Ten of the new LED fixtures have been provided as part of a comprehensive lighting upgrade by Southampton-based GLS Lighting, who have been servicing the Coronet's lighting requirements for a number of years.
With the ownership of The Mermaid Conference and Events Centre, Blackfriars has built a strong reputation, and The Coronet's head booker Mike Weller says, "Since we are now starting to get recognized as one of the major players in the 2000-plus club/midsize venue market, we needed to step up our game production wise, and wanted our lighting spec to match the calibre of the nights we are promoting."
He was already aware of the roster of bands who have been using the Impressions on tour as had his resident LD Paul De Villiers. However, both De Villiers and head of GLS, Ian Turner (himself a touring LD), recommended that the venue wait for the arrival of the new Impression Zoom fixture before jumping in.
The in-house lighting man was already familiar with the power of the original Impression, having seen the fixtures in use with the Simian Mobile Disco at HMV Forum back in October last year. "There were 12 on the stage on scaff bars and they just spanked everything.
"At the Coronet we have had acts such as Groove Armada, The Rifles and Friendly Fires with DJ's such as Armand van Helden upcoming, all of whom need to be lit differently; we therefore believed it was the right decision to wait for the Zoom because they are just so versatile - with a back truss, and first and second dancefloor trusses it is easy to reconfigure the lights and create a proper club atmosphere."
For conventional stage work six are floor-mounted, two on rear poles at the back of the stage and the final four overhead on the front stage truss.
Having decided that the existing heads were ready for decommission Ian Turner proposed a combination of conventional heads and ten GLP Impression Zooms - the latter replacing the old 575W wash lights. "There is really no comparison between the brightness of these wash lights and an RZ 120 Zoom," he says. "In fact the Zoom performs more like a 700W wash light."
(Jim Evans)
