ETC Source Four LED Series 3 Launch – Melbourne

(Lead pic – Michael Rankin, Lachlan Campbell, Duane Inocencio, and Alan Green evaluate the ETC Source Four LED Series 3)

There’s a huge backlog of events, launches, openings and get-togethers running around the country now we’re all opening back up post-COVID restrictions. The novelty of actually being in a room talking to people is still yet to fade, and in this spirit, I was delighted to attend the much-delayed official launch of theatre staple ETC’s Source Four LED Series 3 at the Melbourne Recital Centre last night.

The evening was hosted by ETC distributor Jands in the architecturally, acoustically, and visually stunning Primrose Potter Salon which, conveniently, has an all-ETC house lighting rig. Melbourne’s lighting and technical folk seemed just as happy to be at an industry event as I was, and a convivial atmosphere prevailed as we swapped COVID war stories and shared the pain of how difficult it is to staff events at the moment.

Jands’ Andrew Maher ran a tight and to-the-point demonstration of the new fixtures, highlighting how the new Deep Red chip in the eight-colour Lustr X8 array Series 3 renders more natural and accurate looks, particularly for skin tones. There’s also some other handy tricks in the new series, including NFC configuration using your mobile device and ETC’s Set Light app, which works without the fixture even being powered, and wireless DMX/RDM via the integrated City Theatrical Multiverse protocol.

Demoing a lighting fixture is often achieved by pointing the thing at a white wall, which doesn’t really emulate real-world applications. Jands have come up with a creative way around this, commissioning Sydney artist Mulga to create custom artwork for ETC and printed it on pull-up banners, which Andrew lit and then stepped through cues that showed exactly how the Deep Red chip improves colour accuracy. The custom art has also been printed on t-shirts, but you have to attend a demo to get your hands on one!

ETC owners were assured that they can use their existing lens tubes with the new range, but do recommend adopting the new XDLT tubes to get maximum output and throw. Also on show was the ETC Desire LED Fresnel, which employs the same Lustr X8 LED array as Source Four Series 3.

The final leg of the launch tour rolls into Brisbane next Tuesday 17 May. Contact Jands at https://www.jands.com.au/contact for more info.