A.C. Provide Drama Studio Technical Facilities for Liverpool Hope Uni College

10th January 2005

A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division have supplied and installed £100K technical facilities in two new state of the art theatres at Liverpool Hope University College.

Opened in 1995, Hope at Everton provides postgraduate courses in Creative & Performing Arts, Drama and Theatre Studies, Dance and Music for over 1000 students.

The College had been teaching its Drama and Theatre Studies course in a very old studio on the main campus, but recently received funding to build two new studios in The Cornerstone - a listed building located on the College's Hope at Everton site in Liverpool town centre. In the last year, Hope's Cinematics, Dance and Music technology courses had all been moved to The Cornerstone, so the intention was to create two multi-purpose theatre studios which could also be used by other Performing Arts courses.

A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division, who have extensive experience providing technical theatre facilities for educational establishments, were approached by Hope College Senior Technician Joanna Atkinson, to tender for the supply and installation of all theatre technical facilities.

Following the successful tender, A.C. Project Manager Adam Beaumont made a number of on-site visits to advise on changes to the system specification which would ensure that the facilities were both to industry standard and within the final budget constraints.

The main theatre's lighting system comprises of 96 ways of Zero 88 Chilli dimming, Strand 300 series control desk, fully fixed lighting grid, Chroma-Q™ DMX splitters, Spotlight Combi Fresnels, ETC Source 4 Junior zoom profiles, Vision Par 64 lanterns and a selection of extension cables with SpectraLite™ cases to store them in.

The audio system comprises of Mackie SR24 mixers, Wharefedale LIX loudspeakers, Yamaha amplifiers, Tascam and Denon playback equipment, Sennheiser Evolution Radio mic system and a custom stage managers console utilising ASL, Que Light and a communications system.

AC Lighting also supplied and installed a full perimeter blackout curtain track and curtains to create a black box performance area.

The smaller studio's lighting rig is half the size but almost identical in specification, to enable students to work with familiar equipment in both studios. This is also to enable the college to easily transfer equipment from one studio to the other to meet changing requirements. Four Tourspot™ 250 moving heads were also supplied for use by both theatres.

Post installation, A.C. also provided on-site training of all technical facilities for College staff.

The new facilities, which will be used by local pro-theatre productions as well as the College's own students, go straight into preparation for The Cornerstone Festival. This highlight of the year for the Deanery of Arts and Community is a two-week festival of art and performance - including music, drama and dance productions - which starts on 24th November.

Hope College Senior Technician Joanna Atkinson, commented: "I'm pleased with the end result from A.C. Lighting. Adam's been extremely helpful throughout the project. The equipment used is state-of-the-art, both theatres look great, and they kept within budget."

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