The Association will have a major presence in the New Technology Gallery on the Top Deck, as part of the central feature area of the Show, which focuses on the products nominated for the PLASA Awards for Product Excellence.
PLASA ensures that the money raised from the awards is fed directly back to the industry by donating the proceeds to a number of charities allied to the markets it serves.
As part of this initiative, PLASA is once again sponsoring the first 15 applicants to complete the PLASA BTEC Award.
The General Theatre Technician course was first run as a pilot at Loughborough College in June 2000. Course development had been paid for via a European Social Fund grant, with the AETTI playing a major role in the course’s development and delivery. Following the delivery of the pilot course, a period of further development and fine-tuning culminated in the delivery of the first fully commercial course. This took place at Pitlochry in Scotland in February 2001. This highly successful course owes a great debt of thanks to the S4T team who allowed the AETTI and Loughborough College to integrate it into their 2001 Winter School. Since then two further courses have been run with great success, the first of which took place during PLASA 2001. PLASA provided Loughborough College with classroom space off from the main exhibition hall at Earls Court and also offered sponsorship to successful candidates.
Whilst the knowledge gained and obtaining a BTEC qualification remain the prime reasons for attending the course, delegates at PLASA had the additional benefit of being able to attend the show at the same time and to take advantage of the value for money sponsorship offered by PLASA.
The most recent course took place in July 2002 at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre. Nine delegates attended the course and all felt that it was a well delivered course providing excellent value for money.
The next course to be run takes place during the PLASA Show at Earls Court 1 in London. Word is clearly getting out about the quality of the courses because all places were fully booked a month ahead of the September start date. The next phase of development is to offer more General Theatre Technician courses and widen the scope to deliver specialist courses in lighting and sound. For further details, contact Nicky Greet at PLASA on 01323 410335.
