LONDON – Now under the management of Blackfriars' newly-created Blackfriars Promotions, the 2,500-plus capacity Victorian Coronet Theatre offers an array of in-house events supported by a lighting system upgrade including GLP's new Impression 120 RZ zoom fixtures. Ten of the new LED fixtures have been provided by Southampton-based GLS Lighting, which has been servicing the Coronet's lighting requirements for a number of years. Resident LD Paul De Villiers and Ian Turner, head of GLS, recommended that the new Impression Zoom fixtures be used in the venue.
"Since we are now starting to get recognized as one of the major players in the 2K+ club/midsize venue market, we needed to step up our game production wise, and wanted our lighting spec to match the caliber of the nights we are promoting," noted Mike Weller, the Coronet's head booker.
The Coronet has attracted hosted acts such as Groove Armada, The Rifles and Friendly Fires and DJs such as Armand van Helden, so the lighting needed to be versatile. For conventional stage work, six are floor-mounted (as required), with a further two on rear poles at the back of the stage and the final four overhead on the front stage truss.
Having decided that the existing heads were ready for decommission, Ian Turner proposed a combination of conventional heads and 10 GLP Impression Zooms – the latter replacing the old 575W wash lights.
"There is really no comparison between the brightness of these wash lights and an RZ 120 Zoom," he said. "In fact the Zoom performs more like a 700W wash light."
Turner also credited the fixture's rapid response from the Avolites Pearl Expert desk for a multi-function venue which hosts both club nights and live concerts. "The fast multi-color strobing has opened up a new world for them," he said.
De Villiers also complimented the CTO balancing. "The color mixing is unbelievable and they don't look grainy and lo-res like the usual LEDs. The versatility it gives us is amazing – you can go quickly from a conventional beam to a fairly wide traditional wash – and how GLP do that I have no idea."
For Turner, the GLP Impression has also become his LED moving head in his rental fleet.
"We made the decision after looking at all the competitors in some detail and checking on reliability issues. I saw the Impression Zoom at last year's PLASA Show and it is an enormous differentiator. We do a lot of corporate work and the ability to zoom so wide enables us to light cycs, create washes and the next moment fire fast moving beams into the audience."
GLS presently have other Impressions out with Mumford & Sons and there are plans to use them at a private party in Monaco featuring Flaming Lips. "Since the venue has little in the way of power feeds and loading capacity, a fixture weighing just 8kg and drawing virtually no power provides the obvious solution."
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