Community-Minded Bank Cheers Sports Teams with Energy Efficient Lights

letsgopens2009.JPGPITTSBURGH -- Four stories above the sidewalk, workers in late May carefully placed lights inside a bank building to illuminate 10-foot-tall letters that collectively read – Lets Go Pens.

The civic-minded PNC Bank, headquartered in Pittsburgh, was again cheering on a winning professional sports team with a lighted message on its tall windows for all of Pittsburgh to see.

In February, the bank rooted in a similar fashion for the Pittsburgh Steelers who won the 2009 Superbowl. In late spring, the bank backed the city's hockey team the Pittsburgh Penguins as it vied for and won the Stanley Cup.

Event and multi-media producer Benack Sound Productions, Inc. suggested that the bank use CHAUVET LED luminaires for this event in part because they mirror PNC's commitment to environmental conservation. LEDs are considered the greenest lighting available due to their low energy consumption, long life span and lack of hazardous substances.

In 2000, PNC opened the nation's largest “green” building, the 650,000-square-foot PNC Firstside Center, which sits along banks of the Monongahela River and adjacent to the heavily traveled Parkway Interstate. And, that location provided the perfect 80-foot-wide virtual billboard for team support.

Flip Benack, owner and president of Benack Sound Productions, has been a CHAUVET dealer for the past two years. “We have been doing many events for PNC and I came up with the idea that we should try using the LEDs,” he said. “We've incorporated LEDs for the last couple of years and now we're getting rid of the conventional lighting because LEDs are so much easier to work with. They are good quality products.”

To illuminate the 10 letters, Benack used 10 COLORado 2's and 20 COLORado Panel fixtures instead of the PAR cans he previously used. Although the color combinations are nearly limitless for these fixtures, Benack chose to stay with white. “We blasted all the white we could get,” he said of each fixture's 48 2- to 3-watt LEDs.

Benack sequenced the lights to display one word at a time followed by lighting up all the words.

Bank employees appreciated the lighting change. “Before, there was so much heat and power consumption and the lights were in offices and cubicles where people are working. It was a pain because people were turning off the lights because they got so hot,” he said adding that is no longer the case.

PNC garnered a lot of media attention, Benack said. “All the local TV stations had the lights on the news when we were installing them.” While Benack didn't get the national TV coverage he and bank officials had hoped for, he said he's got another shot. “The Steelers, they're always in the playoffs.”