The Royal Academy of Music's Sir Jack Lyons Theatre is a versatile 200-seat venue used for opera and musical theatre productions and also as a teaching room. Discussions between the theatre's technician Jake Wiltshire and White Light's technical sales manager Roger Hennigan led to a project that involved installing 144 ways of ETC Sensor dimming, new Andolite outlet boxes on the flyfloor and at stage level featuring both Socapex and 15A outlets, and new internally wired bars overhead, these now ladderbeam-style for added rigidity. The plugging boxes and internally wired bars also carry Ethercon outlets for distribution of Ethernet lighting data or via adapters, standard DMX512 data. The Ethercon outlets are fed from an XTBA DMX splitter located in the dimmer room. Jake Wiltshire has pronounced himself "delighted" with the installation.
A similar upgrade of facilities has taken place in the theatre at Goldsmiths College in south-east London, an unusual venue featuring a large conventional stage area behind a deeply thrust forestage. The overhead lighting grid has been added to repeatedly over time and was wired largely in five-amp sockets, with an ageing dimmer installation. In consultation with the theatre's Hansjorg Schmidt, WLP replaced the entire lighting grid with internally-wired bars fitted with 16A and DMX. New flown IWBs were also provided upstage. Outlets are hard-wired back to 120 ways of ETC Sensor dimming, installed in a new location at the rear of the stage. New socket boxes, by Andolite, have been installed at stage level, and DMX distribution is through XTBA DMX splitters.
Finally at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Hall in Westminster, WLPs was brought in to replace the dimming system and install new overhead Socapex outlets in the venue's Churchill Auditorium to simplify installation of conference lighting rigs. Limited space in the dimmer room meant that 48 ways of ETC SmartPack dimmers were chosen. The QEII's Derek Chalmers is very pleased with the new installation and, having seen the benefits it offers, is already discussing further additions to the system.
Hennigan commented: "In each case the customers knew roughly what they wanted to achieve, but were open to suggestions about useful extras, such as DMX distribution. They were happy to work with us on the actual equipment to be used, as a result, and thanks to the hard work of Mark Bradbrook and his team who carried out all three installations in a short space of time, all now have fantastic new systems that are safer, tidier and will make their work in getting shows on much, much easier!"
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
