UK - Having appeared to great acclaim and huge popularity last year, Classic Gear Live, which presents some of the key lighting and sound products that have shaped the entertainment industry, is back for 2024 at this year’s PLASA Show.
This year’s display builds on the success of last year, with some returning favourites and a whole bunch of ‘new’ classics besides.
On show this year: the Vari-Lite VL2, VL4 and Artisan for those who missed them last year, but alongside them the Vari-Lite’s rivals from back in the day, the moving mirror lights – GoldenScan and RoboScan, controlled by a Wholehog II console, marking the 30th anniversary of its PLASA debut.
Stepping back a generation: Avo’s QM500, or for a complete contrast in size, Zero88’s Sirius, the console that introduced so many to memory lighting control. Many would then graduate to bigger consoles, including Strand’s Galaxy, represented on-stand by a fully restored Galaxy Nova, the console’s final generation, allowing visitors to play with the unique group masters, a feature sadly lost to all of today’s lighting controls.
Also on show: colour changers from a time before LED, with CCT’s Colorsette and Chromatic colour change systems. An Altman 360Q. Strand’s Patt 243 Fresnel in cutaway format. And, marking the 50th anniversary of its introduction, Optikinetics Solar250 projector.
For those from the sound world: the mighty Cadac mixing desk custom-built for the opening of the original Starlight Express in 1984: this is the console that pioneered the computerised routing of channels to VCA faders, which is the way all musicals are mixed to this day. Plus the vast collection of vintage rock-and-roll audio gear from Chris Hewitt.
As ever, products are nothing without people and there will be plenty of people on-hand who designed, built or used these products, happy to share their memories and experience, including lighting designers and one-time Artisan programmers Andrew Voller and Pryderi Baskerville, sound designer Mike Walker, David Bertenshaw and Alan Luxford formerly of Strand, Neil Rice of Optikinetics and many others.
We will also be re-uniting the pioneering sound designer Martin Levan with that Starlight Cadac; Levan will be joined by the sound designer of the new production of Starlight Express, Gareth Owen, for what will be a fascinating conversation about how theatre sound design has evolved over the last four decades; this takes place on Monday 2 September at 2.30pm as part of PLASA’s Seminar Programme.
Classic Gear Live is a remarkable opportunity to explore how the technology we use was created and has evolved over the years. You can find it on stand D55, at the back of the hall at the 2024 PLASA Show.
