Colour Sound at Electric, New London Venue

Colour Sound Experiment (CSE), the London-based lighting company, continues to build its contract rental business, designing and supplying lighting and rigging for the newly opened Electric, a live music venue in Brixton, South London. It's a place with an illustrious history, arguably best known as the legendary Fridge, and before then, The Roxy. (Electric is only one of a number of current projects for CSE, which also includes The Box in Soho, four venues in Brighton, and the Ice Bar in London)

The installation was project-managed for CSE by David Fletcher, aka Fletch, who designed the rig in conjunction with Cy Kelly from Electric. The concept maximizes the available space, offering a system versatile enough to cater for a variety of entertainment, from full-on club nights to a selection of live music encompassing a mix of genres.

The venue has a traditional theatre-style stage with a standing auditorium downstairs and a first floor balcony, adding more standing room.

Two small trusses have been installed over the stage, together with a main front truss in the auditorium plus a box truss further back over the dance floor area, which is on motors. To maximize the budget, the design also allows for lighting fixtures to be removed from the box truss and added to the over-stage lighting rig when more lights are needed for bands -- and vice-versa The over-stage and front trusses are accessible via manual chain hoists.

The moving lights are currently 10 each of Robe's ColorSpot and ColorWash 575E ATs -- chosen for their robustness and durability, and for being appropriate size for the space, five bars of 6 PARs, four Martin Professional Atomic strobes and six 4-lite linear Moles.

For control, an Avolites Pearl 2004 console was spec'd -- operated by a number of house engineers -- together with a 72-way Avolites FD dimmer. CSE also designed and built a custom power distro for the venue for all the hard power requirements.

CSE also continues its long-term contract rental to exclusive nightspot The Box in Soho, famed for its "risqué" cabarets, burlesque shows, trail of A-listers, and carefully selected super-rich clientele. It's modeled on the venture of the same name in New York.

CSE supplied a lighting rig to the original specification of Simon Hammerstein, owner of The Box, incorporating a main room with stage, a smaller second space, The Green Room also with a performance stage, plus tasteful architectural lighting throughout.

"Simon knew exactly what he wanted, and so we effectively translated it," explains Fletch. The requirement was that lighting should enhance the ambience and be diverse enough to cater for high-profile stage shows, private performances/parties, and corporate events.

Trussing is not used as there is limited headroom over the stage, so lights are rigged on a myriad of internally-wired-bars which are hung as discreetly as possible -- with some recessed in the ceiling -- throughout the space.

The moving lights in the main room are nine Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs, two GLP impression LED wash lights and three GLP impression Zooms. These are joined by 11 LED battens and two Pixel Line1044s to illuminate the audience. Seven i-Pix Satellite LED bricks are dotted around above the stage, together with seven ETC Source Four profiles, two Sunstrip DMX actives, and two Martin Professional Atomic strobes.

A High End systems Wholehog III is used for control and the dimmers are a mix of existing house ones plus some additional installation dimmers supplied by CSE.

In the second room, CSE has supplied a single PixelRange PixelLine and an Atomic strobe, three i-Pix Satellites and two LED battens and a Source Four profile, plus a Pulsar Masterpiece for control. There is also a quantity of architectural lighting highlighting the room.

For the VIP room, twelve 600mm Pulsar ChromaStrips uplift the walls and another ten are used for highlighting the various corridors and passages connecting the different areas together.

About 164' of LED tape is also utilized for down lighting the entrance and main stairway of the venue, with other areas grazed by low profile Tricolor LED spots, all effectively enabling whole areas to be transformed with blocks of color. These architectural elements are controlled by the Hog 3 in the main room so Evan (the house lighting operator) can control the look, feel, and vibe of the entire venue.