This week, we take a look at the UK, where things have certainly been heating up. For a rigging company that saved the day and two companies that have been traveling the country, it’s been far from a lazy, relaxing summer.
This past June, Summit Steel was called in at the last minute to rig the show where Reebok and Venus Williams would reveal the dress that she would wear at the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament. Summit’s riggers worked overnight at the Riverside Racquet Centre at Dukes Meadow in Cheswick to ensure the show would be able to run as scheduled. The event took place in a large, modern building that covered an area of about four tennis courts. Summit erected two truss frameworks to carry the sound and lighting equipment and rigged drapes to black out the entire ceiling and serve as side walls.
Lightfactor’s Scott Callis has been on the road this summer, providing SGM products for a variety of summer events throughout the UK. At Leicester’s live venue, the De Montfort Hall, chief LX and technical manager, Graham Williams, used Giotto 250 spots, Giotto 1200 spots, and wash lights to light a BB King show (below). He also used SGM products to light De Montfort’s One World and Summer Sunday festivals. SGM fixtures were also used in an architectural context to illuminate the exterior of the De Montfort Hall buildings with two Giotto 1200 Watt CYM wash luminaires. Freelance lighting designer, Steve Ledson, also used Giotto 250 spots to light an insurance company’s sales conference at NEC.
White Light Sales has been busy supplying a wide range of projects, from the UK’s leading drama colleges to the country’s most famous concert halls. White Light Sales supplied a selection of new equipment from Strand Lighting for the newly reopened Vanburgh Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The company also supplied the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with High End, Strand, Selecon, and Pani products. Next door to Guildhall, the Barbican Concert Hall will be undergoing a refurbishment this summer. White Light will be supplying a wide range of equipment from Robert Juliat, High End, and ETC for the project. The company is also working with London’s Royal Albert Hall, providing a new houselight dimming system. Besides staying busy with projects, the company was recently appointed as the exclusive UK distributors for products from MDG, The Smoke Factory, and Look Solutions.