Acme Stage Par 100
Road Test

John and Gary had both seen and loved the Acme Stage Pars when an act brought them into the venue last year. They both commented how much they looked and felt like a traditional Parcan. When the venue’s committee gave the upgrade project the green light, Acme distributor ULA Group brought in some demo units. As soon as they turned them on, Gary said “Yes, that’s it.” We ordered 29 colour models, and eight of the warm white variation. All of us usually dislike LED Pars; particularly the ‘dotty’ look of the individual LEDs. As the Stage Par 100s have the single adjustable lens, they look almost exactly like a traditional Parcan. As part of the refit, we actually left some of the old cans up there, and the Stage Par 100s fit in beautifully. Their output is comparable, too.

I’ve been particularly impressed by the five position zoom selector. There’s a tab inside the ring of the can that slots into grooves. You just reach in there, move it to the position, and you can vary the beam angle to five positions ranging from 7° to 25°. It’s smooth and easy to change. You can fly the lighting rig in, change some beam settings, and it’s like it’s a different rig. The beams are great; from wide to very narrow. Even though we’ve got the front hung high and set wide, we are still on the middle setting, as we are upstage, and the coverage is phenomenal.

While we did have initial plans to use more of the warm white only fixtures, we discovered that the colour mixing on the Stage Par 100 Colours produced excellent warm and cool whites. We’ve ended up with four warm white and four colour models on the front bar, which is creating the right kind of white for the corporates. I’m more rock’n’roll, so I’ve ensured there’s also lots of colour up the front, and the stage is covered with plenty of punch. Once you add the warm whites on top of the colours, you have a crazy amount of light!

Later, we went on the Acme factory tour. Their facility is staggering. It’s like metal and wood goes in one end, and lights in road cases come out the other; they do everything. There’s a hotel on site, worker’s accommodation, and a shopping centre. Their quality control is also impressive; there’s QC staff at every stage of production checking work at every step of the way, which is one of the reasons they OEM for other manufacturers.
Acme had 40 Stage Par 100s mounted in the roof of a demo room. They ran a demo that looked like 1980s Queen lightshow, and I was sold. It just so happened we had a gig coming up that wanted a huge amount of Parcans with racks and racks of dimmers, and we knew there had to be a better way. We bought 84 of the warm white model and retired our old Parcans and dimmers. Now, wherever LDs want ordinary Parcans, we put these in.

We find that LDs that use them want to recreate those classic looks from the 70s and 80s. The first time we sent them out they were in pods of 16 each, and it looked like an aggressive, old-school light show. The single source, lens, and attention to detail in the design is responsible for their success in
replicating the original. People who used to shy away from LED cans because they think they’re cheap or the physical look isn’t right are converted when they see the Stage Par 100.

The Stage Par 100s can sit next to real Par64s and blend right in, while having all the advantages of LED. You can daisy chain power, there’s no heat, you don’t melt gels, you don’t blow lamps, and you don’t have to change lamps when the LD decides they want the back truss to be NSP. Lamps are so hard to come by now anyway, so all that messing about is gone.