The latest theatre to make the change is Her Majesty's Theatre, where for the past fourteen years the original production of The Phantom of the Opera has been controlled by a Strand Galaxy. With that console just beginning to show its age, a decision was taken by Cameron Mackintosh Limited, the show's producers, Really Useful Theatres, who own the theatre, and the theatre's lighting crew led by chief electrician Dave Corbett, to transfer the show onto a more modern control system. The 500-series was chosen because it offered an operating methodology similar to the Galaxy. The new desks (a 520i as the main console and a 510i as a tracking backup) were installed over a weekend with the cue data transferred using Strand's Showport software; the changeover was masterminded by the show's original production electrician, Howard Eaton.
Other venues to opt for 500-series consoles include the Comedy Theatre, the Piccadilly Theatre, the Whitehall Theatre, the Albery Theatre, the Pit at the Barbican Centre, the Royal Festival Hall, the studio at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and the London Coliseum, home of English National Opera. The White Light Sales worked with Strand Lighting and The Service Company to design and commission a custom variant of the 500-series consoles to give the ENO's console operators the Galaxy-like separate cue keypad that they preferred. White Light Sales and The Service Company also combined forces just outside London, at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, providing the theatre with a Strand 500-series console and a Flying Pig Whole Hog II which can share a Strand Shownet data network to distribute DMX data around the theatre.
In addition, 500-series consoles can be found on a variety of White Light hire projects, including the UK tour of An Inspector Calls, the West End production of The Graduate and the new Cameron Mackintosh musical The Witches of Eastwick, where a 500-series control system runs the entire lighting rig including 106 automated lanterns and four-hundred dimmers.
Launched in 1994, the 500-series has proved immensely popular with theatres ever since, because of the way it combines Strand's familiar operating methodology, a wide range of settings to allow the console to be configured to suit many different circumstances and users as well as full support for scrollers and automated lanterns. White Light supplied the first large-scale 500-series control system to Martin Guerre in 1996 and has subsequently provided 500-series consoles to shows such as Oliver!, Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar, Saturday Night Fever, Lenny and many more besides. The 500-series has now been joined by the smaller 300-series range, already proving popular with venues such as the new Drill Hall and Soho Theatres.
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