When the company that paved the road for the era of automated lighting and drove down the highway of that technology on cruise control for more than 25 years suddenly takes a left turn at the intersection of LED Boulevard and Automated Lighting Way, it's bound to turn some heads.

That's essentially what Vari-Lite did last year when they launched the VLX, an automated color wash fixture with an LED light engine under the hood. Vari-Lite was not exactly the first to go down this road, but what they have done is to hit the accelerator and shifted into a higher gear.

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