The winners of the 2006 WFX New Product Awards were announced on Thursday, November 9 at the Worship Facilities Conference & Expo (WFX).
The WFX New Product Awards, presented by Church Production Magazine and Worship Facilities magazine, were designed to recognize the newest and most innovative building, management and technology products marketing to churches within the past year.
Best Overall Lighting Product - Jands Vista S3 and Vista APP
Best Automated Lighting Controller - Jands Vista S3 and Vista APP

AC Lighting is offering residents of Europe, the Middle East and North America the chance to win a 1024 Channel Vista S3.

What’s more if you are visiting Plasa or LDI this year you’ll also have the opportunity to enter the draw for one of two 512 channel Vista systems consisting of the Vista App software, 512 channel dongle and USB to DMX cable (PC required to operate the system not included). For the full competition rules visit the AC Lighting website. Test DBM
AC Lighting Vista competition »

Writing in the August 2006 issue of Live Design magazine, Michael Eddy says “if you want to see a console that really rethinks how a user interfaces with it, then get a demonstration of the Jands Vista consoles and try them for yourself.”

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In his review Greg Persinger, principal consultant with Design 2020 Church Media Consultants, says “I can tell you that with the graphical interface, the timeline, the drag and drop features, and the common shortcut keys, the Vista has a very easy to use and powerful clip editor that allows you to create and customize your lighting looks quickly and easily. For me, what sets the Vista apart from any other moving light console is that editing is so fast and easy.”
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Lighting Designer John Rinaldi of Stage Light Design is one of the first UK customers to take delivery of a Jands Vista S3.

The company specialises in providing a full lighting design and production service for the exhibition and corporate events market, with major clients in the broadcast, telecommunications and electronics sectors.

Intrigued by the Vista’s overall concept and philosophy, John had been following its progress with much interest, but was waiting for the launch of a more compact and affordable version which would be a better fit with his budget and regular pattern of work.
He commented: “The majority of our work is exhibitions, which usually means packing all the lighting control equipment into a tiny little cupboard space on client’s stands. The S3 is ideal for this as I can use it with a laptop to program shows on the stand, and then when I’m happy with the show I can remove it and just play back from the laptop itself - solving any storage problems.”

The S3 control surface becomes a fully operational Vista console when connected to a PC running the Vista software and fitted with a separately purchased software unlock key for DMX output of up to 8,192 channels via Ethernet.

Before ordering his S3, John rented a T2 Vista on a large rig for the Intel stand at this year’s CeBIT exhibition in Germany. The rig consisted of 80 generics, 114 LED battens, 18 Pulsar Chromastrips, various Mac moving heads and well over 1500 channels of DMX.

He commented: “I felt that both the nature of the show and the lighting design leant itself really well to Vista’s way of working. As well as generics and moving heads for lighting the main stand itself, I had 114 LED battens top lighting the enormous ceiling. The brief was to change the ceiling colour, but I went one better and choreographed the colours with the content of the video walls, using SMPTE to lock the Vista onto the Video timecode.”

John split the 114 LED battens into four separate heads per unit to achieve some very bold, dynamic colour sweeps from side to side and front to back of the ceiling. He found controlling the fixtures very easy using the Vista’s layout screen as it created almost a picture of the ceiling from separate icons representing all 456 lights.

The show was programmed by Mark Jones. Stand design and project management was by 2LK Design Ltd.

John used the Vista T2 on several other corporate events before taking delivery in May of an S3 control surface with separately purchased 1024 channel dongle software unlock key.

Lighting the team introductions for the NBA playoffs in a 442,000 square-foot arena provides some unique challenges. Kevin Stirling recently posted, on the Light Network, about his experiences with Vista and using VNC for remote control.

Reprinted with permission. Photo by Darryl Ross

“Just thought I’d take a moment to gush…

DaVinci-Fusion, Inc and I brought the Vista to Sacramento’s ARCO Arena for player introductions at games 3, 4, and 6 of the first round of the NBA Playoffs. There would have been more shows, but when you lose you take your toys and go home.

The Vista, of course, performed flawlessly and poetically again this year, but that’s not the point of this post. I wanted to make it clear how thrilled I was with the performance of the Vista under VNC control over a wireless router during programming, install, and rehearsal.

My console sits in the farthest upper reaches of the arena: Northwest corner, catwalk, 90′ above the deck. While affording a bird’s eye view, this position also creates issues with line of sight during programming (scoreboard obscures at least 15% of the house), so invariably some base foci are difficult to verify without multiple long walks around the catwalk. In the dark. At 3 am. Pinned on Rockstar Juic’d. You know how it is.

This issue is avoided with one ride down the freight elevator, and a stroll through well-lit hallways back into the darkened arena where I’ve set up my lappy running VNC at the scorer’s table. There I get full access to Vista’s desktop and, in one short session, fix all the spots I previously couldn’t see. Update some presets. Fix some cues that don’t look as cool from the floor as they did from the air. Run the show again from another perspective. Ah, freedom.

All that says nothing of the time I save on load-in. I used to set up the console once downstairs to verify the rig pre-fly, and then again upstairs with the rig at trim. Now there’s only one set-up upstairs; control is verified from the deck pre-fly and at trim via PC.

Nor does it tell of the assured smiles and dulcet tones I receive from our client, the Kings’ Director of Event Presentation, when I can sit next to him during his rehearsals and be present for all discussions of content not necessarily transmitted over comms. Additionally, if I’m on the floor, my sales manager can talk to me and still collude with the powers that be. That makes him feel better. That, in and of itself, makes my life easier.

In short, don’t be afraid to VNC your Vista. I ran that sucker wireless at a good 500′ range in a building filled with steel and other wireless systems running rampant. Lag was sometimes noticeable, but not prevalent. I didn’t feel secure enough to run the show from the lappy due to the lag, but it may have worked. More experiments with same are forthcoming.

VNC your Vista. Make a love connection.”

Christ’s Church of the Valley in Arizona wanted to make their message even clearer to the congregation of 10,000 people, so they invested in a multi-million dollar lighting, video and audio system.

Director of Lighting, Brett McFarland, explains why he chose a Jands Vista console to control their state of the art lighting system:

“Part of our mandate is to always promote excellence. However, we are in the unique position that we often have inexperienced operators. With a modern console, you can imagine the headaches this can cause. Add the fact that we run four services a weekend and have events happening throughout the week, and providing excellence is a tall order. With the Vista we are able to train a volunteer operator to run and program the console in about 30 minutes versus several days, and the copy and paste functions combined with the timeline features have cut my programming time in half.”

Lighting designer Paul Normandale and programmer Rob Sinclair (pictured) chose the Jands Vista for the recent international tour of BRIT-award winning band Keane. We asked them why they chose the Vista.

Rob Sinclair: “Adding and removing lights to suit each venue was a breeze: the copy, paste and extract features alone make it worth switching to the Vista. But quite apart from its unique features, the desk performed faultlessly throughout the tour and was a true pleasure to use”.

Paul Normandale: “As any programmer will tell you, the worst aspect of any tour is constantly re-programming the desk to suit every house rig. The Vista’s generic fixture model was very impressive – it just took our fixture data and adapted it to each rig. The amount of time we saved was significant”.

Few venues host such a diversity of acts as the Royal Albert Hall. With orchestral performances, rock and pop concerts, circuses, ballets, even tennis, the Hall is unquestionably one of the most demanding venues in the world.

As Technical Show Manager Mark Jones put it, “When we decided to upgrade our lighting console, we knew we needed a desk that could adapt to all kinds of productions. The Vista was the only console that met all our requirements.

With the Vista we can build our designs visually from start to finish, and we can program it so quickly we have much more time to try different things.

The Vista gives us the flexibility and control we need to deliver far more for our clients in the same amount of rehearsal time, and that’s a winning formula.”

Visitors to the MINI Stand at the 2004 Birmingham Motor Show were treated to a truly unprecedented light show, courtesy of Essential Lighting and the revolutionary Jands Vista console.

EL’s Managing Director and Lighting Designer Martin Locket (right), together with Moving Light Programmer Martin Seymour (left), were looking to do something totally different with this show:

“The Jands Vista opened up lots of new possibilities. We were able to create all sorts of effects such as multiple offset wipes incredibly quickly. We had 300 cues in an eight-minute show, and some of those we would simply never have attempted on any other console.

If you want to create a truly innovative show without hours of number crunching, the Vista is the only console for you.”

Click on thumbnails for more images