# Newsflash: Genlyte buys Strand



## pacman (Jul 11, 2006)

Genlyte (Entertainment Technology, Vari-Lite & a bizillion other mostly architectural lighting brands) is buying Strand's U.S. & Hong Kong operations & some in the U.K. (http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2006/07/10/daily12.html) & (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060711/cltu062.html?.v=51).


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## koncept (Jul 11, 2006)

im not sure if this is good news or bad for those of us using strands. i will assume they are going to continue to support them and keep that product line going. from what i have heard varilight is rather nice but expensive.... i think this might open the door for a few new inovations between a couple of companies there.


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## Footer (Jul 12, 2006)

koncept said:


> im not sure if this is good news or bad for those of us using strands. i will assume they are going to continue to support them and keep that product line going.



They will not be dumping the lighpallete series anytime soon, after all they just rolled out a new console and it looks like they will be rolling out another by the end of this year or begining of next year. They have a large market hold of theatres that will not be going away any time soon. I do not believe this will hurt strand. I also hope that it pushes along ACN due to the agreement with VL. We shall look and see but I believe this is a huge step forward for both companies.


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## pacman (Jul 12, 2006)

My experience years ago with Strand was not favorable, so I've not purchased any Stand equipment since. At the time, they were not providing support for recently discontinued equipment but were more than willing to sell me a replacement; I said "no thanks!" Additionally, everyone I spoke to at Strand about the problem was snotty. It's been just over 10 years, so things may have changed to some extent. I did hear a story from my primary lighting vendor about a problem they were having back in the spring with Strand supporting a unit in use at the CNN store in Atlanta. You would think Strand would think twice about pissing-off Time-Warner!

I switched to ETC following my problem with Strand & for the most part, have been a happy camper. My understanding is ETC still provides parts & support for everything they've ever sold. Now that's customer service!


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## Pie4Weebl (Jul 12, 2006)

I don't think the qaulity or product line will change all that much. From the looks of what the company that purchased it, they don't currently own a company that produces conventional fixtures, so its not like there is a product line they could be meshed into.

Something that probably won't happen but would be neat is if you could purchase upgrade components for strand lights from Vari*lite, or if they made a cheap vari*lite/shakespeare combo ala the S4 revolution.


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## Pie4Weebl (Jul 12, 2006)

pacman said:


> I switched to ETC following my problem with Strand & for the most part, have been a happy camper. My understanding is ETC still provides parts & support for everything they've ever sold. Now that's customer service!



Haha, no. We own an Insight 1 board that we use as a back up and used in our blackbox before we got a new colortran board for that space and getting support was impossible. The Insight 1 used a DB9 connector for the monitors output and ETC was no help at all in trying to figure out where we could get a working monitor for it or an adapter to make it work on a current monitor.


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## lightbyfire (Jul 12, 2006)

Wow, that really surprised me. I dont know whether I think this is good or bad. (seeing as how strand is supposed to come out to our theatre in two weeks to mod our system). I hope the costomer service is improved. I am also excited for the potential for hybrid development with veri-lite.


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## Kelite (Jul 14, 2006)

http://www.fifenow.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1015&ArticleID=1625295 
This news article seems fairly detailed. The last sentance speaks volumes- "Nobody from Strand Lighting Ltd was available for comment."


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## pacman (Jul 14, 2006)

Wow, crash & burn! Too bad their employees got screwed in the process!


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## ship (Jul 15, 2006)

I'm currently half way thru Fred Bentham's "Sixty Years of Light Work an Autobiography". Anyone else cracked the cover yet? Granted the first 50 pages meanders thru the important points more than I could hope to especially in a local to London type of way, it's even given the diversions a great book in a huge way.

Perhaps in respective to this companie's long history, this new buy out is not so much an issue and perhaps could at some time become a good thing. Also news of this month's PLSN was the retirement of one of the Canadian Strand senior staff. Big company, long history. Not always the most other than overly large sale customer friendly over the recent years. Management changes along with ownership and pherhaps as opposed to a bad thing, it could be a good thing TBA. If nothing else, more of the same and no real differnce.


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## hans44 (May 15, 2007)

Pie4Weebl said:


> Haha, no. We own an Insight 1 board that we use as a back up and used in our blackbox before we got a new colortran board for that space and getting support was impossible. The Insight 1 used a DB9 connector for the monitors output and ETC was no help at all in trying to figure out where we could get a working monitor for it or an adapter to make it work on a current monitor.


That's odd. I've talked with a few ETC reps, and one even said that ETC was thinking of buying Strand, but the deal fell through because "any product sold through ETC will be supported indefinitely." Maybe your local rep was at fault.
As for the monitor, Radio Shack sells plenty of adapters. What you would need is a DE-9M to DE-15F adapter. That would allow you to hook up to any modern monitor.


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