Fred Foster introducing the LED Source 4

ETC hosted their first-ever CUE (Create, Understand, Experience) conference this week, and used the opportunity to train, entertain, and debut new products. On Monday, ETC introduced their new Gio console and then on Tuesday, during his keynote address, Fred Foster (founder and CEO of ETC) debuted the new ETC LED Source 4.

CalArts lighting student and Oregon Shakespeare Festival intern Daphne Mir has been attending the conference and blogging on the experience for TheatreFace.com. The details and pictures of the new console and luminaire are taken from her posts. You can find her posts on TheatreFace.com here.

The LED Source 4’s were masked from audience view, and no one was allowed a close-up look at them.

Fred Foster personally introduced the LED Source 4 during his keynote address on Tuesday. During the question period after his keynote Foster started musing about what an LED Source 4 would have to accomplish if it did exist. While he did a clean, pleasant white light filled in Foster, and a crisp, sharp shuttered rectangle began pulsing the saturated colors the product would have if it existed. Along with the shutters, color mixing, and smooth output, Foster said a "kick-ass daylight white" would be integral, and another area of light appeared, featuring a gobo bearing that same text. Both fixtures were very bright, and handled the sharp edges of the shutters and gobo beautifully. He then, of course, directed the audience’s attention to the Source 4 LED fixtures that were hanging, masked, in the grid, which had been used throughout the keynote. No one was allowed a close-up look at the fixtures. Estimated ship date is within nine months, and current Source 4 lens tubes are compatible.

ETC’s new Gio console.

ETC’s new Gio console is based on its EOS model and uses the EOS OS, but is meant to be a mid-level console. It has a very thin form-factor with two very-thin built-in multi-touch screens. The angle of the screens can be adjusted for many viewing angles. The softkeys have moved down from being a part of the LCD touch screens and down to hard buttons on the console. The screens look to hold a lot more data with the new features in the upcoming 2.0 version of the EOS software. The Gio’s four encoder wheels use a section of the screens to display their programming. Aside from the two built-in displays, the console supports three external displays. As Gio aims to propel and excel in the mid-range console market, it features dual DMX ports as well as ETC Net3. Gio is expected to join the EOS family this September.

For more info about ETC, please visit www.etcconnect.com