Included in the technical refurbishment was a brand new stage, a complete overhaul of the entire stage electrical system, the installation of a new flying system and a new stage lift. As most of the productions brings their own sound system and lighting, attention has been paid to installing a comprehensive network for video, sound, data, dimmers, patch panels and lighting looms. Cable used included Van Damme Cat 6 Data and Digilog cable, a variety of Van Damme LSZH (low smoke zero halogen) video and speaker cabling and, from the VDC trading fibre optic lab, over 6000m of both 4 core and 16 core fibre optic cable together with an array of connectors and interfaces.
The Van Damme cable was specified by consultant Mark Bradbrook who explained his choice of cable. "We did some research and spoke to our various wholesalers and because of the size and prestige of the project we wanted to only install recognised cable with an industry bench mark for quality and reputation and Van Damme came out on top each time. Since the completion we have had a few issues with equipment, patch panels and plugs but no issues with any of the installed cable and there were quite few thousand metres installed."
(Jim Evans)