Nineteen trucks packed with kit left HSL's HQ in Blackburn, Lancashire - with Swansea and Cardiff sharing transport - loaded up with a combination of moving lights, LED fixtures, strobes, follow spots and generic luminaires, together with cabling, power distribution, control and effects and atmosphere generators. Equipment flew out the door to keep pace of the barrage of slapstick, innuendo and one-liners.
The first truck was loaded up at HSL on 13 November and the most hectic weekend saw 11 trucks filled and dispatched over three days.
HSL's team of Qdos panto project managers was headed up by Jordan Hanson, who looked after eight shows, Sean McGlone who co-ordinated seven productions, Emma Nolan and Andy Chatburn who handled a pair and John Slevin, who masterminded Glasgow.
They dealt with 14 different LDs in total, including Ben Cracknell and Matt Clutterham, who each designed four glittering productions.
The 2015 / 16 season equipment statistics included approximately 700 x moving lights, 800 x generics, 500 x LED sources, 100 x strobes, over 1000 x egg strobes, 50 x smoke, haze and fog machines plus control consoles and full backup systems. Starcloths and a selection of 'softs' were also supplied to some productions.
Glasgow once again hosted one of the highest profile shows of the host of Qdos productions this year with Peter Pan starring David Hasselhoff and The Krankies, with a lively and colourful lighting design by Tim Oliver.
HSL supplied trussing and rigging for this one - a bare stage arena style venue - which started with the installation of a large mother grid from which sub-trusses, rigging and an extensive Kinesys automation system to create the flying system needed for all the LX and drapes bars. Also integrated into this were the Foyes performer flying tracks.
The lighting rig was spread across five overhead LX bars, an advance truss and assorted positions around the front circle balcony and the side pros booms, with the HSL supplied elements combined with a quantity of Source Four profiles from the house.
Seventy moving lights from a plethora of manufacturers were specified by Tim, all used to great effect, starting with 12 x Martin MAC Vipers, four on the circle front and the rest on different overhead bars which were used for most of the extensive gobo work and projecting animations onto the stage.
Eleven Robe MMX Spots - some concealed in set pieces and on the floor, possible due to their small size - were also used for gobos and texturing and spotting, and 10 x Robe MMX WashBeams were perfect for picking up a lot of the high speed pick-ups and 'local' spotting. Two MAC 2K XBs on the front truss helped with coverage across the forestage area.
Twelve Clay Paky Sharpy Washes overhead and at the back were used for the quick zappy moments, while 10 x Philips SL WASH 350 LED units - two on the advanced bar and the rest on the overheads - lit the set portals and provided general LED illumination for the multiple cloths that dropped in and out throughout the performance.
Robe CitySkape LED floods with frost filters were spread out along the lip of the stage and utilised for front lights and to graze up the portal legs, while twenty-three i-Pix Satellites on LX2 picked out the tops of the portals.
HSL also supplied a quantity of PARs and additional Source Fours, plus two Jem Glaciator foggers, some Hazebase Low Pro foggers for the flying scenes and two Jem ZR44 smoke machines for general ambience creation.
The portals also had a series of inbuilt LED practical lights and fibre curtains embedded in the legs that were co
