HSL Invests £2 Million in New Lighting Gear

	HSL Group's Simon Stuart. Photo: Louise Stickland

UK lighting and visual rental specialist HSL has invested well over £2 million in new lighting gear -- primarily moving lights, LED fixtures, and control -- to help service its busy summer season.

Managing director Simon Stuart stated, "We have a great diversity of shows out -- from opera and the arts to concert and theatre touring to major sporting events -- and wanted to ensure that all of them had the latest and most appropriate technology at their disposal."

He adds that this is just the first such announcement that HSL will be making in coming months as the company "continues to invest in the latest cutting-edge technology."

The addition of over 500 moving lights and 400 additional LED products brings HSL's current available moving light inventory to one of the largest in the UK, which also supports and includes all the top brands.

The new moving lights are a combination of products from premium brands Robe, SGM, Martin by Harman, Ayrton, GLP, and Philips.

Forty SGM G-Spots join the HSL stock -- an IP rated fixture which is perfect for the numerous outdoor shows HSL continues to service in this summer. The new SGM P2 has also been added to complement the ever increasing range of IP rated units in the architectural lighting rental division.

Joining the already extensive stock of Robe luminaires are 30 DLX LED Spots, 60 DLF LED Washes, and 40 DLS Profiles -- the DL series is known for its silent running and therefore great for all the theatre and orchestral shows that require low noise and plenty of punch.

There are also another 20 new Robe MMX Blades and 10 MMX Spots, coupled with over 80 Robe Cyc FX8 and 16 of the very latest DL4Xs.

Boosting HSL's Martin moving light count are 25 MAC Viper Performances and 12 Viper DXs together with 24 MAC Aura XB LED washes.

They have also purchased 30 GLP X4 LED washes and 70 Ayrton Blades. The latter are out with The Prodigy on their summer festival rig, specified by lighting designer Andy Hurst, together with 300m of the new Martin Sceptron VDO 10mm LED strips also bought for Hurst's innovative design for electro gurus, Faithless.

The Philips range of Showline products continue to expand in numbers within the HSL Group, with over 150 new Showline SL350 Wash units joining the already strong line-up of Showline products currently available which includes SL640 LED Battens and another 120 SL150 LED Pars.

With all these new fixtures rocking-up at the warehouse in Blackburn, HSL also needed to boost their stock of lighting consoles. This included six new High End Systems Road Hog Full Boar consoles, four Road Hogs, and four Hog 4s ... which are being used for some of the larger shows. "Hog continues to be an extremely popular control platform," comments Stuart, "especially for lighting designers working on big rock 'n' roll shows."

The hands-on buskability of Avolites is also still a firm favorite, especially with the new generation of Avolites products launched in the last year, so HSL purchased two Avolites Sapphire Touch consoles with Wings, two Titan Network Processors, four Avo Quartz, and another four Tiger Touch IIs, according to the company "ever in demand with their ideal mix of power and portability."

HSL then added two fully loaded -- 64 DMX universe -- Martin M6s to the list.

The vast majority of the new gear has gone straight out the door on a huge variety of projects and to rental partners within the HSL Group.