"The popularity of the Esplanade Concert Hall and the broad diversity of events presented here, make providing the venue's performance lighting an exciting challenge," says Esplanade's head of lighting, Milton Arnold. "We find that the demands on our capabilities are ever-increasing, so we turned to lighting manufacturer Robert Juliat, and local supplier Total Solution, to provide the followspots and front of house profiles which would ensure our premier venue keeps pace."
He says the RJ 711SX2 zoom profiles were chosen for the Concert Hall's front-of-house lighting positions for a number of reasons: "It is a very long throw from the FOH position in the Concert Hall and we felt we needed more punch from this location. We did some side-by-side shootouts but the 711SX2 very quickly proved to have the brightest output and flattest field of all the fixtures tested. The controls are well positioned, and everything works the way it should. We were already well acquainted with Robert Juliat quality and durability from the profiles, followspots and Fresnels we own, so the choice of the RJ 711SX2 was pretty easy to make."
In addition to the new profiles, Total Solution Marketing also supplied the venue with two additional Cyrano 2.5K HMI followspots, each with customised accessories, to complement the two already in place. The accessories included a remote dimmer control which can be positioned anywhere on the followspot according to operator preference. These were supplied at the request of the Esplanade staff who prefer to operate from the front of the spot.The Concert Hall is not the only Esplanade venue to house Robert Juliat equipment. The 2000-seat Theatre which boasts the largest performing stage in Singapore also has four RJ Cyrano followspots and 50 RJ 329 2000W Fresnel fixtures supplied by Total Solutions Marketing some four years ago.
(Lee Baldock)
