SGM at Hotel Ramada Pitesti, Romania

SGM lighting fixtures and control feature exclusively in the Grand Ballroom of the new Hotel Ramada Pitesti in Romania. All the overhead intelligent lighting for the stage and auditorium floor has been supplied by SGM, and comprises six fully-featured Idea Spot 575 (with 575W discharge lamp), four Idea Wash 575, 575W moving head zoom wash lights and two IDEA Colorchanger 575s, with seven-segment color and effects wheels. These are all run off a sophisticated SGM Pilot 3000, capable of controlling up to 1024 DMX channels via two independent DMX outputs.

The contract for all the architectural and production lighting was won by Professional Sound Impact (PSi), working through Brilliant Technologies Group, and the design was conceived by PSi founder, Sorin Stanescu.

Having spent nine years as sales manager with Stage Expert, SGM's Bucharest-based distributors, during which he undertook many projects involving SGM products, Sorin was already extremely familiar with the brand and its capabilities.

"The decision to choose SGM's IDEA range for this project was based on the perfect balance between price, quality and performance," he stated. "I know from past experience that I can achieve a spectacular effect with these heads, without compromise and on a very reasonable budget."

After leaving to set up Professional Sound Impact, which is dedicated to complete system design and integration, and earning dealer status from the Italian manufacturer, he started to develop projects with Adrian Boaru, general manager of Brilliant Technologies Group -- the main contractor at Hotel Ramada.

Highly experienced in the field of surveillance, CCTV, IP TV, access control and building management systems for hotels, malls, hospitals, and casinos they needed a reliable resource for managing complex sound, lighting and video projects.

Meanwhile, a third technical company, Seven Sys Grup, oversaw the entire installation of the AV systems, applying their own custom solutions.

It was at the beginning of this year that PSi was awarded the AV contract after the Hotel Ramada Pitesti decided to develop the multi-function Grand Ballroom, with a view to staging a range of corporate events (including live shows and musical revues) for between 300-400 people.

Reviewing the installation, Sorin states, "The set-up is considered the most complete existing hotel system anywhere in Romania. No hotel in the country hotel owns this standard of equipment and installation, either indoor or outdoor."

Programming of the lighting was undertaken by the experienced Marian Morosan, managing partner of Free Lights Ltd. The system is very simple to re-patch as the installation contains three points of audio, video and lighting signal distribution --remote from the control room. Thus any event can be staged in any configuration in the Grand Ballroom area. Even before the official opening the Grand Ballroom was booked for events throughout the 2012 period.