Versatile Ayrton Diablos Keep Busy at RTHAV
Cleveland-based RTHAV, a brand company of Rock The House Entertainment Group, Inc., finds its new Ayrton Diablo LED profile luminaires are flying off the shelves. “We got the second shipment of Diablos in the US, and since they arrived last summer they’ve only been in the shop a matter of days,” says Ryan Konikoff, Partner and COO in RTH. “The Diablos are proving to be a multi-purpose fixture for us.”
The entertainment and event production company does some 1,500 events annually, including corporate meetings and conferences, concerts and social engagements. The two-dozen Diablos RTHAV purchased mark their first investment in Ayrton fixtures. ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
“We were in the market for 20,000-lumen profiles and saw Diablo with ACT Lighting at the USITT trade show,” Konikoff recalls. “We had some hands-on time with the fixture and thought it was a contender. Later, we did a shoot out and our team voted Diablo the best fixture.”
The RTHAV team liked Diablo’s shuttering capabilities, strong color quality, speed, and low power consumption. They gave kudos to the four additional gobos and deep frost included with the fixtures, which give more creative options to lighting designers.
What stood out for Konikoff was the fixture’s compact size and light weight. “Our corporate work is mostly in ballrooms where the rigging is restricted and weight is a big issue,” he explains. “We usually need to spend the weight on an LED videowall, not heavy lighting fixtures.”
The first project for the Diablos was a two-month, nationwide dealer tour for Metro by T-Mobile. “It was staged in ballrooms, and the general session room had eight environments each with a different look and feel,” says Konikoff. “The Diablos did a great job lighting the speakers and the presentations recorded for video. They also handled theatrical lighting for entertainment components, like a 20-person drum corps, and for the evening recognition dinners where we needed break ups and table highlights. We had no time to rehang fixtures and couldn’t bring a lot of extra fixtures we weren’t using all the time. The Diablos were able to light the meetings, entertainment and fun dinners and make the ballrooms feel like different spaces. It’s a very versatile fixture for our inventory.”
RTH has also utilized its Diablos for the National Affordable Dental Care Conference in Las Vegas where Konikoff says they proved “nimble enough to adjust to a lot of changes to the lighting plot right up until the show.” The Diablos helped illuminate the large musical Christmas service for Grace Church in Bath, Ohio where the technical director told Konikoff the fixtures “were the best we’ve ever bought. Our rental partners are very excited about them!”
The Diablos gave a unique look to the old warehouse location of a high-profile wedding where their gobos and shuttering turned an unsealed factory floor into “a textured dance floor of light,” according to Konikoff. They played a key role in lighting the fundraising party for Firelands Regional Medical Center’s rehabilitation facility at the Cedar Point Sports Center in Sandusky. On New Year’s Eve the Diablos filled three gigs, including a community party at the Ernst & Young building in Cleveland. “The lights moved quickly among vignettes featuring 15 circus performers and then illuminated the dancing for guests,” says Konikoff.
“All of the projects for the Diablos have had great outcomes,” he reports. “ACT Lighting really held our hand as we’ve decided to get into the Ayrton product line. They’ve educated us about the different fixtures and where we’d be most at home. ACT has also been able to connect us to a rental network where we can get additional Ayrton fixtures for certain projects. ACT is a transparent and very important partner for us.”