Pictured: Dreamedia’s Clay Paky gear at the Seaside Sounds Beach Music Festival

Darwin’s Dreamedia Events now has a Clay Paky package comprising of eight Sharpy, eight A.leda B-EYE K20 and eight Mythos fixtures. Managing director Chris O’Brien comments that he was first drawn to Clay Paky because the brand had a reputation for robustness and reliability.

“Up here in the Northern Territory all technology is up against the elements,” he said. “You really have to thoroughly research for fixtures that will survive in 100% humidity, be able to function under extreme dust, be easy to clean and are light in weight.”

Chris further said that the rental market in Darwin is very small so any fixtures purchased are primarily for his own inventory.

“We’re a corporate events company so we need fixtures that are very low maintenance because I can’t afford to send gear down south to get fixed,” he added.

“It’s a ten day turn around to get something to Sydney and let’s say it gets fixed in two weeks, hypothetically that light is out of action for a month.”

Chris’ initial purchase of Clay Paky Sharpys was the company’s first step into the professional market having previously been only able to afford cheap Chinese fixtures. The decision to spend so much money was a major one for the company.

“We only have about 250,000 people in the entire Northern Territory which is smaller than many towns in Australia,” he remarked.

“I have to admit the Sharpy sat on our shelves for a year without being rented once, however we kept taking it out on our own shows which stimulated and educated the market up here. Our Sharpys are now our most rented fixture!”

The Sharpy has 14 colours and 17 gobos, but the shape of their beams may be altered to achieve spectacular mid-air effects, since the gobos are on the same wheel. The extremely small, lightweight Sharpy can be placed anywhere, on trusses for live events and shows, on stages, in showrooms or in conference rooms.

The diversity offered by the A.leda B-EYE K20 is what attracted Chris to this fixture. The Clay Paky B-EYE K20 has a total of 37 RGBW LEDs, which can be controlled individually. It is brighter than any LED-wash with the same rated power thanks to its special optical unit with an impressive lumen to watt ratio. The zoom ranges from 4° to 60°, making it suitable both for smaller venues with low ceilings and for arena shows.

“Not only can you use it as an extraordinary wash light, you have the pixel mapping abilities which is great for dance parties and it performs very well,” Chris said.

“As I said, we’re a small market but I can put the K20’s on any event.”

The highly versatile Mythos is both a 470 watt-lamp spotlight producing a sharp, perfectly defined light beam and an extraordinary beam light which allows users to switch to a minimum fixed beam angle of just 2.5°.

It was this versatility that sold the Mythos to Chris who loved the hybrid feature of the light and he commented how good they are for gala dinners to achieve big room looks.

“They deliver big beams and big gobo looks, which other fixtures may be able to do better BUT do not offer the versatility of the Mythos,” said Chris.

“They have a huge zoom range meaning they can perform as a spot or wash. Mythos are certainly not a one-trick pony and give us beams, aerial effects, washes, eye candy and reliability.”

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