UK - Scheduled to open on 19 June at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Lord of the Rings, at £12.5 million, is one of the largest and most expensive musicals to be staged in the West End. The entire rig is being controlled by two grandMA full-size, one grandMA light, one grandMA ultra-light and seven NSPs. grandMA 3D and grandMA onPC software were used for the pre-programming of the show.

"We used the grandMA due to the complexities of the lighting rig. It consists of approximately 200 moving lights and 300 conventional lights, and the requirement that after the opening night the lighting operator also controls special effects and triggers the Catalyst Video System," explains associate lighting designer David Howe. "During the three month preparation and detailed technical process, three programmers (moving lights, conventionals and special effects) all worked on putting the elements of the show together on separate grandMAs."

Lighting designer Paul Pyant uses an epic rig which includes 70 x VL3000 Q Spots, 11 x VL3500 Q Spots, 32 Clay Paky Alpha Wash Halo, 14 DHA Digital Light Curtains Halos, 26 Martin Atomic Strobes, over 300 ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, 30 ETC Source Four Revolutions, 70 conventional Par Cans, 100 Wybron CXI Scrollers and 15 Wybron Ram Scrollers.

(Jim Evans)


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