Place des Arts LED Followspot Retrofit Cuts Draw

Place des Arts runs six rooms and keeps followspots parked far from the stage. The old Cyrano units still worked, but the power draw and lamp changes kept creeping into the schedule. Installers who handle similar houses know the real question is whether the new fixtures survive the same cable runs and operator habits without new breakers or extra cooling.

Power at the Throw Distance Four Arthur LT units landed in

the largest room, two more in the second. Both positions sit well back, so output had to hold without the old lamp heat load. The venue already tracked consumption across the building. Lower draw aligned with existing targets and removed one set of three-phase feeds that used to trip during load-ins. Meter readings taken before and after showed a drop from 14.2 kW peak to 6.8 kW on the same distro. That margin let the house keep its existing 400 A service without adding subpanels or running new feeders up the catwalks.

Maintenance Windows That Actually Close Lamp changes on

the prior rig often ran past the two-hour call. The LED heads drop that task to zero on the nightly sheet. Technicians still pull the units for focus and color checks, but the downtime window shrank enough that the same crew can finish before the next load-in starts. One crew member now handles the six units in under 45 minutes, compared with the previous three-person rotation that stretched into overtime.

Broadcast Beam Consistency Television calls at

Place des Arts demand steady output across

the full throw. Early tests showed the Arthur LT held edge and color temperature once the operators locked the iris and shutter stops. The units ran at 5600 K with less than 80 K drift over a four-hour opera, which matched the house cameras without gel packs or constant iris riding. One practical note for other houses: run a spare unit on the same distro during first rehearsals so any flicker or fan noise shows up before the broadcast truck is patched. In this case the spare revealed a single noisy fan that was swapped before opening night.

Focus and Alignment Checks at

Commissioning After the units were hung, the crew set

each fixture to a 45-meter throw and measured 250 lux at center beam with the iris at 50 percent. They torqued the yoke bolts to 28 Nm and confirmed 120-ohm termination on the DMX line before handing the perches back to operators. Those steps kept the retrofit inside the original two-day window.

Retrofit Without New Conduit Existing cable paths stayed in place.

The lighter heads reduced the counterweight adjustments on the followspot yokes, and the lower heat meant the ventilation grilles above the perches did not need rebalancing. Guy Levesque noted the decision rested on power, upkeep, and the light that already matched their workflow. No new racks or control nodes were required. The same 5-pin runs that fed the Cyrano units now carry both power and data to the Arthur LTs. Only the connector gender on the fixture end changed. That single swap let the house avoid pulling fresh cable through the tight vertical chase that serves the upper perches. Integrator takeaway: pull the existing distro schedule and yoke weight ratings first. If those numbers clear, the job stays inside the original labor envelope and avoids a second site visit for breaker upgrades. At Place des Arts the verification took one afternoon with a clamp meter and a torque wrench, after which the rest of the install followed the standard two-person lift sequence already used for the older gear.