Originally an early cinema called the Picturedrome, in 1935 the venue was turned into a theatre when the Worthing Repertory Company outgrew its own premises - bringing with it the name Connaught Theatre. Last year's pantomime, Aladdin, starred singer Jon Lee of multi-million selling band S Club 7, alongside Britain's Got Talent semi-finalists Kieran Sutcliffe and Sarah Jameson.
The Color One 100 LED Pars were purchased for use in the venue's Studio Theatre, but made their debut in the main auditorium for the panto, to provide bright and comprehensive stage coverage.
"The main attraction of the Color One 100s for me was the excellent colour mixing and replication along with the decent lens," says Martin Wright, senior technician at The Connaught. "The bright primary colours are excellent, but it was the more subtle colours that truly impressed alongside almost no colour separation. For our production of Aladdin, the fixtures truly excelled, providing great stage coverage and complementing the rest of the rig really well."
Worthing Borough Council, which operates the Connaught under Worthing Theatres, were attracted by the Color One 100s as part of an effort to reduce the venue's energy consumption. Martin first encountered the Color One 100 fixtures at the PLASA London tradeshow last year.
"I think the price to performance ratio is very good, and although there are cheaper LED fixtures available, for me the build quality just isn't anywhere near that of the Color One 100s," Martin continues. "And as a venue with very tight production time constraints, we can't afford to have units go down, so we chose the Chroma-Q units as we know they're reliable and simple to set up."
The Color One 100 fixtures were supplied by Chroma-Q UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET).
(Jim Evans)
