Posts Tagged ‘edinburgh festival’

Gearing up for PLASA

September 11th, 2009

Hi allplasa092

Edinburgh Festival seems such a long time ago and I didn’t cover a finger nail of what I had intended to!

Since then I have visited the very refreshing Curve Theatre in Leicester – article due in Auditoria Magazine at the end of this month – been to Birmingham, Manchester and London and am currently in Brighton for a few days. Of course this weekend we’re gearing up for PLASA. As usual I will be reporting for Lighting and Sound International for the show report but in addition I will be doing my own blog from the show.

This will allow me to bring video interviews straight from the show floor along with unique insights into the latest in product design and applications. I will also be talking to visitors at the show and bringing their response and feedback on their favorite products and stands.

Plus – entirely for your delectation and delight – I will be carrying out a completely non scientific survey on who is doing the best beer and food on stand, who has downsized, upsized, been clever or inventive and who has the best marketing and PR campaign!

Of course I will also be hanging out on a few choice stands myself, imbibing a few bevies with old friends and looking out for the best swag of the show. So . . . if you’re an exhibitor and you’re particularly proud of your corporate swag  look out for me on the show floor and give me the best that you have!

Looking forward to catching up with everyone on Sunday. Please feel free to get in touch if you have something exciting you would like to show me or something important to say!

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25 Years of Pleasance . . .

September 2nd, 2009

Pleasance Edinburgh opened as part of the 1985 Festival Fringe with just two theatres, which faced onto a deserted courtyard-come-car-park, at the then unfashionable, eastern end of Edinburgh’s old town!

Twenty-five seasons later  and the story is very different. The Pleasance has become one of the biggest and most highly respected venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with an international profile and a network of alumni that reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary comedy, drama and entertainment.

The company has expanded year on year, added up to 23 more venues – large and small – and in the process attracted a large number of faithful supporters and staff who return every season.

One such individual, who has been involved with the Pleasance for 11 years, is freelance sound designer Tom Lishman. Keenly enthusiastic about all the Pleasance Venues have to offer, he discusses his role in the organization, what it takes to plan and manage the sound installation across 25 venues hosting over 200 companies and what keeps him coming back for more. He also talks us through the Pleasance’s long and positive relationship with its audio kit supplier, Orbital Sound.

We also talk to the charming and enigmatic Director of the Pleasance, Anthony Alderson. He’s been involved with Pleasance for an amazing 23 years, having started when it comprised just two venues, in which he swept the floors! He tells us how it all began for him and what makes the Pleasance such a special place to work. He also discusses the benefits of company’s continued investment in its artist and technicians, how he has watched the operation grow and develop and his plans for future training initiatives.

Pleasance Theatre Trust Ltd [Registered Charity number 2013041].

And . . . if further proof were required of the opportunities and development prospects for aspiring theatre professionals, in all disciplines working at the Edinburgh Fringe, then Ellie Morgan has to be the icing on the cake. Now deputy head of lighting for all 26 venues, she started with the Pleasance just three years ago, working in a single Pleasance venue as a stage manager!

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Visualise Reloaded – Science and Art in perfect harmony

August 25th, 2009

VISUALISE29_lowres

The warning on the programme says – You may experience feeling of excitement. Whilst we encourage you to share these feelings with others please remain in your seat.

What better tempter to get you into a show – even if its a kids show!

Now coming from both an art and science background I’ve always believed that theatre is an ideal arena to combine the two disciplines. If at the same time it can impart a passion for both in the audience then all the better.

Hailing from a lighting background myself, where I’ve had the privilege to observe first hand how sybiotically engineering and digital technology works with the arts of  colour mixing, pattern, angle, beam and intensity to create atmosphere, environment, time and place, i was delighted to come across Visualise at Venue 13.

The company’s mantra is very much: “Less explanation more exploration. To that end they have produced a hugely engaging interactive science demonstration – very now given the governments drive to improve our nations interest and skills in science and engineering!

With shows like the BBCs Bang Goes the Theory so popular, perhaps we are in for a more exciting educational theatre that can both encourage a healthy enthusiasm for science and entertain.

Visualize was certainly extremely well received – not just by the kids but also by many of the grownups! I was totally engrossed by the two pop bottle water vortex, the super smoke rings, the visualization of sound, dynamic colour theory displays and most of all, the ‘rainbow rays’.

Many of the highly visual performance elements used lighting, sound or video. Some of the ideas would do as well applied to a ‘less is more’ style of lighting design as they do a science demo.

Project manager Debbie Syrop discusses what inspired some of these fabulous ideas:

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Crazy weekend!

August 24th, 2009

So . . . I am now very happily kitted out with much coveted VIP passes for some of the best private bars of the festival! You know those exclusive hideouts where stars hang in the same space as venue staff and everyone rubs along together, full of community spirit, shared experiences and ambitions!

As I am sure you can imagine it’s been a demanding weekend both for my liver and for my brain. I’ve managed keep both filled with copious heady cocktails of booze and culture! If that isn’t enough I’ve also met so many interesting people, I hardly know where to start, what to include and what I must inevitably leave out!

On Friday I popped over to The Musical Theatre@George Square accompanied by Peter Kirkup of Zero 88. There my eyes were opened to exactly how many relatively large productions a theatre can host in a day! I must say the constant stream of theatre audiences that pour through the doors of so many huge venues never ceased to fill me with wonder. Where do they all come from and what happened to the economic recession?

I was lucky enough to catch the frenetic turn around into One Academy Productions performance of Jerry Springer the Opera – see links below – and met up with two very busy lighting techs who’ve not only managed to learn an entirely new console during one of the most relentless and busy festivals in the world, but also have to deal with the day to day crisis of working long hours with lovies, technology and audiences – and we all know the toll that can take!

Musical Theatre @ George Square

One Academy Productions

www.rsamd.ac.uk/oneacademy

So . . . a remarkably sparky and up beat Simon Hayes discusses his experience of the Zero 88 Orb . . .

And an amazingly laid back Jenny Kershaw discusses what it is to do two people’s jobs at the same time across more than one venue!

On Saturday I was over at the Assembly Halls where I met my husband’s favorite drinking partner – Didier Bareau. Responsible for the lighting in the Rainy Venue at the magnificent Assembly Halls, Didier is a man renowned for his ability to party as hard as he can work – apparently he works extremely hard!

At the age of 33 Didier is almost a veteran of the festival circuit and travels from one to another with the ease of a Romany gypsy. From Adelaide to Edinburgh to Glastonbury to Wexford, he is as happy with rock and roll as he is with opera, ballet or circus. We meet his as he prepares for one show of many that day, and talk to him about what he does and why. We also take a look at just one of the crazy turnarounds between shows.

Yesterday – Sunday – I spent the bulk of my late afternoon and evening in the decadently, gorgeous burlesque style, Assembly rooms bar! Here I drank copious amounts of gin and tonic, ate potato wedge chips dipped into dollops of sour cream and sweet chilli sauce – yummy – and listened to the very international tech staff wax lyrical about all the bonkers things they get up to on a daily basis! More to come on that later this week.

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Northern Light adds colour to Edinburgh Festival

August 22nd, 2009

Having been to Stage Electrics Pie and Pint event the other day, I thought it only fair I pop along to Northern Light’s ‘Plug and Play’ jolly at the rather beautiful College Quad in Edinburgh.

On arrival I immediately bumped into Ashley Lewis from Clay Paky, Alex Cowan from Pixel Range and Tom from iPix. This was the second of the two day event and I was pleased to hear that Ashley and Co had been enjoying everything Edinburgh Festival had to offer! They were certainly in very high spirits when I arrived!

This was hardly surprising given Northern Light was providing some delicious Scottish single malts, fabulous locally sourced food including: smoked salmon,  haggis and cheeses plus the usual array of wine, beer and soft drinks. For those interested in the technical side there was also a wide range of lighting and sound products on show.

Ashley Lewis showed the range of Clay Paky 300, 1200 – spot and wash fixtures, Avolites  Stephen Baird Smith demonstrated the new Art 2000 power cube and Alex Cowan of Pixel Range previewed the company’s latest architectural LED fixture – to be launched at PLASA – along with the Pixel Par, PixelLine 1044, 110 amongst others. He was very impressed with the event and said . . .

Also going great guns was Peter Kirkup product manager for Zero 88, who was offering what proved to be very popular demos of the new Orb desk. This product seems to be taking off in a big way across the theatre lighting industry – more about that tomorrow.

Nick Read who took on the role of head of hire and events at Northern Light last October said . . . (coming soon!)

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Pie and Pint with Stage Electrics

August 21st, 2009

It’s amazing how Edinburgh Festival has changed. In my day you had to beg, steal and invent to get a show with no budget up to the festival and operating in a venue. Today it seems, if you are lucky, you can get manufacturers to loan their latest console or piece of kit, train you and your technicians for free and and offer full technical backup. Not only that, at the same time their distributors will furnish you with good quality food and alcohol! The streets of Edinburgh are no longer so full of half starved lovies who sleep on shelves in venue basements and run their lighting off homemade banks of household dimmers! Mind you I have no doubt there are still a few of those around.

Stage Electrics, which seems to have kit in almost every main venue on the Fringe, had their second successful Pie and Pint event up here in Edinburgh. Peter Kirkup from Zero 88 showed visiting tech’s on a break the Orb, the latest console from Zero 88. We will be reporting on its application from the Pleasance venues later this week, so please do watch this space. Paul Roughton of Stage Electrics says: “We have 1470 lighting units on hire up here 113 of which are movers. WE also have 39,672 meters of cable, 1,271.2 meters of truss, 6000sqm of staging and that doesn’t include what we have on Scott Mills the Musical!”

What is also impressive is that some people seem to be involved in more than one show in more than one venue concurrently. One such multi talented person is Zoe Hughes who it seems is acting in two shows and is responsible for the lighting in two others. She discusses her exploits in the film below.

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Broken Bones and Wet Weather

August 14th, 2009

The Fifth Estate blog from Edinburgh has been held up due to a broken knee cap and some very wet weather – my crutches keep slipping. However in a bid to make up for it, below is a link to the latest news, blogs and reviews from the Stage in Edinburgh.

We should be resuming normal service with lots of video, podcast and photos sometime over the weekend – so watch this space. In the meantime many thanks for your patience.

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Blogging from the backstages of the Edinburgh Festivals

August 12th, 2009

Welcome to the Fifth Estate’s brand new blog. For the next two weeks we will be bringing you news, views and product reviews and applications from the backstages of the Edinburgh Festival. This is new ground for us and we are always interested in any ideas or feedback you may have, now or as we go through the next two weeks.

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