WL enrols at Mountview with new investment
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Mountview offers vocational training at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate level in performance and production arts. Last year, after a 17-month build, it opened the doors to a new building in its new Peckham home. This included the creation of a new 200-seater auditorium, which required a range of lighting fixtures. As an organisation that has worked closely with Mountview for several years now, WL was approached to provide the equipment.
Mountview’s senior lighting tutor Alex Cann, comments: “Moving into a new space opened up the opportunity to have the very latest technology match these state-of-the-art facilities. Whilst the new building was still under construction, we’d already started to think about the type of fixtures we’d need to invest in. We were keen to draw on LED products as we knew these would dramatically reduce our energy consumption as well as lower operating costs; mainly due to their longevity. The equipment also had to be industry-standard as it would be used by our students who need to familiarise themselves with this technology prior to them graduating.”
To decide which fixtures to invest in, Alex and his team attended various tradeshows across the country as well as product demonstrations. He explains: “Having seen a whole range of products, we made a shortlist of our desired kit and approached WL to supply this; knowing of their strong relationship with the leading manufacturers”.
Cann approached WL with his equipment list, which included ETC IonXE and Gio desks, Chauvet Ovation E-910FC Profiles, F-915FC Fresnels, B-2805 and B-1965 Cyc battens, VL 2600 Profiles and GLP Impression S350s. Alex explains: “Our new theatre spaces needed to be able to operate across a wide range of production styles including musical theatre, plays and actor/musician showcases, along with a range of external hires. It was important for us to make sure that the equipment chosen was able to operate in all these situations.”
The new Mountview building opened in September 2018 and has already welcomed the next generation of students to start their training. Cann explains: “The lighting fixtures have now arrived and are already being used to teach our students about lighting technology. They will also be utilised on at least 26 productions across our two theatres over the next year.”
(Jim Evans)
