The Royal Opera House in London has recently expanded its automated lighting rig and, once again, White Light Sales was its supplier of choice. The ROH added nine Martin MAC 2000 Performance spotlights and seven Vari*Lite® VL1000AS™ spotlights to its equipment stock. This adds to the comprehensive stock of automated lighting, including City Theatrical AutoYokes and custom fixtures created by installing Arri 4kW HMI fresnels in Licht Technik Yokes, which White Light Sales and The Moving Light Company have supplied to the Opera House in recent years.
"When we started specifying automated equipment for the House during the refurbishment, we knew that we would ideally need a unit offering shuttering facilities in our overhead rig," comments the ROH's David Harvey. "At the time, nothing was really available, but lighting designers have increasingly been demanding this facility. Thanks to White Light Sales, we were able to take a look at the latest products to reach the market, comparing them side by side and hands-on."
"After examining all of the options, we selected the Vari*Lite VL1000AS units for their great beam quality and low noise, and the MAC 2000s for their shuttering and the linear animation effect, which is very interesting and adds to the variety of effects available from our permanent rig," Harvey explains. "Both add to the HMI quality of light available from overhead, something which many lighting designers are requesting. For the MAC 2000s, White Light Sales suggested and supplied a new, whiter lamp from Philips to better match our HMI light sources."
At the same time, the ROH's lighting team expanded its conventional lighting rig, purchasing 20 Robert Juliat 2kW fresnels for the Linbury Studio Theatre and 10 LDD Spectra Connect three-color fluorescent fixtures for use as versatile footlights. "The LDD units are ideal for this," Harvey explains, "as you don't have to leave a gap between units, allowing unbroken, continuous runs of light to be formed."