For the company, a major player in the theatre, leisure, conference and presentation markets, the move to a new 60,000sq.ft headquarters is a fitting way to mark 21 years in the business.
For the last three of those, the move to a new facility has been part of MD David Whitehead’s daily agenda. One which he has worked towards ever since he identified the site on the Avonmouth industrial estate, close to the M5 access routes, as being ideal for his purposes. It has been well worth the wait; at last, under one roof, come all the personnel and all the products that were previously spread across six separate facilities. And it doesn’t take a genius to understand what a difference that has made in itself.
But the investment (not insubstantial as you might imagine), is not just about consolidating a previously fragmented operation, it’s also about creating an environment that benefits everybody - no matter what link in the chain you happen to be. At the centre of the new HQ is the trade counter, the company’s daily interface with its clients. To its left is a product demonstration area, kitted out with the latest lighting, audio, control and trussing equipment. Overlooking the demo area are the windows to the company’s elegant and relaxed cafe - the real heart of the operation, and the place where, thanks to David Pearce and Linda Moore’s understanding of the route to a journalist’s heart, most of this interview was conducted.
Arrayed across the two floors around these central features, and connected by areas theatrically lit by David Whitehead (he remains a practising LD), are the finance, IT, administration, sales and customer support teams - the clue to the work undertaken in each area being signalled by a series of quirky signs that appear around the building. The client meeting room, for instance, has been rechristened the ‘royal box’, the cafe is the ‘green room’ and so it goes throughout the building. Elsewhere, finance has been accorded the rare privilege of two - ‘money in’, ‘money out’, but my own personal favourite is the title bestowed on Linda Moore’s office - ‘the cabaret room’.
A series of workshops and product test areas provide the link to the 44,000sq.ft warehouse - the first part of the building to be occupied when the hire operation took residence in September last year. It is the home to a huge inventory of lighting, sound and rigging equipment. More importantly, there’s not an item in there that wasn’t tested or checked before it was transferred to the new facility.
The long lines of shelves also reveal another advantage - for the technical team had decided long before the move, that they were going to make the new warehouse space work harder for them. Using a software programme to mimic the warehouse layout, they factored in the physical dimensions of every product in the stockholding (all measured by hand), and by careful calculation arrived at a system of storage that would take maximum advantage of the available space.
Stock levels have also risen as a consequence of the move, and into the hire stock has come the latest 300 series of desks from Strand Lighting, the entire Martin Professional product portfolio from Mini to Mac (the company is now the largest stockist of MAC moving heads for hire in the UK), the latest Avolites ART 4000 dimmers, a range of Optikinetics GoboShow projectors and the new range of luminaires from Selecon. A further feature of the new warehouse is a dedicated area for touring shows, where members of the Stage Electrics team can work with visiting production electricians during preparations for a show.
The transfer has also acted as the catalyst for a change in the hire running order; prior to the move, equipment was tested before it went
