White Light: The Lottery Winner's Choice
White Light supply lighting equipment to the new National Lottery funded Sadler's Wells Theatre,
and to the acclaimed Chicken Shed Theatre.
If you're building a new theatre, you really want to equip it with the latest lighting technology. Two recently-completed projects, one funded by the National Lottery and the other by local council funding and private sponsorship, chose White Light to help them do exactly that.
The bigger of the two projects is the new £38million Sadler's Wells Theatre in Islington, which opened in October. Following discussions with the theatre's Chief Executive Ian Albery and his staff, White Light's sales department supplied the Wells with a comprehensive selection of equipment from Strand Lighting, including four Strand Bambino 5kW fresnels, ten Orion-4 groundrows, ten Iris-4 cyc floods, twenty-four 2kW Alto PCs and seventeen ColourCall scrollers. This equipment was complemented by sixty ETC Source Four Pars.
The Sadler's Wells team also decided to take the opportunity to add automated lighting technology to their lantern stock, with this equipment being supplied by White Light Group member The Moving Light Company. Rigs in the new theatre will benefit from the versatility of fifteen Strand Pirouette Alto PCs fitted with ColourCall scrollers, and six Martin MAC500 moving spotlights. The Moving Light Company also supplied all of the ancillaries required to form a complete working system, including power supplies and cabling.
The equipment specified for the smaller Chicken Shed Theatre by its lighting consultant Alistair Grant is equally up-to-the-minute: the theatre was one of the first to order the new ETC Source Four Zoom profile following its launch at PLASA '98, requesting forty 25/50 degree and twenty 15/30 degree units. The rest of the rig includes thirty Strand Cantata fresnels, ten Cantata PCs, forty Thomas PAR64 cans, eight Coda 4 floods, twenty CCT Minuette condenser profile spots and twenty Minuette fresnels, as well as thirty of the popular, low-cost Chroma-Q colour scrollers. To allow for a variety of lighting styles, two different types of follow-spot were supplied: a pair of Robert Juliat Pixies and a pair of Reiche & Vogel 500W beamlights. The order also included a selection of effects: one RealFX DF50 haze machine and two Smoke Factory Captain K smoke machines, complete with DMX control. A further twenty Minuette condenser profiles and twenty Minuette fresnels were supplied to the Chicken Shed's Studio Theatre.
Control for the main theatre is from nine Zero88 BetaPack dimmer racks and two Strand Act3+ dimmer racks. These are run from a Strand 520i lighting console, supplied with GeniusPro, Tracker, Communique and Networker system software, which should allow it to meet the demands of any show!
In purchasing their new rigs, both Sadler's Wells and The Chicken Shed have benefited from White Light's ability to supply the best equipment from a wide range of manufacturers. They will also benefit from the ongoing support of White Light and specialist group members such as The Moving Light Company and The Service Company to ensure that their equipment gives them the best possible service well into the next Millennium...
November 1998 News News Page Home Page