Check out our current Rental Specials and more.

CSL President and CEO George. B. Studnicky III:

Today “we’re like three companies in one big happy pile,” he laughs. They handle exclusive lines, their manufactured line, and then also maintain service and lighting production services.

• Creative Stage Lighting: “Making The Magic Happen” for Close to 35 Years

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Greetings,

Well here we are about to close out another year. Thank You for all of your Support, Friendship and Patronage in 2011. While we offer the finest products in the industry because we want to, without you, there would be no Creative Stage Lighting. All of us continue to find ways to earn your trust and we enjoy developing new methods to better care for you. If we ever fall short in meeting your needs please let us know.

2011 was a busy year as we progressed toward recovering the sales levels attained in 2008. We implemented our Strategic Plan in January. Our intention is to narrow our focus and product offerings in an effort to improve our overall product knowledge and fulfillment efficiencies.

Thank you for visiting with us at LDI 2011. It was a very exciting show. Having AVOLITES, Coemar and Kinesys on our booth for the very first time in addition to our other exclusively distributed product lines kept us all extremely busy. Since then, we have followed up on the inquires and we have been visiting with you, our Dealers, nonstop at Private Demonstrations, Public Open Houses and accompanying you on sales calls. This flurry of activity will continue right up until December 23, the last day we will be open before we break for the Holidays.

Right now we have our Sales Engineer and Factory Service Staff attending training seminars overseas. As we move into 2012, we find ourselves using more refined sales and demonstration processes which will help you as well to be more effective and efficient in presenting our product lines. 2012 will be the second year of our Strategic Plan and our Executive Management team is currently reviewing how well we executed in 2011 and setting up the next layer of tactics in need of deployment.

Our manufacturing turn around times improved in 2011 and will continue to improve in 2012. We are also well into the diligence phase of determining what our new, larger home in 2012 will include. Recently, our site plan was approved by the Town and next will come the approval of the Adirondack Park Agency. Since winter is nearly here, we will likely delay breaking ground until the spring. 2011 was also a tremendous growth year in both leased assets available through our Rental and Production division and new Product lines. Avolites honored us with their Best New Distributor Award at PLASA. We also received final approval from UL on our first production run of Dura-Power Racks.

We truly realize you are the driving force behind our efforts and growth and we All Thank You! May You and Your Families Enjoy the Love and Comfort of each others company this Holiday and Have a Very Healthy and Rewarding 2012.

All the Best,
George

We will be closed for the final week of 2011, starting 12/26. We will resume our normal office hours on January 3rd, 2012.

If you have an emergency during this time please call us at (518) 251-3302. We’ll list instructions for CSL Dealers and CSL Rental clients if there’s an urgent need.

Whatever you celebrate—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, and many more—we wish you the best of times. Thank you for a wonderful 2011 and have a prosperous 2012.

Jim Kumorek on the Tiger Touch:

The Tiger Touch console could be ideal for churches that operate “on the fly” and don’t always follow a set order.

• Lighting Review: Avolites Tiger Touch Lighting Control Console

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• LDI 2011 Set

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“Kinesys’s rigging technology is an excellent complement to all of the products we distribute,” said Creative Stage Lighting President George. B. Studnicky III. “We’re happy to offer Kinesys through our dealer network.”

The addition of Kinesys to Creative Stage Lighting’s product offering is significant as interest in variable speed rigs, motion control with media servers, and rigging safety grows. Kinesys designed and supplied the motion control system that moved and shaped the transforming video screen for U2′s 360° world tour as well as the Rolling Stones Licks world tour.

“Everyone here at Kinesys is really looking forward to working on an exclusive basis for the US market with all the enthusiastic industry professionals at CSL.” said Mark de Gruyter of Kinesys.

Kinesys is exhibiting with Creative Stage Lighting at LDI 2011. Creative Stage Lighting is at booth #221.

Links

• Kinesys

Avolites User Gary Guberman

Accommodating traveling lighting designers in a new venue is not an easy task, but when when Gary Guberman, Assistant Director of Technical Services and resident Lighting Designer at the Peppermill Casino was given this challenge for Peppermill’s Tuscany Events Center and Wendover Concert Hall he chose Avolites’s Pearl 2010 console.

“I’ve been using the Pearl 2010 for over two years now,” said Guberman. “We had many touring lighting designers requesting this console. It made sense to purchase the console and share it between both locations. Once we received it I started to use it myself for most shows.”

From Conception To Reality

“We base each design on the show coming in,” said Guberman. “If there isn’t a touring lighting designer with the show then I will come up with a design to fit the act as well as utilize the full range of our in-house equipment.”

The standard rig, which includes 60 ETC Source 4 PARs each upstage and downstage, 8 Vari-Lite VL3000 Spots, 6 VL3500 washes, 12 High End Systems Studio Command 1200s, and Color Kinetics Colorblast 12s, are fully controlled by the Pearl 2010.

With the help of the Pearl 2010, Guberman recreates each touring production for the Peppermill’s venues. “In Reno our challenge is that we build each event from scratch,” said Guberman. “We try to match the touring band’s vision on what the show should look like.

The AVOLife

The Peppermill purchased the Avolites Pearl 2010 to fulfill the requests of traveling lighting designers. After using one, Guberman understands why the Pearl 2010 received so many requests.

“The (Pearl 2010) is very intuitive,” said Guberman. “It gives me a lot of flexibility in automated control as well as still having manual control as needed. The roll-a-cue makes changing pages extremely easy, giving me more access to more cues quickly.”

“I love the built-in touch screens and the ability to see images of the video clips or gobos, or to create your own to make playback run smoother.”

However, Guberman’s love of the Avolife doesn’t stop at the Pearl 2010. “I am quite interested in the new Sapphire Touch coming out soon. I plan on getting more into Media servers and LEDs and think it could be a great console to make programming easier. I had a brief tutorial on it at LDI and was blown away. I also love the new Avolites Pearl Expert with the Expert Touch Wing. Everything about it takes the Pearl to the next level.”

About Gary

Guberman started his lighting design career at a young age at the Bronx High School of Science designing lights for local bands in the school’s auditorium and working in television production. He went on to Major in Theatre and Minor in TV production at SUNY New Paltz.

Pink Floyd has been a huge influence on him. “They are the reason I got into this business in the first place.”

“I love the variety of different shows that I do — corporate, ballet, theater, concerts,” said Guberman. Guberman toured for over six years with World Championship Wrestling working on the WCW Monday Nitro show. One notable experience on tour was for an insurance convention in Cancun. “I had a rig of Intellibeams. We had KC and the Sunshine Band as the surprise talent and the people were expecting Frank Sinatra.”

One Piece Of Advice

Guberman believes it’s important to keep up with the technological changes in the entertainment production industry. “As soon as you think you got it the next thing comes out and it’s time to start learning again. But it is a challenge I look forward to.”

“I also love to teach the next generation of technicians — pass onto them the knowledge they will need if they choose this for a career.” When asked what advice he’d offer to up and comers, Guberman states “Keep learning. Lighting is continuously moving forward, but the basics are still important. You still need to know the how and the why.”

“To me, lighting is an art, and sometimes people forget that. You are painting your picture with light and no matter the size of your show you still are a part of the production. When the audience enjoys the show you can take pride in the fact that you had a hand in it.”

From left to right, Steve Warren of Avolites, Phil Blue of Avolites, Kevin Loretto of Creative Stage Lighting, Rick Salzedo of Avolites, and Koy Neminathan of Avolites

We were very happy to learn that Avolites named Creative Stage Lighting Outstanding New Distributor at their PLASA 2011 dinner. This came just about six months after Creative and Avolites US distributor agreement.

Lots of new things have been going on with Avolites. They’ll be at our LDI 2011 booth (Booth 221), so stop by and see the latest from Avolites, including Avolites Immersive.

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