MA training at DWR

15 May 2009

  Story & pic by Louise Stickland   MA Lighting’s South African distributor DWR Distribution ran the first of a series of grandMA Level 1 and 2 training events.

The 3-day session took place at DWR’s HQ in Johannesburg and was attended by working LDs and programmers who had to supply their own console or laptop running grandMA OnPC. They came from Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, and the places were limited to 10 to ensure everyone received the best attention of Nick Britz, DWR’s Technical Manager, who instructed.

It followed on from Britz’ recent visit to MA Lighting in Germany, where he refreshed his own knowledge of the grandMA Training programme, and also acquainted himself with the newly launched grandMA2 console and software. DWR has just supplied its first grandMA2 to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.

“It was the ideal opportunity for Nick to pass on his knowledge to the industry,” says DWR’s Duncan Riley, adding “The amazing response we have had underlines the huge popularity of the grandMA control platform in South Africa”.

Topics covered included creating Fixture Types, live programming with Edit/Update, MIB (move in Black), programming with Effects and Modulators, Timing Parameters, Store Options, Special Features and many more.

Nick Britz says, “The new 3D Visualiser really impressed everyone among many other things …. and the general learning process across the 3 days was very constructive for everyone including me. We’ve all learned many things, starting with the basics and also went into several areas of MA’s Level 3 training”.

The interest in the Training was so positive, that DWR followed up with another two 1 day sessions a week later – for those who didn’t have their own consoles – which saw another 30 people go through Level 1. Once again the response was incredible, with attendees even driving up from Durban and flying in from Namibia.

DWR is now planning to repeat the Training programmes in both Cape Town and Durban.