For
over 30 years, Centre In The Square in Ontario, Canada, has showcased
international, national and local performing arts and artists. As the region’s largest performing arts
venue, they stage more than 180 events per year inside their state-of-the-art
main stage and smaller studio performance space. At the lighting controls for both venues is
Terry Hynes, Head of Lighting, and at his fingertips helping control the
lighting for all the productions are Light Palette Live and Palette VL16
control consoles, plus a Rack Palette tracking backup, all from Philips Strand
Lighting.
“I
worked my first call at Centre In The Square in 1983 and I have been working
full-time since 1985,” began Hynes.
“Previously we had been using a Strand 550i console and when we received
government funding to purchase a new moving light package for our main theatre,
we needed to upgrade our console as well to be able to conveniently and
effectively handle the control, so we installed the Light Palette Live. Being a 550i user it was fairly easy for me
to transition to the Light Palette Live and while I had looked at some other boards
from other manufacturers, I have always found the Strand boards to be the most
user-friendly with fewer keystrokes needed to make things happen.”
In
an extremely busy production house, Hynes was not only concerned about the ease
of use from his new console, but he also needed to make sure the console was
reliable and would be able to handle the oversized workload.
“Another
one of the key factors that drove the purchase of the Light Palette Live was
that it was the most stable board that I looked at. At one time while I was looking at various
consoles we had a brown-out at the theater and the Strand board just sailed
right through it so that impressed me very much. In all the years I have been using Strand
boards I have never had one crash on me so we have never lost a show or part of
a show due to console failure. In this
venue, with this production schedule, the reliability of my Strand consoles is
invaluable.”
Along
with the production schedule in the main stage, Hynes and his team now have the
added responsibility of the smaller studio space as well. When it came time for Hynes to choose the
console for this space, he decision was an easy one.
He
explains, “We also have a smaller studio venue as well and when we received
another round of government funding to outfit this space we installed motorized
trussing, a small moving light package which included VL1100 luminaires, and
then a Palette VL16 console which was an easy choice because it’s the ideal
console for this type of performance venue.
Besides the user-friendly Strand interface and reliability, another
reason I went with the Palette VL16 was so that I could use it as a portable
console or as a remote for the Light Palette Live in the larger theatre. Every
year we produce a series called ‘The Onstage’ where we build a Cabaret-style
smaller stage on our large stage with tables and risers to create a seating
capacity of about 350 people. When we do
this, it is extremely easy for me to roll our Palette VL16 in from the studio
and then either use it as a stand-alone console or use it as a remote for the
Light Palette Live to run the shows from the stage.”
During
the full season at Centre In The Square, Hynes and his team do not have the
luxury of time as it relates to turning the venues from one production to the
next. So it’s during these changeovers
that the Light Palette Live and Palette VL16 demonstrate even further their
power and convenience.
“At
Centre In The Square we do a real variety of events including everything from
rock concerts, to symphony orchestras, stand-up comedy showcases, graduation
ceremonies, and even corporate events,” Hynes continued. “It’s truly a different set up almost every
day but the venue works very well for this because we can change from one set
up to the next very quickly and we have a reliable control system in place with
the Light Palette Live and Palette VL16 to handle everything we might need.
Plus, with these consoles we have so many
shows stored in our libraries that most of our production programming starts
from the saved design of a previous show and then we edit as needed. We typically store one library per year with
all the shows from that season and I don’t very often have to build shows from
scratch because we can store so many libraries in the Strand consoles with
backups giving us many previous productions to choose from.”
Increasingly
impressed with the performance of the Light Palette Live and Palette VL16
consoles, as Hynes looked to solidify his lighting control system even further
with additional layers of security, he knew he didn’t have to look very
far. To bolster the tracking backup of
the system at Centre In The Square, Hynes added yet another Strand console, the
Rack Palette.
“In
a venue this size of over 2000 seats with a very busy year-around season it
just didn’t seem right for us not to have a redundant backup so we now have a
third Strand console in the building, the Rack Palette. While it has currently never had to come into
play, and hopefully it never will, it is there if we need it and it’s nice to
have that extra layer of security.”
With
all his control needs met, and as the season continues to roll on at Centre In
The Square, Hynes is quick to highlight all the advantages of the Light Palette
Live and Palette VL16 control consoles, specifically their power and
user-friendly interfaces for all lighting technologies.
Hynes
concluded, “The one thing that stands out most in my mind about the Strand
consoles is that they do moving and LED light programming extremely really
well. Most people today are looking for
easy ways to program moving lights and LED luminaires and the Strand consoles
do just that. The Strand consoles are
very intuitive so I don’t necessarily have to think real hard to make things
happen. I also find the Strand boards to
be really fast compared to others on the market where in the programming world
other consoles can’t show me anything I can’t do with my Strand boards, but
with my boards I can do it faster.
With
our extremely busy season we don’t have a lot of time and we are always working
on the fly so my boards have to be fast, powerful and user-friendly which the
Light Palette Live and Palette VL16 definitely are.”
Philips
Strand Lighting and Philips Selecon offer the world\’s most comprehensive and
competitive range of luminaires, dimming equipment, control systems and
software to answer the creative needs of lighting designers working in theatre,
television, film, themed environments and sophisticated architectural
applications. http://www.strandlighting.com. http://www.seleconlight.com
