Held in London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, Barnum marked the UK theatrical debut of High End Systems’ SolaFrame 750.
The production ran from November until March 2018; lighting designer Philip Gladwell specified the fixtures for the show, placing them on the balcony circle over the stage.
Philip commented: “I used the SolaFrame 750s mainly for the strong looks in the show, gobo washes through haze and also to punch colour into the space. I loved using these fixtures – they are the perfect tool for a space like the Chocolate Factory. They are very bright for their compact size and have a brilliant zoom range. They are practically silent – which is very important when the audience are so close, and you could happily put them on the circle front for a play if needed. The frost was really good as well, which is rare on units of this size. We managed to get some really lovely subtle colours as well as the more saturated ones.”
Programmer Sarah Brown added: “The 750s worked very well for us. The CMY Mixing, shutters and iris, gobos, prism and animation wheels were great to have in such a compact unit. The fixture is very bright and the zoom range is fantastic; the large size allowed us to get a good coverage, whilst maintaining intensity. They are also very quiet, and of course being LED, the room is not getting super hot. The show was in the round and the room is very low, therefore the rig is right above the audience heads, so a physically compact and quiet, cool unit was very important.”
