Fixtures deployed on major events, including Glastonbury and Oppenheimer launch

Impact Production Services (IPS) has bolstered its vast inventory of stage structures and lighting fixtures with the first 100 new impression X5 IP Bars from GLP, available for hire.

Large quantities of these were immediately dry-hired to two high profile events, the Glastonbury Festival and the Oppenheimer film premiere at the Odeon in Leicester Square, London, as well as making a high-profile appearance with Afrobeats star Wizkid at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (with inventory provided by Entec Live).

IPS owner and key account director, James Mason, along with managing director Karl Saunders first saw the new fixture on demonstration at this year’s Prolight + Sound show in Frankfurt and were sufficiently impressed to place an order, making them the first company in the world to have them in hire stock.

The fully featured impression X5 IP Bar is an IP65-rated, linear LED batten with 18 powerful 40W RGBL LEDs, a wide zoom range, and the new GLP iQ.Gamut colour-calibration algorithm, which creates perfect white spectrums with excellent colour rendering.

The new squared-lens design ensures maximum lumen efficiency and gives an unprecedented curtain of light at its narrowest angle of just 4.5° while delivering smooth and homogenous washes all the way out to its widest 60° wash. At the same time it offers GLP’s patented fast-tilt movement in combination with seamless pixel pitch across fixtures, and features wired and wireless control as standard.

It really showed its power and colour saturates in Leicester Square Gardens for the Oppenheimer launch, where 29 of the battens were used to highlight the logo. Production was undertaken by long established customer Limited Edition Event Design, whose technical projects manager, Richard Godin, was responsible for the lighting design.

The designer explains: “We were looking for a way of amplifying the huge landscape screen content and pushing some of that energy out into the main carpet guests and crowd. We needed an outdoor fixture that could pack a punch and have minimal height to enable there to be a clear view of the bottom of the screen.

“I had seen the GLP X5 IP Bar at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt and was really impressed with the sharp beam edge achieved when used at the smallest beam angle. There was no miscellaneous light spill at all.

“The new colour chip also allowed me to dynamically pulse subtle warm ambers and sepias through to a cool white explosion of colour. All broadcast shots of the stage really benefited from a small, synchronised tilt sine wave, allowing the long curtain of light to gently colourise the talent being interviewed –  and all this was in daylight. I can’t wait to put the fixture through its paces in darkness!”

While IPS acted as renter for the X5 IP Bars, it built the Layher structure used to support the 33m long × 6m high × 2m deep structure. The 29 impression X5 IP Bars formed a long line underneath the huge 28m × 4m LED screen that was assembled to this structure. The premiere, at the Odeon, Leicester Square, took place earlier than usual, and was timed specifically to enable the stars walking off the carpet to coincide with the start of the screenwriters’ strikes.

IPS marketing manager, Tom Warden, says the new fixture had certainly created a great impression. “It’s great to have an IP-rated linear batten,” he says. “It really is aggressively bright and it’s certainly noticeable when you put it up alongside our impression X4 Bar 10s and X4 Bar 20s.”

Since IPS divide its own production work with dry hire on approximately a 50/50 basis, Warden sees enormous potential going forward. “As we come out of the summer season, customers are starting to think about their Christmas shows. We are doing a lot of light trails, and we will target them at customers specialising in that and other outdoor work, whereas other customers might be doing pantos, and they would actually make a lovely groundrow as well,” he smiles.

Warden also notes the changing mood of the market. “As the colours get better and better, people no longer want just the white chip with their RGB; they now want something else so they can colour match a bit better. Because products of the X5 Series have the lime chip, it’s nice that designers wanting an uplighter can get the subtleties of the pastel range, as well as the raw power of the new LED engines.

“Customers regularly come to us requesting X4 Bar linear battens, so we’re hoping the impression X5 IP Bar will be the IP go-to now. We did look at other options but as soon as customers know we’ve got these GLP IP X5 Bars it becomes an easy sell. Hopefully it will become a bit of a benchmark in that sector.”