Gearhouse Splitbeam invests in Ayrton Rivale Profile for South African production of Mamma Mia!
Theatre and professional rental specialist, Gearhouse Splitbeam of Johannesburg, has made its first investment in Ayrton, purchasing a consignment of new Ayrton Rivale Profile fixtures from Ayrton’s South African distribution partner, Planetworld.
The decision came after a concerted post‐pandemic fact‐finding mission to secure the best new LED moving lights with which to update Splitbeam’s aging lighting stock, spurred on by the impending requirements of Showtime Management’s production of Mamma Mia! later in the year and a need to increase its stock of LED moving lights. Departing from its traditional manufacturers, Splitbeam decided in favour of Ayrton Rivale Profile following a shoot‐out between major manufacturers’ products and a visit to the Ayrton factory just ahead of the launch of Rivale Profile.
“We are essentially a theatre and long‐ term lease company working only on theatre productions, and therefore concerned with the finer details of moving lights,” explains Splitbeam’s managing director, Alistair Kilbee. “Previously we’d experienced problems with colour mixing in LED moving heads, but Michael Althaus (Ayrton’s Global Sales Director) promised me Rivale would solve these problems. And he was right!
“I was blown away by Rivale – compared to everyone else on the market, Rivale is a phenomenal fixture that ticks all our boxes. The inclusion of a progressive CMY colour discs to control the intensity of colour removes any ‘halo’ effect, and is especially effective with the pastel colours we use in theatre. It’s a white light source, which is the only solution in my opinion, and a nice ‘medium’ size light which fits nicely into a theatre grid without taking up a lot of space. In theatre we are very picky about the finer points like this and the improvement in the colour mixing is in keeping with the rest of Rivale’s build quality, which is lovely.
Kilbee placed his first Rivale Profile order with Mike Summerfield of Planetworld for 36 units which immediately went out on tour with Showtime Management’s production of Mamma Mia! “We are very happy with purchase. The IP65 rating is definite advantage going forward and especially useful for cross hiring with our parent company which works largely in rock and roll.”
.jpeg)
Comments