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HSL Installs Glasgow’s new ABC
HSL Productions has supplied full lighting rigs for both performance areas at the ABC, Glasgow’s high profile and newest live music venue.
ABC, situated right downtown in a charismatic building on the City’s famous Sauchiehall Street, is owned by Scottish promoters Regular Music and PCL, and the Workers Beer Company. It features a 1250 capacity main room and a 350 capacity second room plus VIP bar, and plugs the gap for a medium sized, highly specified live venue in central Glasgow.
Venue general manager Malcolm Blair, a well known figure on the Scottish and UK music and touring scenes says: “We wanted a really excellent production facility to encourage bands and performers to play without needing to bring in their own rigs.”
As it’s a multi purpose venue as well as a live music space, ABC will feature several regular club nights, so versatile lighting was also top of the agenda. The brief also included to make it as accessible and efficient as possible as a working environment for visiting performers and their crews.
Steven Abbis (Stereophonics, Embrace, Misteeq, Sugababes, et al.) was asked onboard as lighting designer. When it came to casting the net for a suitable supply company, Abbis looked at the options. Not only did HSL came in at the most competitive price, “their enthusiasm and interest in the project was really impressive,” he says. “They put a huge amount of effort into the pitch, and are a really pleasant organisation to deal with who put service first.” Abbis worked closely with HSL project manager Rupert Reynolds.
Abbis wanted to include industry standard products with which incoming LDs would be familiar, and so chose Martin MAC moving lights, James Thomas Pixel range wash fixtures, Robe ColorMix 250 ATs and an Avolites Pearl console for control. “Everyone knows these brands. They’re highly reliable and ideal for making the venue as functional as possible,” he says.
The moving lights are MAC 500s. There are 28 altogether, 10 rigged over the stage on trussing, and 18 on a 10m by 10m box truss over the dancefloor.
In a departure from traditional lighting philosophy, Abbis decided to use PixelPAR 90 LED PAR lightsources for all the wash lighting. He did this for several reasons – low heat output plus energy and cost efficiency being the main ones. There are 18 on the back truss and four on the front. “No more wastage with gels and bulb changing,” he adds.
There are also two Atomic strobes over the stage, four bars of ACLs and six Source Four profiles, eight 4-lite blinders and six conventional PAR 64 floor cans.
The dancefloor wash lighting is provided by the 16 Robe ColorMix’s which also do some architectural lighting – the high vaulted-ceiling room features lots of the original steel structural framework. The room was once completely circular when it opened as Glasgow’s first ever ice rink in 1895.
The ColorMix is very flexible, offering full CMY colour changing facilities, remote 7 – 26 degree zoom, continuously rotating colour wheel with four colours, 3200ēK, 5600ēK, UV and frost filters plus open. It also has a beam shaper, adjustable between 0 and 180 degrees . . . and that’s why it was chosen. “The rig’s been designed for the convenience of incoming artists,” confirms Abbis.
The most spectacular element of the dancefloor visuals is a 2-metre mirror ball, flown in the gap in the middle of the box truss. It’s arguably the largest rotating mirror ball in the UK. “I simply asked HSL what the largest size available was,” says Abbis. It weighs 250kg, so HSL commissioned a special rotator to be engineered to spin it serenely, and several walls had to be removed to get it into the building.
An avolites Pearl is in control. “It was an obvious choice,” states Abbis “It’s the industry standard console for small to medium lighting rigs, it’s easy to use for those less familiar with it, and it’s one of the most ultimately buskable boards on the market and it’s extremely reliable.” Apart from that, he adds, the service from Avolites is also excellent. Dimming is LightProcessor Paradim 36-way touring racks, and HSL also supplied a hot socket distro for the moving lights plus three Avolites DMX buffer boxes.
Richard Wilson is currently the in-house tech. He’s also an experienced LD and operator and a familiar face on the lively Glasgow music scene.
The Second Room features a trendy bar area juxtaposed with a small black box performance space. Here Abbis specified 18 conventional PAR cans, eight High End Trackspots and a Zero 88 desk. The Trackspots are switched to their internal sound to light triggers, so this area can easily be run without an operator.
The main challenge for the HSL’s lighting installation team was fitting in with the contract builders; “The actual installation was simple, straightforward and completed very efficiently,” says Rupert Reynolds, “It was a great pleasure to be working with an LD of Steve’s stature.”
The Logic Systems audio system was supplied by locally based The Warehouse. The architects/interior designer was Michael Laird Associates of Edinburgh, who worked closely with the Regular Music team’s associates including David McBride and Malky Blair.
In picture (left): ABC technical manager Richard Wilson, lighting designer Steven Abbis, HSL’s Rupert Reynolds and ABC general manager Malcolm Blair. In picture (above): lighting designer Steven Abbis with the Avolites Pearl console.
23rd June 2005
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