Last held in 2002, the Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference brings together the many practitioners involved in creating successful performance spaces, from initial brief and financial planning right through to completion of the facility and opening it on time. Over two days, the conference will hold discussions on everything from designing a proscenium arch zone that will satisfy lighting designers, sound designers, directors, performers and the audience to the changes in culture that new arts buildings can bring.
White Light's involvement with the Conference reflects its continuing expansion into areas beyond the straight 'dry hire' of lighting equipment to theatres for which it is perhaps still best known. White Light now has teams handling equipment hire for theatre and for corporate and events, but it also has a rapidly growing sales team that can supply new building and building refurbishment projects as it has done for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespare Company, the Royal Court and many more arts organisations, and a projects team that has completed new lighting installations for venues including the Sevenoaks Playhouse, the Hextable Dance Studios, LAMDA, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Academy of Music and the conversion of London's Whitehall Theatre into the Trafalgar Studios.
"We'll also be at the conference to learn," says White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven, "to find out how new technology, new legislation and new design practices will affect the theatres being built in the future and so, directly or indirectly, will affect all of us who work to supply those theatres."
The 2006 Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference takes place at One Great George Street in Westminster. Further information about the event and how to book places can be found at the conference website: www.theatre-event.com
(Chris Henry)
