New in the Fleet: ACME TORNADO

There’s a moment in pre-production where a lighting designer is staring at a stage plot, counting fixtures, and doing the math on truss space, power, and load. Every fixture they add solves one problem and creates three more: more positions to focus, more cable to run, more weight overhead, more points of failure on show day.

The fixture that earns its spot is the one that does the work of several. That’s why we brought the ACME TORNADO into the fleet.

One fixture, five jobs

The TORNADO is a five-head moving effect bar — five independent light heads on a single fixture, each panning and tilting on its own. That sounds like a spec, but here’s what it means on a show: one TORNADO can throw a tight beam, open into a wash, run a chase across its five heads, and pixel-map as eye candy — without hanging five separate fixtures to do it.

For a designer, that’s footprint math that finally works in your favor. One position on the truss. One power drop. One data run. And a visual range that used to take a row of fixtures to cover.

What it unlocks on a show

The independent heads are the difference-maker. Because each of the five moves on its own, the TORNADO does things a single-head fixture can’t — fans that bloom open, waves that roll across the bar, chases that read big on camera. On a corporate general session or a private event stage, that’s the kind of motion that makes a room feel produced instead of just lit.

We’ve found it especially strong as an accent around video — framing an LED wall, lining a riser edge, defining the lip of a stage. It adds depth and movement exactly where a flat video wall needs help feeling three-dimensional. And because it’s IP66-rated, the same fixture that anchors an indoor stage goes straight outside for an outdoor event or activation — no separate outdoor inventory, no weather scramble.

The specs that matter

• Output: 5 × 120W RGBL LED plus a 120-pixel RGB halo ring — roughly 13,000 lumens
• Movement: Per-head pan 59° / tilt 221°, 16-bit
• Zoom: Linear 3°–30°, tight beam to broad wash
• Control: DMX512, RDM, Art-Net and sACN, with five channel modes (41–170 ch)
• Power & data: TRUE1-style waterproof in/out — ships with TRUE1-to-Edison and TRUE1-to-L6-20 adapters

We carry 12 units, available now, shipped two to a road case.

Why it’s in the fleet

We don’t add gear to have more gear. We add it when it makes a designer’s job easier and a client’s show better. The TORNADO does both — it collapses several fixtures into one footprint, gives our LDs a wider creative range, and moves from indoors to outdoors without a second thought.

Planning a corporate stage or private event and want lighting that does more with less? This is the kind of tool that’s already in our shop, ready to go.