The Ambassadors Theatre Group decided to replace the installation because of concerns about the ongoing availability of spare parts for the Strand LD90s, installed as part of the Lyceum's dramatic reconstruction in 1996. In consultation with White Light, it was decided to replace them with ETC Sensor 3 racks, now convincingly established as the dimmer of choice in the West End with White Light having completed installations at the Piccadilly and the Vaudeville theatres, amongst others.
A like-for-like replacement was decided upon, with White Light supplying four 48-slot Sensor 3 racks loaded with 156 dual 3k dimmer modules, 12 dual 5k dimmer modules and 20 dual non-dim modules.
The challenge was that in the West End a theatre's house dimmers are used to run the show's lighting, in this case Donald Holder's award-winning design - and disrupting The Lion King was never going to be an option.
The changeover was therefore carefully scheduled across four weekends, taking advantage of the long weekends made possible by The Lion King's Olympic schedule, which saw the show not perform on Sunday, Monday or during the day on Tuesday. "This, together with careful planning from the teams at White Light and ATG, made it possible to do this without having to bring in temporary dimming," explains White Light's special projects director, Simon Needle. "Each weekend we worked from 8am to 8pm on Sunday and Monday, swapped out 96 ways of dimming, then handed the theatre back to the show team at 10am on Tuesday."
As part of the process, the dimmers were connected to the theatre's existing load circuits and data patch bay; redundant holes were filled to ensure the fire integrity of the dimmer room, and the LD90s were removed from the building.
White Light's team for the changeover included Nick Ewins of PTB, already familiar with the building having carried out the original 1996 installation, along with Darren Howard from White Light who commissioned the new system.
The Lion King, which has already played at the Lyceum for more than a decade, is now set for another decade or more of reliable lighting - and not just in London, but also on its new British tour, newly opened in Bristol, where the dimming system and the rest of the lighting rig are being supplied by White Light.
(Jim Evans)
