WL Supplies Kenneth More Theatre Lighting

Named after the much-loved British Film and Stage Actor, the Kenneth More Theatre is a 350 seat auditorium located in Ilford, Essex. Having first opened in 1975, it regularly plays host to a wide range of performances, such as drama, comedy, children’s shows and live music, as well as dedicating half of its programming to local amateur and youth-led companies. The venue recently decided to invest in a range of new lighting equipment and approached White Light to supply this. 

 

 

The Technical Manager at the Kenneth More Theatre is Ben Ward, who oversaw the upgrade within the space. He comments: “We decided to upgrade our existing set-up in order to offer more flexibility and coverage from the house rig without the need to sub-hire for every single event. With a lot of dance schools, amateur dramatic societies, comedy nights and live music events now returning to the venue, alongside more traditional touring shows and our own in-house productions, this has resulted in shorter fit up times with more extravagant creative requests and higher expectations. An upgrade would provide us with a range of looks and feels for all of these events without having to limit the creativity of the visiting companies”. 

 

 

Alongside this need for both creative freedom and everyday practicality, there was also an environmental ambition behind the upgrade. Ben explains: “We always wanted to slow phase out what was a predominantly aged tungsten rig and turn this into something that was almost entirely LED. This was both for the energy consumption as well as to reduce the need for replacement lamps and the constant changing of colour filters”. 

 

 

Ben approached WL where he spoke to Key Account Manager Antony Vine about his objectives and what equipment was potentially available.  Antony explains: “With Kenneth More being a mid-sized venue, we spent a lot of time discussing the right sized fixtures that would give Ben and his team the flexibility they needed whilst not taking up so much space that they obstructed the performance area. We also needed to find fixtures that could be purchased in a large quantity whilst staying within budget. Similarly, the fixtures needed to be able to cover the wide range of events that the venue hosts, offering a range of colour washes and effects for dance and musical shows whilst still having a smooth dimming curve and low-level colour reproduction that allows for slow and soft fades for other types of performance”.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following these initial discussions, Antony visited the Kenneth More Theatre where he demonstrated a range of products within the space. Ben comments: “After looking at a number of manufacturers and models, we settled on a selection of fixtures from ETC. We went with ColorSource Spots and Cyc units with a selection of lens tubes for the former. To compliment these, we decided on the Solar Pix 7 by High End Systems and the new Lonestar fixtures from ETC. The decision to keep things predominantly ETC was to supplement a handful of ETC fixtures we already had in the venue. Similarly, as we are an EOS Family house running an ION, the fact that the colour matching across the ETC range can remain as close as possible within the desk meant we could save time by creating a lot of colour matched palettes going forward.  

 

 

He continues: “We were also impressed with the dimming capabilities of all the fixtures, in particular the effects and options in the Lonestar which is relatively small in physical size! With the Solar Pix also being able to act as an automated wash when needed, as well as an eye candy effect fixture when called, we knew we had made the correct choice”. 

 

 

Once Ben had settled on which fixtures he wanted to invest in, these were immediately sourced by WL and soon delivered to the venue. Ben explains: “The initial order arrived just before Christmas, which means some of the fixtures, such as the ColorSource Spots, were hung the very same day just in time for the Panto tech week! Subsequently, the units all performed fantastically during the run and gave Doug Hunt, our lighting designer, a huge range of options that were previously unavailable”.    

 

 

Antony concludes: “It was fantastic to help Ben and his team select the perfect rig for the Kenneth More Theatre and to see the immediate impact the fixtures made. As a company that’s been supplying theatrical lighting equipment to venues for over fifty years, we relish working in a range of spaces, listening to our customers and the exact solutions to fulfil their individual needs”.  

 

 

Photos courtesy of Brian Wahr. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Theatre