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ADB WARP/Ms for London’s Barbican Concert Hall
The Barbican Concert Hall in London celebrated its 25th Anniversary on March 6th, unveiling the latest investment in its lighting automation programme – ADB Warp/M automated spot profile luminaires.
Nineteen Warp/Ms, purchased through UK distributor LSI Projects, provide the multi-purpose concert hall’s main controllable profile lighting from the two front of house bridges, allowing the house lighting team to remotely re-focus the all-important profiles in the brief breaks between up to four concerts and events each day.
The lighting department, headed by technical manager Eamonn Byrne, deputy technical manager Ingo Reinhardt and technical supervisors Mark Bloxsidge and Steve Mace, is well versed in using automated lighting – the concert hall has employed automated fixtures for many years. But as the schedule of classical shows, operas, jazz concerts and corporate events grows year on year, this places ever greater demands on the lighting technology.
Ingo Reinhardt explained: “We sometimes have to change over from two morning classical concerts or rehearsals to an evening jazz event, with maybe a graduation ceremony in the afternoon as well. With the ADB Motorised Warps, we can throw in specials very quickly, using the motorised shutters to frame them, and it’s fantastic just to be able to put something on a banner or, say, a graduation ceremony, where we can quickly light a top table, nicely shuttered off.”
The decision to purchase was made after trying out a number of different fixtures. The ADB WARP/M won the team’s vote for its combination of silent operation, reliability, high light output and flexible facilities including the motorised zoom, framing shutters, gobo and iris. “We had comparative demos and the Warp/Ms were clearly best for our requirements,” commented Mark Bloxsidge.
“Silent operation is vitally important to us, and the Warp/M offers very flexible facilities in a practical modern design, in particular the zoom facility and the motorised shutters.”
The WARP/Ms are currently being controlled via the concert hall’s standard DMX network, and with other new automated equipment being added shortly, the option of using the Warp/M’s built-in Ethernet programming and monitoring capability will be utilised.
“Most of the shows we do are one-offs, which is a major reason for increasing our stock of moving lights,” adds Mark Bloxsidge. “Flexibility is vital – the schedules are constantly getting tighter so we have less time, and with the increased emphasis on health and safety we have fewer opportunities to focus or re-rig, so being able to make rapid changes by remote control is vital. Automation helps us to meet the production deadlines.”
A 25th anniversary concert in front of Her Majesty The Queen starred the London Symphony Orchestra, which performed on the hall’s opening night, and will be followed by a spring and summer season of celebratory events.
In picture: a Steinway grand and an ADB Warp/M are framed by two Warp/Ms on stage at the Barbican Concert Hall (left); view from the front lighting bridge (right).
19th March 2007
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