Avolites

Official website: http://www.avolites.com

1990: Avolites was bought by the UEI Group.

The Avolites Story (from 2012 website)

In 1975 several members of a touring road crew decided to make better dimmers than those with which they were touring, which seemed to need constant mechanical repair. The dimming range they designed and manufactured became known as the "Avolites FD dimmer".

The success of FD Dimmer placed it as 'the industry standard touring dimmer'.

Following the success of the FD Dimmer the team started designing and manufacturing lighting control consoles.

These consoles were specifically designed to tour and to be able to tackle the harsh problems associated with moving from one venue to another on a daily basis. Namely the console has to work; the stage is a different each day necessitating re programming; and the performance will therefore change and evolve to meet local conditions.

The first consoles were the Avolites 80 - 100 series which set much of the finishing style still in use today with wood and leather finishes. In 1983 the now famous Avolites QM500 series of consoles was created.

The QM500 series consoles had computer memory and a very rapid flash button response time. No easy task with the processors available then!

In the late 80's Avolites was purchased by a large corporate conglomerate, and in 1991 was returned to private ownership, the principle shareholders being the current directors.

At this time moving lights started to become generally available, and the design team set about creating a range of consoles from scratch to meet the new demands moving lights were placing on lighting designers.