Robert Juliat Modernizes The Grand Old Lady of Leven Street in Edinburgh Built in 1906, the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland, fondly referred to as The Grand Old Lady of Leven Street, has just emerged from a four-year heritage redevelopment with major alterations to public and technical infrastructure. Home to a wide variety of entertainment from drama to dance, musicals to family shows, live music to pantomime, the redevelopment succeeded in modernizing facilities for audience, artists, and technicians while protecting the historic character of the building. As part of its technical upgrade and ongoing migration to LED fixtures, Bristol-based SLX supplied 2 Robert Juliat Arthur LT 800W LED long-throw (4 to 10 degrees) followspots and eight Bizet 671SX (11 to 26 degrees) 500W LED tunable white profiles, which were installed in the newly created followspot box and upper circle bridge positions. "We needed a more powerful profile fixture for the new FOH lighting positions which, at 25m from the stage, are further than we had before," explains Heather Rolland, senior technician at the King's Theatre. "As a major receiving house, we wanted a reliable brand that we knew to be solid for its quality of light and build, and that would be instantly acceptable to all incoming productions." Rolland coordinated a shoot out of top manufacturers' products from the new lighting bridge, during which time SLX's Ruari Cormack introduced her and her team to the RJ Bizet profiles. Capital Theatres first became aware of Bizet on a visit to the Robert Juliat factory in July 2025 when their head of Electrics, Graham Raith, alongside Live Technology, learned more about how Robert Juliat is pioneering color and LED technology. The King's Theatre team included Rolland, Raith and John Robb, Capital Theatres Group's technical director who led the King's Theatre project. The Bizet profile was presented by Avril Cook, product specialist at Live Technology, RJ's exclusive distributor for the UK, with Robert Juliat's product manager, Ludwig Lepage, in support. Each profile's features were meticulously examined, comparing function with function across the products, and details of ergonomics, quality of connectors, etc., were assessed. This proved a quick, efficient way of narrowing down the optimum choices, with RJ Bizet coming out top. "Bizet is the perfect translation of a traditional 2kW fixture into a powerful LED fixture," confirms Rolland. "It is the perfect brightness for our throw distance, easy to approach and use, especially in single channel mode, which means we can hand them over to a visiting company quickly without any training. "It has a lovely dimmer curve which compares well to its tungsten predecessor, the RJ 700SX -- it's such an even light with a great spread and no black holes. The shutters are extremely versatile -- you can achieve any angle and add more should you need them, then lock them into place with the shutter lock. Bizet ticks so many boxes. We also discovered its focus setting, which is really nice bonus and very useful. The ability to pop the fixture into focus mode locally is ideal, especially when setting up a front cover in a hurry. It is a single button press on and off, no complex menus -- winner!" The team was careful to specify Bizet's tunable white version to give them the broadest options going forward. "At the moment we want Bizet to imitate tungsten, but as lighting progresses in future it will be called on to be different things for different designers: to look like an LED source, to deliver more punch, to be tuned up for camera etc. Bizet will future-proof us as technology develops and, as extra outputs are required, it's handy to know we have 8 on the bridge!" "Bizet is a flexible unit with networking and data management capabilities," adds Cormack. "Robert Juliat is well-known for its build quality, so that assurance is built into the choice of unit, which was a strong factor for consideration. It will be a hardwearing fixture for the King's Theatre, and they have support all the way along the line through SLX, Live Technology and RJ themselves." Rolland already knew she wanted Arthur LT followspots to replace their old 1200W HMI RJ Super Korrigan units. "We found the Super Ks were no longer bright enough with the bigger, brighter rigs that were coming in before we closed," she says. "Arthur LT was top of my wish list, and I was delighted when I got my wish! "It was always going to be a choice of manual followspots for us, and RJ are the top name in followspots. Followspotting is a craft for live performance with an organic connection to the performer. There is an element of anticipation from the operator, and the disconnect caused through the data lag of an automated system doesn't work for theatre in our view. "We were particularly interested in Arthur LT because prior to the redevelopment we had seen the Cyrano followspots at the Festival Theatre -- they were just lovely -- and also the Arthur followspots at Glasgow Royal Theatre. The Arthurs are so quiet which is of course essential for theatre. They have a familiarity about them that anyone who has used a followspot will recognize, so an incoming operator who hasn't used an LED followspot before won't have to learn anything new. They can just concentrate on their craft. All the features are within easy reach and with the LED source in both Arthur and Bizet, it's great to not worry about lamp life or a lamp blowing. "The Arthur LTs were a sensible choice and natural progression from the Super Korrigans: the extra throw distance, increased power and LED source meant they are a 'copy and paste' from our original model, but bigger and with a more planet-friendly engine!" Emma Reid, one of the resident followspot operators comments: "The Arthurs are so punchy! They have such beautiful balance and smooth movement, and it's great that you can dim and iris at the same time, and maintain a connection to all parameters at all times... plus they have a USB connection to charge your phone!" Both the Arthur LTs were accessorized with Telrad sights, also available from Robert Juliat with a dedicated fixing kit. The King's Theatre officially reopened to the public with an open weekend on August 1 and 2, followed by the Edinburgh International Festival and a full program of touring productions from September. Robert Juliat is distributed exclusively in the UK and Ireland by Live Technology. For more information on The King's Theatre visit: www.capitaltheatres.com/our-venues/kings-theatre/. 
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