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Chaparral High School installs Vari-Lite luminaires

The new Chaparral High School in the central Texas city of Killeen opened its doors in August 2022 with a performing arts wing designed to elevate student learning. It is equipped with an array of luminaires from Vari-Lite, a Signify entertainment lighting brand, including a Neo and Vision.Net control system, VL800, Acclaim LED and Coda LED fixtures, and Aurora LED Strips.

The arts center within the school boasts a 1,200-seater auditorium, band, choir, and orchestra rooms, a black box theater, set design workshops and teaching spaces, built by American Constructors and designed by James Fauver at PBK Architects. “Our mission was to provide an integrated, fully networked, professional standard stage lighting system that would be intuitive to learn, access and use for both students and staff”, says Erich Friend, principal consultant at theater consultancy Teqniqal Systems.

To achieve intuitive operation and wide access to the lighting system, the team installed Vision.Net touchscreens, button stations and sensors at strategic locations around the building. “We wanted granular control from every part of the building”, says Friend. “The lights in the auditorium, including the blue backstage running lights, work lights and house lights, are DMX- controlled individually. Multiple network switches feed over 73 DMX 3 Port Nodes throughout the facility.”

“Each lighting control panel is programmed to perform specific actions that relate to their specific location”, he continues. “For example, in the fly galleries, there are controls for the work lights and show running lights, and out in the entry vestibules there are entry stations, ensuring no one needs to ever walk into a dark theater. We even integrated a Ghost Light function into the houselight presets over the stage apron so the drop-off remains visible when the rest of the theater is shut-down.”

Other key aspects to the setup include a system over-ride that will put the entire theater into an automated five-minute shutdown, as well as astronomical time control with the potential to deliver hundreds of events with full day-of-the-week and calendar scheduling, which has been programmed to power down the system at a predetermined time each day.

“We’ve made some actions and control ports student-proof to ensure the venue is consistently safe for everyone”, says Todd Graham, project manager at Killeen High School. “During a show, the stage manager can take control of all the remote stations and certain control panels are recessed into the wall - or locked - so they cannot accidentally be activated.”

In the performing arts spaces, Aurora LED Strips have been chosen to illuminate the orchestra and for up-lighting or down-lighting clothes and scenery. Other luminaires installed include Acclaim LED PLE, Acclaim LED Fresnel and Acclaim LED Zoomspots, Coda LED, and VL800 Series Event Profile and Event Wash fixtures. Together, they cater for everything from dance to theater, musicals, rock music and general presentations both in the main auditorium and black box studio.

Mandy Stockhausen at representatives Bell & McCoy collaborated with Jeff O’Brien, Regional Sales Manager, Vari-Lite, at Signify, on the project, sourcing the Vari-Lite rig from dealer Batts AVL. The Vari-Lite team also delivered training on the Neo console, Vision.Net and fixtures.

(Photos: Vari-Lite)

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