White Light Sales has recently supplied another Strand 500-series console to the West End: this time, a Strand 520i for the Duke of York's Theatre in St. Martin's Lane, London. The console replaced an Arri Imagine supplied to the theatre by White Light some years ago, which was coming to the end of its useful life.
With a long-running show--the hit comedy Stones in his Pocket--occupying the theatre, White Light Sales and the theatre's crew had to ensure that they could slot the new desk into the theatre without disrupting the show's lighting design. Andy Fordham at The Service Company, a White Light Company, therefore took the show disk from the Arri and, using his collection of conversion software tools, transferred it to the 520i. Thanks to this work, the 520i was in use controlling the show on the day it arrived in the theatre.
The delivery of this desk to the Duke of York's continues the ongoing domination of the Strand 500-series consoles in the West End: in recent years White Light Sales have also supplied 500s to the Albery, Coliseum, Comedy, Her Majesty's, Piccadilly, and Whitehall theatres as well as to the Royal Festival Hall, the Pit at the Barbican Theatre, the RSC in Stratford-Upon-Avon and many other regional theatres. The consoles are also in use on shows including My Fair Lady, Taboo, The Play What I Wrote and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End and Miss Saigon on tour.
Further information about the Strand control range, including the 300-and 500-series consoles, the new 100- and 200- series manual consoles and 301 backup console, the ShowNet Ethernet network system, SN network nodes and iPaq handheld remote can be obtained by calling White Light Sales on 020 8254 4840, or visiting the Strand Lighting website at www.strandlight.com. A new electronic newsletter giving tips on using Strand's consoles is also now available, published in PDF format; to subscribe, send email to [email protected].