Rising behind the façade of the former San Antonio Municipal Auditorium along downtown's famed River Walk, the 1,750-seat multi-purpose venue will be the home of the San Antonio Symphony and other resident companies. It also plans to offer a diverse array of entertainment from comedy legend Bill Cosby and radio icon Garrison Keillor and The Prairie Home Companion to the Scottish Ballet's production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
The four-level H-E-B Performance Hall is the largest of the centre's performance spaces; the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theatre is a black box-style space with multiple seating options. Dealer Texas Scenic and rep Roy Harline are providing the grandMA2 products.
A grandMA2 light console with grandMA2 replay unit will be located in each of the performance spaces. H-E-B Performance Hall will also be equipped with a MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) for multiple universes and MA's top-of-the-line MA VPU plus (Video Processing Unit).
Tobin Centre technical director Stefan De Wilde is no stranger to grandMA2 consoles. "I have purchased and specified many grandMA1 and grandMA2 consoles for Disney, Cirque du Soleil, the New World Symphony and the several universities," says the Emmy-nominated lighting designer. "For three years The Pageant of PeaceAdding a MA VPU to the grandMA2 console in the H-E-B Performance Hall will enable projection cues for several Panasonic 20K projectors to be written into the unit's cue plan for easy content management.
A.C.T Lighting will train Tobin Centre staff on the grandMA2 consoles. "A.C.T sets the standard in the entertainment industry for technical service and support," De Wilde reports. "Bob Gordon, Chris Patton, George Masek and Will Murphy are members of our All Star Team for the project. Their ongoing partnership and support, coupled with reliable and powerful technology is why I select A.C.T's gear every time."
(Jim Evans)
