The funeral scene from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (photo: John Grey)
UK - The CPS Group, based on the south coast, has long had a close relationship with leisure and event venue operator BH Live. Since 1994, CPS has secured a reputation for providing high-end technical services and installations of performance lighting, pro-audio, and AV technology to the entertainment and leisure industries across the south and the UK. So, it came as no surprise that BH Live’s technical stage manager, Simon Bagnall contacted Simon White at CPS in the first instance when he was looking for a new console.
“Our choice for another MA Lighting dot2 console from Ambersphere Solutions through CPS was to build on standardising our stock of control surfaces across our venues,” opens Bagnall. “We purchased our first dot2 about 18 months ago. Since then, we have invested in two further consoles along with a fader and button wing. The platform has proved itself not only powerful but also a versatile and cost-effective investment. This latest purchase of a dot2 XL-F includes a Button wing which was really down to improving flexibility across the various uses required to more complicated programming to simple standalone applications. This brings our total inventory of dot2s to three XL-Fs, two F-Wings and a B-Wing.”
One of the most recent shows hosted by BH Live at Bournemouth’s Pavilion theatre was a production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The lighting was designed and programmed on the dot2 by resident designer, Olly White. “The lighting rig comprises a combination of moving heads, LED Pars along with approximately 140 generic fixtures including Profiles, Fresnels and Pars so there’s plenty to play with. I was given a few ideas from the director and attended a couple of rehearsals, did some research into previous versions of the show but I didn’t want to copy anything that had already been done; I used the research to form a scrapbook of ideas and went from there.
“Due to the way the show flowed there was a fairly high cue count on a short production period: just short of 300 cues. Get-in was on the Sunday morning with the first show on the Tuesday night, so timings were tight. I use the dot2 OnPC for every big show, mainly for pre-programming groups, patching and programming presets. This is so I have less to do when I jump on the console and need to get programming cues for the show.”
BH Live took advantage of the customer support provided by Ambersphere as Bagnall explains, “The support from both CPS and Ambersphere has been an integral part of the dot2 journey.”
(Jim Evans)

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