mean, it’s a follow spot. I don’t want features. I want it to point the lights where I point. I like the design of the units, they’re very intuitive, and we’ve found that operators, who are generally from a crewing company rather than technicians, can walk in and be confident operating with minimal training.”
Creative Technology has been a long-time user of Luminex data distribution equipment, adding three GigaCore 30i AV Network Switches and twelve LumiNode 12 Ethernet/DMX processors to its inventory.
“There’s a reason that everyone goes to them – it’s the reliability and ease of use,” commented Matt. “They are incredibly reliable, and compared to a Cisco switch and enterprise networking gear, they’re extremely easy to use. They use language and design that is familiar to technicians.”
Matt mentioned that the customer service from Show Technology is excellent, and they were able to come to the party in terms of pricing overall.
