White Light Provides New Followspots to Royal Albert Hall
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The Royal Albert Hall is one of the world’s most historic concert halls. It has housed over 155,000 live performances and has a capacity of up to 6,000. The iconic main hall plays host to a range of events to over 1.7 million visitors annually, whether it’s live concerts, the BBC Proms, tennis tournaments, Films in Concert promoted by the RAH, Cirque du Soleil and many more. The venue recently decided to invest in a range of Robert Juliat Cyrano 2500W HMI Followspots and approached White Light to make the purchase.
The Lighting Design Manager at the Royal Albert Hall is Richard Rhys Thomas. He comments: “My role covers a few broad areas, namely overseeing the running of the lighting department as well as delivering a high-quality lighting service to incoming as well as internally produced shows. I also have to oversee the upkeep and maintenance of the systems and installations, specifying new lighting equipment and improving the design of the lighting rig as needs change”.
It was Richard who decided that the previous rig required an upgrade of its existing followspots. He comments: “We wanted to replace our followspot provision with up-to-date and more efficient technology. Having used the Robert Juliat Cyrano magnetic version for years, we decided to upgrade and invest in the 2500W HMI electronic version”.
The Robert Juliat Cyrano 2500W HMI has a narrower beam angle making it perfect for really long throw distances found in large venues such as the Royal Albert Hall. Its glass progressive frost filter and dark blue dichroic filter offers even more subtle design possibilities. It also has an optional DMX-control of motorised dimmer shutter, progressive frost and lamp ignition.
Richard states: “The Cyrano is ideal for our needs for a number of reasons. Its output is great with a very flat field, the throw is ideal and the noise is generally very low. It has also proved to be very reliable in an environment where followspots are moved around on a day-to-day basis. We don’t have set followspot positions due to the nature of the building and the shows that we host here, so we need something that had some adaptability”.
The decision behind purchasing the Cyranos was also influenced by a demand from incoming designers. Richard adds: “The Cyranos are a long-standing favourite for internal and visiting lighting designers due to their consistency, brightness and colour. They also look great on camera which, for us, is very important due to the number of televised events that are hosted in the venue”.
The followspots have already been used on numerous shows including the BBC Proms, Later with Jools Holland and many more.
Richard adds: “We are delighted with the Cyranos. We have a long-standing relationship with WL, who also have an annual lighting service contract with us and replaced the houselights in our iconic mushroom-shaped acoustic diffusers, as well as installed new LED houselights back in 2016. We can always rely on their excellent support, experience and guidance for any project”.
Photos courtesy of Paul Karalius, Richard Thomas and Royal Albert Hall.
The mushroom-shaped lighting domes are synonymous with the Royal Albert Hall’s main space, having been in place for more than 12 years. With technology having advanced so rapidly during this time, the venue recently decided to replace the existing domes with energy-efficient, flexible fixtures. Not only did these need to use the latest LED technology and be easy to control but also had to be custom-made to fit the space. White Light was approached to provide an exact solution.
Steph Baldwin, Technical Projects Manager at the Royal Albert Hall, comments: “The brief was to update the mushroom (acoustic dome) downlights, chandelier lamps and the gallery globe lights, as well install new fixtures within the roof tray in order to fully illuminate the Circle. It was the first time overhead lighting above the top tier of seating had been fitted.”
Alongside the rapid advancements in lighting technology, there was a practical reason for the replacement too. The motors that held the existing lights were starting to fail and it was these that brought in the fixtures to the deck for re-lamping independently of the mushroom lights. “Bringing the mushrooms down to the arena is a substantial operation and, as such, it was becoming harder to maintain,” says Baldwin. “They can only be cleaned once every four years on a rolling program so it was important to have a reliable fixture that would not be affected both optically and operationally by dust.”
One of the biggest challenges for the installation was time. As the Royal Albert Hall is used every week – with over 390 events annually, plus another 600 in the smaller spaces – WL had to work around this schedule. The venue has two maintenance periods annually in April and September so there was no option but to work within this timeframe. This meant that planning was key so White Light worked closely with GDS and the Royal Albert Hall in the pre-production stages to ensure every minute on site was used productively.
The Royal Albert Hall is one of Europe’s most historic concert halls. It has housed over 150,000 live performances and has a capacity of up to 6,000. Alongside the main hall itself, the building boasts a series of several other unique spaces including the North Circle Bar. Whereas the Bar was traditionally used as a drinking area prior to performances in the main space, the venue wanted to transform it into a live music environment with a purposely designed audio system. They approached White Light to provide the complete technical solutions.
Lee made several visits to the Bar in order to fully assess the space and its requirements. This was then followed by a demonstration with some of the venue’s main stakeholders, in which Lee showcased some of the very latest audio equipment taken from WL’s inventory.
WL installed the audio system over a three-week period and also oversaw the lighting installation within the space. The North Circle Bar is now being used as a live performance venue, with every act assured that they will receive the greatest audio support possible.