Entertainment Technology Resources & History
London Palladium: 5th May 1998 to 26th Feb 2000
Adapted by: Nan Knighton, Arlene Phillips, Paul Nicholas and Robert Stigwood
Songs by: The Bee Gees
Director / Choreographer: Arlene Phillips
Set Designer: Robin Wagner
Costume Design: Andy Edwards
Lighting Design: Andrew Bridge
Sound Design: Mick Potter
Musical Supervisor: Phil Edwards
Orchestrations & Arrangements: Phil Edwards & Nigel Wright
A year On @ London Palladium
By Lee House
Designed by Andrew Bridge, the show boasts 31 Mac 500s, 28 Mac 600s, 90 Robo-color 400s, 34 Robocolor IIIs, 5 Destroyers, 2 Centrepieces and 2 MSR 1200 RoboZaps plus a large generic rig, it’s a busy rig to keep up with!
Here at the Palladium we use Macs in just about every way we can. As a standard theatrical profile or wash light to the full-on disco effects that make Fever the Show that it is.
Concerning the show, everything comes into its own in the disco scenes. Two automated towers rotate with 36 Robocolor Pro 400s on each. A tower flies in at the back with 18 Robo IIIs on and a further 18 Pro 400s feed fibre optics to light up the dance floor. The 5 Destroyers help fill the auditorium with an array of colour and movement. In the more conventional scenes, the Mac 500s and 600 combine well with the generic rig to create both intimate interior and larger “neighbourhood” scenes. Effective use of haze machines also bring out the best of the 500s with 15 different gobos in each to choose from.
The Palladium’s famous Sunday concerts range from variety to rock bands, product launches and performances that crowd the stage with over four hundred performers! On Sundays, the versatility of the Mac 500s and 600 cuts the time consumed in lengthy pre-production meetings and rigging to a minimum. The rig is capable of covering any of the lighting requirements that the concerts throw at us!
As “hands on” staff, the one thing we all wanted to know was “how reliable the units are?” as lamp maintenance is time consuming in a busy venue. Considering we ask the units to perform eight performances of Saturday Night Fever a week, often followed by a rock concert on the Sunday, the answer is actually “much better than any other moving lights!”. So when we were asked to write a piece saying just what we do with the Martin equipment, the answer is “Just about everything, with the minimum of fuss.”
