Robe specified for Magazine London
- Details
It has been just 300 days since ground was broken in North Greenwich for Venue Lab’s newest venture; Magazine London has now officially opened its doors. This purpose-built destination offers a blank canvas across 3,205sq.m of industrial-style space for up to 3,000 people standing.
The site also features a 7,000-capacity outdoor showground with unbroken views across the river towards Canary Wharf.
Space 1 has an impressive eight-metre-high, floor-to-ceiling glass window and access to a private balcony that allows guests to view the verticality of the Canary Wharf cityscape. This area can be used for a reception, as well as being an attractive space in its own right.
The largest of Magazine’s internal space is Space 2. The interior fit-out comprises over 2,100 OSB boards to bring a warmer wall finish to the warehouse-style design of the building. In total, the project used 13.96 miles of timber, as well as 149,713 screws and 757.5 litres of paint to stain the venue in a specific shade of black; RAL9005.
This black palette is also mirrored in the venue’s polished concrete floor, steel skeleton, production trusses and even the outdoor limestone patio to achieve a unified finish. Space 2 can accommodate 3,000 standing, 2,000 seated for a conference or 1,400 for a large-scale dinner.
Technical Consultant, Simon Jones of SJ-TPM, was brought onboard by Venue Lab to coordinate all things technical that relate to event production including the lighting.
Involved in the process from conception to completion, his brief was to design the overall technical infrastructure including house lighting and sound systems, and oversee the purchase, procurement and installation of all production equipment.
Magazine wanted to be able to offer an in-house production package that included lighting, sound, rigging, power and data distribution. It needed to be flexible and rider-friendly with the option to be used in its entirety or adapted by artists / clients wanting to bring in their own production elements.
Simon commented, “I’ve been hands-on with Robe products for several years, they are rock solid and the service (from local distributor Robe UK) is great, so they were obviously going to be the go-to choice for the Magazine London project.”
Simon sought additional creative expertise from lighting specialists Ben Cash and Dave Amos, at Flare Lighting.
The structural arches of Magazine offer between seven and nine metres of headroom with a good weight loading of five tonnes per arch. This allowed for a Prolyte truss and rigging system to be installed in the roof.
LED light sources were a given, and with the other considerations proposed by Ben and Dave, this resulted in the purchase of the 14 Spiiders, 16 T1 Profiles and 65 Divine 160 RGBW flood / washes from Robe to be installed in the venue.
(Jim Evans)
