LONDON – The first Theatre 2016 Conference took place in Central London May 12-13. It was held across three West End venues: The Piccadilly, Lyric and Arts Theatres, and brought together more than 1,000 delegates from across all areas of UK theatre. Called the largest event of its kind, it was the first time since 2005 that the sector has come together for a major industry-wide conference. White Light was asked to provide the production support for the event, supplying the lighting along with full AV support.
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The program looked at new challenges facing the industry and what organizations needed to do to ensure future success. Bryan Raven, WL’s Managing Director, comments: “This is the first time that a theatre conference of this scale has taken place and it is long overdue. It was really interesting hearing organizations of all shapes and sizes discuss the current issues they are facing and how we as an industry can work together to overcome these, ensuring that the UK theatre industry simply goes from strength to strength”.
Prior to the conference, David Brownlee, Director of BON Culture who organized Theatre 2016, in regards to providing the production support, approached WL. As the conference would utilize the in-house lighting within each venue, WL was asked to supply the AV equipment. Bryan adds: “Over the past year, we have invested heavily in the AV side of the company; to the point where we are now being approached to solely provide audio and video support, which was the case here”.
As a result, WL supplied the AV support to every single talk, presentation and panel discussion across all three venues. This meant drawing on a host of equipment, from Christie HD Projectors to high-end audio equipment from manufacturers such as Shure and Yamaha.
Shrenik Singhavi, WL’s Conference Account Manager, comments: “Theatre 2016 featured several sessions across three separate venues so intricate planning was essential. We made several site visits to ensure that we were completely familiar with the various spaces and that we could create a set-up that would ensure that those in attendance would receive the best experience possible”.
WL not only had to provide the AV support but do so within an extremely limited timeframe. Shrenik adds: “Whilst the conference was taking place during the day, the shows within each venue were still taking place every evening. This meant we literally had to get in each morning, set up the equipment specific to each venue and then immediately get out again late afternoon”.
The conference was a great success, allowing for topical and important theatre-based discussions led by industry experts, and there are plans for it to make an immediate return next year.
Gemma Nelson, Senior Project Manager at BON Culture, comments: “We are extremely grateful to WL for their superb support throughout the conference. Their quality and service was fantastic, particularly with such tight schedules across each of the three venues, and the entire team was extremely professional, flexible and a delight to work with”.
Bryan adds: “Whilst we remain the leading lighting supplier to West End and UK touring theatre, as seen with our recent work at the DevWeek Conference, Rugby World Cup and numerous other corporate events, our AV services are in constant demand. It was fantastic for us to work in such a theatrical environment and showcase the other services we provide as the complete production solution specialist”.
