The Roundabout is Paines Plough's new touring pop-up theatre that saw its opening night at the Margate Winter Gardens 3rd of September 2014. Once assembled the theatre is a fully featured and self-contained 168-seater in the round, complete with lighting and sound.
Watch this great timelapse video of its construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Juab5NaiU
The design of the venue's lighting rig is innovative - 10 modular panels filled with a total of almost 600 individually controllable LED lights that were designed and manufactured by Howard Eaton Lighting for the occasion. The top of the venue holds a round panel that is accompanied by by nine triangular panels laid out in a circle around it. Together the panels contain 165 RGBW LED fixtures and 432 white LED fixtures with adjustable colour temperature; both varieties fitted with a collimating honeycomb grating at the aperture.
As all lighting equipment was not due to be available on location until near the opening night, the setup was drawn in Capture by Capturing Imagination's John Rogers and David Abra in close collaboration with lighting designer Emma Chapman. Capture also remained in close contact with John and David as well as Howard Eaton Lighting throughout the process in order to be able to provide the library additions required for the custom LED fixtures. Thanks to the creative team's and Capture's combined efforts, significant amounts or preprogramming could be carried out in a virtual environment in good time before the show.
Lighting Designers: Emma Chapman & Howard Eaton
3D Visualisation: John Rogers & David Abra, Capturing Imagination
The photo from the Roundabout is copyright Sarah Rushton-Read, www.thefifthestate.co.uk.