Installation of the new lighting and technical infrastructure was undertaken by Dublin lighting supplier Stage Lighting Centre, who also supplied a full set of stage curtains, complete dimming system and stage lanterns. They worked very closely with Brian Tracey, Liberty Hall’s head of technical, throughout the installation period. When it came to custom engineering and installing the specialist lighting bars required at the FOH and forestage positions, Stage Lighting Centre’s Paddy Farrell approached PCM.
Working to the strict directive of Dublin-based architects, Brian Hogan & Associates, the FOH lighting bars had to be secreted as high up in the auditorium roof as possible. To maximize this very tight roof void space, PCM designed and installed two 9-line lighting bar winches, each of which raises and lowers three independent 6-way lighting bars. When in the ‘up’ position, the bars are tucked tight up to the ceiling in the theatre’s open-plan roof - completely unobtrusive for sight lines, yet able to hit the necessary onstage positions with ease. Each lighting bar winch was supplied by PCM, complete with two 500kg GIS motor units, a clewed travel-and-track system, head and divert pulleys, steel cable, cable terminations, suspension bars and power reels. For extreme neatness, power and data cables feed direct to the lighting bars via six spring-loaded power reels (three for data and three for power), which allow for cables running to the lighting fixtures to be contained on a drum.
The trickiest part of the job for PCM was fitting the bars and winch system amongst the web of auditorium roof supports. Brian Hogan & Associates stipulated that nothing could be drilled or rigged directly onto to the theatre’s roof beams, so PCM’s project manager Tony Griffiths came up with the idea of clamping the lighting bars in place. The solution was to lock each of the lighting bar winch tracks solidly into position via 10 special seating plates, located into the central nodes where the concrete roof supports meet. Each seating plate was designed to allow the clew plate and pulley track systems of each lighting bar winch to be securely fastened, making the whole arrangement into a completely solid and immovable structure.
PCM also supplied and installed a complete proscenium curtain track system and a roof-mounted motorised projection screen. Stage Lighting Centre additionally installed new Strand LD90 dimmer racks, stage curtains, a Strand Series 300 lighting console and new lanterns, primarily Strand SL and Cantata fixtures.
(Lee Baldock)
