MAC III Lights the Dance Floor (and the future) at BET’s First Inaugural Ball

 Black Entertainment Television (BET) held nothing back in an effort to cover and celebrate Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration ceremonies in January. Launching a series of specials and events beginning January 17 through until inauguration day, the African-American- geared network aired its first Inaugural Ball in partnership with Colin and Alma Powell’s America’s Promise Alliance (their non-profit and education-targeted organization). Singer/performer Wyclef Jean headlined the event.

The Ball was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC to a packed house who danced and celebrated amidst 16 of Martin’s MAC III Profiles and 16 of Martin’s 700 Wash lights.

 “The event was designed to be formal, with black and red as the primary hues,” explained Andrew Horodowicz, head of lighting for eventEQ, the production house chosen to light the affair. “We used MAC III’s because the wide zoom helped provide tremendous coverage despite the low ceilings. Also, a fixture was needed to not only provide excellent projections but dramatic aerial effects- something the MAC III did extremely well.”

These aerial effects are attributed to the MAC III’s entirely new gobo design, color blending with split colors and superb depth of field.

When asked about his first impression of Martin’s new profile luminaire, Dan Hoffman, Lighting Designer replied, “Bright! The 1500 lamps definitely provide quite a punch. The zoom was excellent. It enabled us to provide a lot of coverage without having a lot of fixtures.”

 MAC III uses a 1500 watt lamp dispersing over 33,000 lumens, making it richer, brighter and sharper.

 “The color palette was saturated and amazing-even the reds and blues were amazing,” continued Horodowicz. “The need to get such vibrant colors without needing to use CMY helped save a lot of time and the battery powered LED screens enabled us to quickly identify the fixtures making for a much quicker load-in.”

“The ‘fat’ lens which is unique for a profile unit is a pretty impressive visual,” added Hoffman.

Enhanced color technology and chromaticity tuning creates deeper and more vibrant colors across the color spectrum. This proved perfect for an event such as the Inaugural Ball, which was broadcast nationally.

 “We have always been huge fans of the Martin product line and have used the MAC 700 line with great success,” concluded Horodowicz. “The MAC III was the logical step for us, since we were quickly growing and needing a brighter fixture.”

 The MAC III is the perfect balance between an impressive feature list and ultimate performance as demonstrated at the Powell’s Inaugural celebration. For more information on this unique fixture, visit: www.martinpro.com.