COVID-19 Update: ACT Lighting's ACT Academy Offers Free Online Courses Until June 1 for grandMA Users

ACT Lighting's online learning platform, ACT Academy, is offering free courses until June 1 for MA Lighting's new grandMA3 console as well as legacy courses for the grandMA2 desk. More than 12,000 people registered for instruction during the first week of sign up.

"We're overwhelmed by the response of our new ACT Academy promotion," says Doug Mekanik, Southeast regional sales for ACT Lighting, Inc. "Two pillars of our company have always been support and training. Once we saw the reduction in production, especially among freelancers, due to the COVID-19 pandemic we asked ourselves how can we help educate people while they're at home? So, we decided to offer free courses through ACT Academy and have been amazed by the response."

"During this difficult time for the industry we're glad to be able to offer grandMA users worldwide the opportunity to sharpen their skills and learn the new grandMA3 with our free online courses," says Ben Saltzman, president and CEO of ACT Lighting, Inc. "We're all in this together, and we hope that taking advantage of ACT Academy online learning now will be helpful to everyone once business gets back to normal."

ACT Academy launched at LDI 2017 with online courses for the grandMA2 and has grown to offer a roster of classes designed to increase the mastery of grandMA users at every skill level. Built from the ground up, the classes are led by expert instructors through video tutorials and lesson quizzes, which can be accessed at any time and at the individual user's own pace.

New at ACT Academy are two comprehensive courses for the grandMA3 platform: grandMA3 Pro Beginner, for users with little or no experience on the grandMA console, and grandMA3 Pro Conversion, for those migrating to the system from the grandMA2. grandMA3 Pro Beginner comprises four hours of instruction and is valued at $395. grandMA3 Pro Conversion has more than two hours of instruction and is valued at $195.

"The majority of the registrations for our free online courses have been for the grandMA3 classes," notes Mekanik. "While ACT Lighting is specifically a North American-based distributor, the ACT Academy courses are available to anyone anywhere in the world -- and we have seen a large percentage of sign ups outside North America. It's also interesting to note that the ratio of students to registrations shows that people are taking multiple courses."

In addition to the free grandMA3 courses ACT Academy offers an array of legacy grandMA2 classes, which have also seen "a spike" in sign-ups, according to Mekanik. Classes include grandMA2 101 (beginner) and 102 (advanced) instruction, available separately or combined; grandMA2 bitmapping, cloning and merging; plus, show data and dot2 platform instruction. All lessons are supplemented by video, presentation slides, test questions and homework so users can continue to practice long after they have taken the course.

"We've seen an extremely positive response to ACT Academy since its launch," Mekanik says. "In the past, people would typically book an in-person training course and incur expenses for flights and hotels. ACT Academy eliminates all that, returning money and time to students. And the online classes feel very personalized: We've recorded the lessons as if the instructor was in front of you, taking you step by step through the coursework."

ACT Lighting plans to offer more online courses in the near future expanding classes beyond the grandMA family to include other product lines.

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