The sport of darts has been enjoying increasing popularity in recent years with fans packing large-capacity arenas for competitions and many more tuning in at home. German company Audio Werft Veranstaltungstechnik turns to Elation Professional KL Panel soft lights to provide high-quality game lighting at European darts tournaments across Europe.

Illuminate on-stage action
Audio Werft has been the technical service provider of Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) European Tour and Gala events for several years, which are broadcast in Germany via streaming service DAZN. For the current tour, the Audio Werft team employs KL Panel soft lights and the larger, even more powerful KL Panel XL to illuminate the on-stage action for both the live audience and television cameras.

Six KL Panel XL fixtures are used in the front truss, approximately two and a half meters in front of the stage, with another four in a truss directly above the downstage edge. Left and right of the stage are other KL Panel XL fixtures, while four of the standard models are installed in the back truss. Two more KL Panels travel as spares.

Lighting's role
Arne Lorenz, head of event technology at Audio Werft Veranstaltungstechnik explains: "There are several aspects we need to keep in mind when it comes to lighting: On the one hand, it is about providing good light for the cameras and the television broadcast. On the other hand, in a precision sport like darts, illumination also plays an important role in the well-being of the players."

Lorenz stresses that they are responsible for creating lighting that does justice to an official world-class sport. "Therefore we pay attention to light glare, uniform illumination, low-shadow to shadow-free lighting of the dartboard, variable color temperature and energy efficiency. In all these areas, we are very well supported with the KL Panel and the larger KL Panel XL. The price-performance ratio also played a role in our investment decision, which is also very good with the KL Panels."

KL Panel / KL Panel XL
With its RGBWLC LED array, the KL Panel covers the full color spectrum and also allows for continuous selection of color temperature in a range from 2,000 to 10,000 Kelvin. It outputs 24,000 lumens and has a high CRI (95), which means that it offers high-quality and true-to-nature color reproduction. The KL Panel XL offers the same features but with an output of 44,000 lumens and the addition of multi-zone control for dynamic effects. Elation lights are sold in Germany exclusively by LMP Lichttechnik.

Arne concludes, "We are very satisfied with the lighting as is the Dutch team, who have been in charge of the camera technology at the PDC events for over ten years."

The 13 PDC European Tour events are broadcast live on DAZN as well as on British television. Four selected events can also be seen on German channel Sport1.


Photos 1, 3, 4: © Audio Wert Veranstaltungstechnik
Photo 2: © Kais Bodensiek