Shakespeare in an English country garden
UK - Founded in 1968, the amateur Stamford Shakespeare Company has been putting on performances of Shakespeare’s classics for audiences of all ages for over 50 years.
Since 1977 the company has called the Tolethorpe Hall home, with the concreted stepped amphitheatre allowing them to recreate the Shakespearian magic in the same environment it was written for.
Looking to upgrade the existing house rig from 1KW fresnels and frame scrollers, to modern LED replacements, Grant Witton, Stamford Shakespeare Company’s technical manager, chose Prolights Fresnels, which he purchased through A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET).
Grant comments, “We needed something to replace the aging and slightly noisy scrollers, but we also wanted a fixture that allowed us to colour match seamlessly with gels in the other fixtures in the rig. We looked into many different LED Fresnels but Prolights was the winner for us for a number of reasons. We found the fixtures to be super bright and the colour output very punchy and impressive. We also had to consider our annual budget and were delighted with the cost effectiveness of these Fresnels. They certainly ticked all the right boxes for us.”
The company are already putting these fixtures to good use for this season's performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Humble Boy and "The Importance of Being Earnest."
Grant continues, “From a programming point of view, we have noticed such a positive difference. The ability to now change colour, without the need to either make sure the required colours are next to each other in the scroll, or having to turn the light off, let it scroller then bring them back, will certainly benefit the lighting of upcoming seasons and make it easier to achieve the look we are looking for. In the past we have had to plan the colour moves carefully as not to have the loud noise of the scrollers moving from one end to the other - this is now a thing of the past.
“We have purchased lights from AC-ET a number of times and have always been very impressed with the quality of service and products received. Their team are always incredibly helpful in advising and sourcing the right products for our needs.”

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