Panto Madness for HSL posted: 12/01/2016
It has been another glorious panto season for HSL, supplying lighting for over 30 productions all across the UK predominately for premier panto producer, Qdos during the 2015 / 16 festive period, plus rigging and a Kinesys automation system for the largest show, Peter Pan at the 3000 seater Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow.
Nineteen trucks packed with kit left HSL's HQ in Blackburn, Lancashire - with Swansea and Cardiff sharing transport - loaded up with a combination of moving lights, LED fixtures, strobes, follow spots and generic luminaires, together with cabling, power distribution, control and effects and atmosphere generators. Equipment flew out the door to keep pace of the barrage of excellent slapstick, innuendo and lavatorial one-liners bringing side-splitting humour and entertainment to thousands.
The first truck was loaded up at HSL on 13th November and the most hectic weekend saw 11 trucks filled and dispatched over 3 days.
HSL's team of Qdos panto project managers was headed up by Jordan Hanson, who looked after eight shows, Sean McGlone who co-ordinated seven productions, Emma Nolan and Andy Chatburn who handled a pair and John Slevin, who masterminded Glasgow.
They dealt with 14 different LDs in total, including Ben Cracknell and Matt Clutterham, who each designed four glittering productions.
The art of lighting panto requires a careful fusion of precise key lighting, crazy trippy colouring and dramatic effects to compliment the onstage action which popular songs of the moment, incisive political satire, slick fast-fire dialogue, glitz, glamour and visual extravagance together with some touches of pure traditional theatrical magic continue to enthral wide audiences. The Qdos shows in particular are known for their high production values.
The 2015 / 16 season equipment statistics included approximately 700 x moving lights, 800 x generics, 500 x LED sources, 100 x strobes, over 1000 x egg strobes, 50 x smoke, haze and fog machines plus control consoles and full backup systems. Starcloths and a selection of softs' were also supplied to some productions.
Peter Pan, Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow Glasgow once again hosted one of the highest profile shows of the host of Qdos productions this year with Peter Pan starring David Hasselhoff and The Krankies, with a lively and colourful lighting design by Tim Oliver.
HSL supplied trussing and rigging for this one - a bare stage arena style venue - which started with the installation of a large mother grid from which sub-trusses, rigging and an extensive Kinesys automation system to create the flying system needed for all the LX and drapes bars. Also integrated into this were the Foyes performer flying tracks.
The lighting rig was spread across 5 overhead LX bars, an advance truss and assorted positions around the front circle balcony and the side pros booms, with the HSL supplied elements combined with a quantity of Source Four profiles from the house.
Seventy moving lights from a plethora of manufacturers were specified by Tim, all used to great effect, starting with 12 x Martin MAC Vipers, four on the circle front and the rest on different overhead bars which were used for most of the extensive gobo work and projecting animations onto the stage.
Eleven Robe MMX Spots - some concealed in set pieces and on the floor, possible due to their small size - were also used for gobos and texturing and spotting, and 10 x Robe MMX WashBeams were perfect for picking up a lot of the high speed pick-ups and local' spotting. Two MAC 2K XBs on the front truss helped with coverage across the forestage area.
Twelve Clay Paky Sharpy Washes overhead and at the back were used for the quick zappy moments, while 10 x Philips SL WASH 350 LED units - two on the advanced bar and the rest on the overheads - lit the set portals and provided general LED illumination for the multiple cloths that dropped in and out throughout the performance.
Robe CitySkape LED floods with frost filters were spread out along the lip of the stage and utilised for front lights and to graze up the portal legs, while twenty-three i-Pix Satellites on LX2 picked out the tops of the portals.
PixelLine LED battens running across the front of the stage were used as blinders at various points together with two more units on LX2 that pointed directly downwards.
Robe CycFX8 moving LED battens at the back were used for colouring the upstage cloths and 9 x Philips Nitro strobes on LX Bars 2 and 3 were worked both as classic strobes and as powerful washes onto the forestage.
HSL also supplied a quantity of PARs and additional Source Fours, plus two Jem Glaciator foggers, some Hazebase Low Pro foggers for the flying scenes and two Jem ZR44 smoke machines for general ambience creation.
The portals also had a series of inbuilt LED practical lights and fibre curtains embedded in the legs that were controlled via the lighting console, and HSL supplied an upstage and a downstage starcloth to add more layers of sparkle.
All the lighting was programmed onto a grandMA2 light, with MA OnPC at the dimmers running in full tracking backup, and the show was operated for the run by Chief LX Gareth Smith, who tech'd the lights with Deputy LX Trix Banionyte.
Snow White, Kings Theatre, Edinburgh On the east side of Scotland, lighting designer Ben Cracknell brought his vibrant magic touch to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , one of the longest running of this year's Qdos productions, starring the superlative and hilarious panto trio of Allan Stewart, Grant Stott & Andy Gray.
Ben's production LX Nick Mumford co-ordinated the kit list and all the logistics with HSL, and on site, he, Ben and Ben's programmer Alex Passmore worked alongside Kings Theatre's head of lighting Stewart McGill and their LX crew to inst
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Panto Madness for HSL posted: 12/01/2016 
