The RFH closed for a £91m refurbishment two years ago and finally reopened in June this year. An essential element of this transformation has been the total overhaul of the lighting system. With a brief from theatre consultants Carr and Angier to increase flexibility and efficiency while maintaining low ambient noise, specialist installation contractor Northern Light has installed the latest ETC dimming, networking and lighting control systems.
For production lighting, Northern Light installed a total of over 400 ways of ETC Sensor dimming plus 70 ways of ETC Matrix non-dims. For the platform lighting there are 20 ways of ETC SineWave dimming, specified because of its silent operation and ability to accept practically any load.
Auditorium house lighting is powered by ETC SineWave Matrix Mk II, again because of its silent operation. Worklight dimming comprises ETC Matrix units, while control for houselights, workers and back-up states is provided by an ETC Unison system.
Colin Cuthbert, managing director of Northern Light, said: "ETC dimmers and control were selected for the Royal Festival Hall refurb for a variety of reasons. The Queen Elizabeth Hall, one of the South Bank Centre's other venues, has ETC Sensor installed, so the customer was familiar with the technology. In addition, it was felt that ETC's Unison Control integrated best with the GrandMA lighting desk. Finally, the acoustic properties of ETC's SineWave dimmers were specifically requested by the consultants."
(Jim Evans)
