Lighting
The Lighting System at St Oswald’s Hall was
installed when the Hall was renovated in the early 1990s. The Houselights are dimmable fluorescents and
as such are not suited to theatrical performances. Some success can be achieved by using around
4kW of floodlight (for instance from 2 of the venue’s 4-way Coda battens)
directed at the opposite wall and ceiling from the side lighting bars.
At the time of writing the Lighting is kept in a
particular rig for School use. It must
be returned to precisely this rig (complete with focus) at the end of a hire.
Lighting
Positions
There are 4 main positions FOH. Each bar has only 5 circuits which is quite
restrictive as running extra cables in this venue can be messy. The two bars above the main auditorium space
are on winches however at the time of writing the one closest to the stage has mis-matched ropes so the bar does not sit horizontal when
flown out to its working height. The
acceptable loading of these bars is unknown.
It is possible to run vertical booms from the side lighting bars down to
the ground, giving a good front sidelight angle for bashing colour onto the
stage. However standard Trilite trussing
will not fit between the bar and the wall by about 1/2 an inch so it’s best to
use straight scaffolding.
Overstage there are 2 internally wired bars. The position of the second of these bars is
of no real use for anything but backlight as it’s too far upstage. Luckily there are other bars in the grid system which are of more use for lighting positions. There are some circuits available on the
floor for practical lights.
The 4 Coda Cyc battens are usually mounted on one
of the unwired grid bars and are daisy-chained together. A 4-way 15A multicore supplies the first
batten in the chain from the DIP sockets Upstage Right.
Luminaires
At the time of writing the venue has the following:
There are around 4 barndoors
to suit Prelude luminaires. At the time
of writing there were colour frames for all luminaires.
Control/Dimming
The Lighting Control point is in the Gallery at the
rear of the Hall. The venue lighting
desk is a Strand Action 24 single-preset memory (99 cues max) desk. This outputs D54 which is fed into a
There a 4 Strand Tempus racks at the Lighting
Control point. Each has six channels
which are individually rated at 10A and have dual 15A sockets. The 15A patch bays are limited in that the
FOH circuits will reach only Dimmer Racks 3 & 4 and the onstage circuits
will reach only Dimmer Racks 1 & 2.
The Dimmer Racks are protected by Circuit Breakers which I think are
rated around 40A.
The incoming mains supply is 200A 3-phase and is
quite under-utilised so a competent electrician could safely wire in a 63A
3-phase outlet which (with suitable protection such as circuit breaker and RCD)
could supply further Dimmer Racks.
August 2004