Squeek Lights has expanded its rental inventory with the purchase of 36 ADJ Jolt Bar FX fixtures.
Squeek Lights was founded by Victor Zeiser, who continues to run the company alongside partners Ben Jarrett and Steve Kosiba. “We had a demo of the Jolt Bar FX and thought it was cool, so placed an order for 12 units,” explained Zeiser. “As soon as it arrived, and we had the chance to play with it, we immediately decided to order more! We really like it because it’s one fixture, but lets you create two layers of effects. It’s also very visual, because it’s so large, so we really love to use it as an accent fixture. For a lot of concert rigs you have your spots, your washes, your beams, and the Jolt Bar FX then allows us to add a layer of something extra – that is visually unique – which a lot of our clients really like.”
The team at Squeek Lights chose to add the fixture to its rental inventory not only because of its unique design and creative potential, but also having previously had positive experiences with other ADJ fixtures. “The first ADJ product we used was the 32 HEX Panel IP,” said Zeiser.
“We were looking for a fixture that could fill a lot of roles for us, at a really cost effective price point. We use them as strobes a lot, we like using them as blinders, the cell control lets you make a lot of great visual effects with them and, of course, they are fantastic as wash lights too. We have used them as side lights, as footlights, for visual effects and even to wash buildings, they are truly multifunctional. The IP rating is useful too; we don’t use them in the rain a lot, but they get their fair share of beer dumped on them and keep punching right through that. The magnetic frost filter is also a useful accessory, overall, it’s just a great fixture!”
An IP65-rated multi-functional fixture, the 32 HEX Panel IP is designed for both indoor and outdoor use. Following a positive experience with the 32 HEX Panel IP, Squeek Lights’ next investment with ADJ was to expand their business to offer LED video for the first time.
“At the beginning of 2022 we decided that investing in LED video walls was the next step for our company so we made a purchase of 282 ADJ VS3 panels,” stated Zeiser. “What made us choose the ADJ Vision Series in particular was that we love the ground support system. While we sometimes do full arena video walls, a lot of our clients like to take out smaller ground systems like the one we’ve set up here today [pictured top] that’s about to go out on a co-headline tour with Joywave and iDKHOW. The Vision Series ground support system lets you quickly configure and set up a floor-standing video wall without using crank-up stands or any of that nonsense – it lets you do video walls in a way that you really couldn’t before.”
He added: “We really like how Richard Fong [Lighting Designer for the Joywave/iDKHOW tour] has used this to break up the video wall – the centre screen [pictured] will be flanked by four separate 8×4 panel columns on rolling risers – which leaves space in the design to create more depth and to allow the lights to cut through in-between. Because it’s a co-headlined show, he’s also going to move the four columns between the two bands’ sets, to give each one a different look. It’s a great way of using video, and we love designs like this rather than the traditional single solid wall upstage.”
With three different ADJ products now stocked in significant quantities in the Squeek Lights rental inventory and having also used others for installation projects, Victor is now confident in the performance and reliability of the company’s fixtures. However, he wasn’t an easy sell! “I’ll admit that I was initially sceptical of using ADJ products because of the DJ association, but since deciding to give the company a try we’ve had a great experience,” he stated. “The 32 HEX Panel IPs just blew us away with their build quality. I don’t think we’ve ever had to send one of them back, they’ve proven really reliable. We’ve also had great after sales support from ADJ. When we got the HEX Panels we had a lot of designers complain about the dimming curves – they jumped on instead of dimming up from nothing – but ADJ listened, and quickly released a firmware update that fixed the problem. We were very pleased that ADJ was willing to re-tool the firmware to make lighting designers enjoy the fixtures more.”
