The Rome City Auditorium is a neoclassical brick building in historic downtown Rome, Georgia. But as its 100th anniversary approached the state of the theater was anything but classic. The rigging system had become inoperable years earlier, an inadequate lighting system disappointed performers, and the lack of controls meant a lot of extra work for a staff of one. When David Palombo, a field project coordinator at Barbizon Lighting Company in Atlanta, was called in to light a dance troupe performing in the space and saw the state of the theater, he walked right into the city manager’s office and introduced himself. “I told them I was from Barbizon, that we specialized in upgrading theatrical systems, and we could help them,” Palombo remembers. They immediately started working on a solution that included a new rigging system, all-new LED fixtures for the stage, and a powerful new system for controlling house and stage lights—all from ETC.
First up was rigging. The building had several constraints that called for a special solution: a catwalk obstructed the space where a lineset would normally go; concrete “ribs” supported the ceiling but cut down on headroom; and the main trunk of an HVAC system ran along the ceiling as well. ETC’s Prodigy® hoist system navigated all these obstacles to supply the perfect solution and provide a safe, reliable system.
The Prodigy system’s unique compression tube design was small enough to work around the lack of space in the ceiling, since the small form factor fit comfortably within the four feet of space between the grid and the ceiling. (The same cannot be said for the inspectors, who roll through the room on car mechanic trolleys.) The hoists’ small form factor also allowed the theater to include all the linesets they wanted, even with only 12 inches between each of the lines.
The Prodigy system also impressed with its controls. Its Foundation® control system makes it easy to create presets and manage the permissions of people using the system. When a lineset got caught in a leg the operator had one story—but the logs told another. It was a simple matter to delete that operator’s account and make sure they couldn’t repeat the accident.
For lighting, a bevy of ETC Source Four® LED Series 2 fixtures replaced most of the old fixtures, resulting in a rig that’s 90 percent LED. The Source Four LED Series 2 fixtures impressed everyone with their power at the very first event they had in there. Palombo was working the light desk when someone complained about how bright the new lights were. “I told them not to worry, I can turn it down,” laughs Palombo.
An ETC Unison Paradigm® system controls all of the houselighting and also has several presets for the stage. All of these are accessed via a seven-inch Paradigm touchscreen. The touchscreen gives the volunteer staff a simple way to run events. “I actually had one volunteer shed tears of joy she was so happy about how easy it was to use,” says Palombo. “She was an older lady and she was happy to know she could still operate the system.”
For more complicated shows, theater staff can break out an ETC Element™ to program looks. Its Magic Sheets help speed up programming and the tight integration between the console and the Paradigm system mean theater staff can quickly program an event, record it, and have the event producers control the show from the Paradigm touchscreen, without ever needing access to the booth. “The city’s theater manager was brand new to the world of theater tech, and had no previous knowledge of a theatrical lighting system,” says Palombo. “But she does it all now, with no problems. She loves the simplicity of the system.”
And thanks to work of Barbizon and ETC, Rome once again has a classic theater.
For more information on these and all of ETC’s products, visit www.etcconnect.com.