Litepanels Sola 6 LED Lighting Becomes a Regular in NFL, NCAA Football Booths

Litepanels’ Sola 6 LED Fresnel lighting fixture has taken a key position in broadcast and cable network announcer booths for professional and college football coverage this year.

The Sola 6 Fresnel fixture made its football debut at last year’s Super Bowl XLV, where some of the first production models of the new light were incorporated into the Litepanels’ lighting scheme for the network announcer booth. The longer throw of these new Fresnel fixtures allowed the Sola 6 to be used as key lights, and they were also placed further from the talent for wider camera shots.

As the 2011 season opened, the Sola 6 Fresnel fixtures were lighting college and professional football announcer booths. The new Fresnels are being placed alongside Litepanels (a Vitec Group brand) 1×1 fixtures, which are used for fill and backlights.

“Although both types of Litepanels’ fixtures draw just 10% of the energy of traditional lights, the Sola Fresnels are more directional and provide more light output,” said Joe Wire of Bexel (also a Vitec Group brand), which provides lighting and other professional equipment for many of the college and professional game broadcasts.

The Sola 6 Fresnel lights are daylight (5600°K) color balanced and match the ambient light available in the booth from the stadium. In addition to their low power draw, the LED Fresnels share many of the same advantages as other fixtures in the Litepanels family. They can be dimmed from 100% to zero with no noticeable shift in color, have a 50,000-hour LED life (eliminating on-air failure concerns), and generate virtually no heat, providing welcome relief to the announcers.

Bexel’s Joe Wire pointed out that broadcast sports producers have been quick to embrace the low power requirements of Litepanels LED fixtures. “They’ll run their six or seven Litepanels 1x1s and four Solas back to a 15A power strip and they can turn it on and off there.”

There is never any need to run extra power to the booth for lighting, and because Litepanels LEDs require no restrike time when being powered up, they can be turned off when the talent go off-camera and instantly re-lit if a turn of the telecast requires an on-camera announcer shot again.