Located in Chester city centre, it is the biggest project of its kind outside of London
UK - Storyhouse in Chester is a new theatre, cinema and library, housed in a renovated art deco Odeon Cinema building. Located in the city centre, it is the biggest project of its kind outside of London. (A detailed report on the evolution of The Storyhouse features in the latest issue of LSi - plasa.me/lsidigital).
The £37m renovation has seen the building revitalised and it now houses an 800-seat auditorium, a 200-seat studio theatre, a restaurant, two bars and a 100-seat boutique cinema. Leading production solution specialist White Light was contracted to supply all of the loose entertainment equipment, which included lighting, audio and video.
Jonathan Haynes, WL’s business development manager and William Bray, business development support at WL, brought Doughty Engineering on board to supply a range of IWB boxes.
Jonathan commented: "For the Storyhouse project, amongst many other things, we needed to supply a range of internally wired lighting bars at custom lengths, so we approached Doughty for a number of reasons, namely the high quality of their products, their impressive lead times and fantastic service. We have always been impressed with Doughty’s build quality and needed a brand which could meet the demands of a busy producing theatre.”
WL supplied the Doughty team with an idea of what was required and was soon presented with a specific design. Will comments: "We worked closely with Doughty's technical sales adviser, Mike Guglielmi who was extremely helpful in providing us with an exact solution. All kit was custom made to order to meet the brief exactly.”
He concluded: "The client is extremely satisfied with the Doughty kit, as we knew they would be. Doughty really are our go-to company with a project of this nature and size. We know they can be relied upon to provide an exact solution whenever we require them to. Their approach throughout is exemplary and even their follow up customer service seems to go above and beyond – Doughty were in regular touch to ensure that both White Light and the end user was happy. This level of service, along with an on-schedule delivery is what puts Doughty head and shoulders above the rest in our opinion."
Storyhouse officially opened on Thursday 11 May with The Beggar’s Opera. Over £300k of lighting and audio equipment was procured and supplied by WL, including ETC and Yamaha consoles, Robe BMFL moving head fixtures and a mixed rig of ETC tungsten fixtures and Lustr Series 2 and ColorSource units. Jonathan comments: “It has been great to supply a new theatre space with the latest technology and cutting edge products which will ensure that Storyhouse’s reputation as a leading producing theatre will continue to grow and grow.”
(Jim Evans)

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