Venue general manager Malcolm (Malky) Blair, a well known figure on the Scottish and UK music and touring scenes says, "We wanted a really excellent production facility to encourage bands and performers to play without needing to bring in their own rigs". As it's a multi purpose venue as well as a live music space, ABC will feature several regular club nights, so versatile lighting was also top of the agenda. The brief also included to make it as accessible and efficient as possible as a working environment for visiting performers and their crews. Steven Abbis (Stereophonics, Embrace, Misteeq, Sugababes) was asked onboard as lighting designer, and he worked closely with HSL project manager Rupert Reynolds.
Abbis wanted to include industry standard products with which incoming LDs would be familiar, and so chose Martin MAC moving lights, James Thomas Pixel range wash fixtures, Robe ColorMix 250 ATs and an Avolites Pearl console for control. In a departure from traditional lighting philosophy, Abbis decided to use PixelPAR 90 LED PAR lightsources for all the wash lighting. He did this for several reasons - low heat output plus energy and cost efficiency being the main ones. There are 18 on the back truss and 4 on the front. There are also 2 Atomic strobes over the stage, four bars of ACLs and 6 Source Four profiles, eight 4-lite blinders and six conventional PAR 64 floor cans.
The dancefloor wash lighting is provided by the 16 Robe ColorMix's which also do some architectural lighting - the high vaulted-ceiling room features lots of the original steel structural framework. The room was once completely circular when it opened as Glasgow's first ever ice rink in 1895. The ColorMix is very flexible, offering full CMY colour changing facilities, remote 7 - 26° zoom, continuously rotating colour wheel with four colours, 3200ºK, 5600ºK, UV and frost filters plus open. It also has a beam-shaper, adjustable between 0 and 180°. "The rig's been designed for the convenience of incoming artists," says Abbis.
An Avolites Pearl provides control of the lighting. "It was an obvious choice," says Abbis "It's the industry standard console for small-to-medium lighting rigs, it's easy to use for those less familiar with it, it's one of the most ultimately buskable boards on the market and it's extremely reliable". Apart from that, he adds, the service from Avolites is also excellent."
Dimming is LightProcessor Paradim 36-way touring racks, and HSL also supplied a hot socket distro for the moving lights plus 3 Avolites DMX buffer boxes. Richard Wilson is currently the in-house tech. He's also an experienced LD and operator and a familiar face on the lively Glasgow music scene.
This features a trendy bar area juxtaposed with a small black box performance space. Here Abbis specified 18 conventional Par cans, eight High End Trackspots and a simple Zero 88 desk. The Trackspots are switched to their internal sound to light triggers, so this area can easily be run without an operator. The main challenge for the HSL's lighting installation team was fitting in with the contract builders: "The actual installation was simple, straightforward and completed very efficiently" says Rupert Reynolds, "It was a great pleasure to be working with an LD of Steve's stature."
The Logic System audio system was supplied by locally-based The Warehouse. The architects/interior designer was Michael Laird Associates of Edinburgh, who worked closely with the Regular Music team
