The technical ministry of Perimeter Church in Duluth, Georgia has bolstered its lighting inventory with the purchase of seven Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200 HPEs from Bandit Lites. Perimeter Church has a large campus with seven auditoriums, including a main auditorium that seats about 2,300 people. All of them feature fully functioning audio, video, and lighting systems.

“When we were asked to raise the bar on the sets we use on our main stage for the weekend services, we quickly realized that our existing lighting inventory was not up to the challenge of lighting the new sets to the quality level they deserved,” says engineering development manager Matthew Reeves.

Reeves and the church’s technical ministry staff determined they needed the punch of a 1200-watt fixture to overcome the auditorium’s large windows. The existing inventory of moving wash fixtures and scrollers met their color needs, so they sought out high-efficiency, high-powered moving head profiles that would deliver the most bang for the buck.

Following the technical ministry’s regular scouting trip to LDI, Reeves asked Chris Barbee of Knoxville, Tennessee's Bandit Lites to arrange a shoot-out between Clay Paky and another manufacturer.

“Chris arranged for the two companies to show off their products side-by-side on our stage,” Reeves recalls. “We spent two days with the products evaluating feature sets, output, optical and color quality, serviceability, and back-end support. After seeing all there was to see, we liked a number of things about the Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200 HPEs—features such as battery-powered controls for working with the software while the fixture is in its case, the interchangeable parts between models, super-quiet operation, a smaller footprint, and, most of all, the optical quality and color rendering.”

Reeves reports, “In the end, the decision was easy—Clay Paky offered everything we needed and more, however, we were worried about the price tag. Clay Paky has a reputation for being the ‘Ferrari’ of moving lights with a price to match. But when we got the final quotes, they were actually the less expensive of the two packages we considered. So I was extremely excited to place the order for the fixtures.”

Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200 HPEs are the highlight of the company’s Alpha range of lights. Featuring a high luminosity, newly-designed effects section, color-mixing CMY, and linear 10-40 degrees zoom, the fixtures deliver professional lighting results.

Reeves finds that the Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200 HPEs work seamlessly with the church’s grandMA console and integrate well into the hang. “Our volunteers love working with them because they offer so much variety and punch,” he states. “I no longer have to ask them to avoid certain colors because they won’t pop enough. Now creativity drives their design, rather than the constraints of the fixtures.” He continues, “The sets we are building are being enhanced by the fixtures more than we ever expected. I’ve had several people say to me, ‘I saw the set when you were building it and I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but now that you’ve lit it, I think it’s the most beautiful thing we’ve ever put on our stage.’”

Perimeter Church has a history of investing in equipment from manufacturers who are “agile, responsive, and innovative,” Reeves observes. “We choose products based on real world capability, not their share of the market. The purchase of Clay Paky fixtures is one example. We also made the decision to go with the grandMA before it really took off, along with CITC hazers and Innovasion digital audio consoles. We are preparing to build our eighth auditorium, and I’m confident that these same products will find a home there as well.”

So far the Clay Paky fixtures “have been rock solid,” he reports. “We haven’t had a single failure or problem. I know well about the headache of mover maintenance, but these fixtures just work, and keep on working perfectly. They have never let me down.”