Theatre 2016 took place from 12-13 May and was held across three West End venues: The Piccadilly, Lyric and Arts Theatres. The programme looked at new challenges facing the industry and what organisations needed to do to ensure future success. Bryan Raven, WL's managing director, comments, "This is the first time that a theatre conference of this scale has taken place and it is long overdue. It was really interesting hearing organisations of all shapes and sizes discuss the current issues they are facing and how we as an industry can work together to overcome these, ensuring that the UK theatre industry simply goes from strength to strength."
Prior to the conference, WL was approached by David Brownlee, director of BON Culture who organised Theatre 2016, in regards to providing the production support. As the conference would utilise the in-house lighting within each venue, WL was asked to supply the AV equipment. Bryan adds, "Over the past year, we have invested heavily in the AV side of the company; to the point where we are now being approached to solely provide audio and video support, which was the case here."
As a result, WL supplied the AV support to every single talk, presentation and panel discussion across all three venues. This meant drawing on a host of equipment, from Christie HD Projectors to high-end audio equipment from manufacturers such as Shure and Yamaha.
Shrenik Singhavi, WL's conference account manager, comments, "Theatre 2016 featured several sessions across three separate venues so intricate planning was essential. We made several site visits to ensure that we were completely familiar with the various spaces and that we could create a set-up that would ensure that those in attendance would receive the best experience possible."
Gemma Nelson, senior project manager at BON Culture, comments, "We are extremely grateful to WL for their superb support throughout the conference. Their quality and service was fantastic, particularly with such tight schedules across each of the three venues, and the entire team was extremely professional, flexible and a delight to work with."
Bryan adds, "Whilst we remain the leading lighting supplier to West End and UK touring theatre, as seen with our recent work at the DevWeek Conference, Rugby World Cup and numerous other corporate events, our AV services are in constant demand. It was fantastic for us to work in such a theatrical environment and showcase the other services we provide as the complete production solution specialist."
(Jim Evans)
