White Light Supplies the Lighting Rig for the 2012 Olivier Awards Ceremony at London's Royal Opera House

For the second year running, entertainment lighting specialist White Light supplied the lighting rig to the Olivier Awards Ceremony, which rewards the best of London theatre created during the previous 12 months.

The awards ceremony was held this year at London's Royal Opera House, with the lighting designed by Ben Cracknell.

"It actually feels a bit like the perfect gig for us," comments White Light's managing director Bryan Raven. "It celebrates theatre, with which we have a long historic involvement -- many of the shows nominated this year use lighting rigs supplied by us -- and yet it's staged as a giant event, like the many other corporate and live event productions we are now involved with. It also uses the full range of equipment we offer -- everything from LED moving lights to the good old-fashioned PAR can!"

White Light supplied the show itself, as well as the outdoor stage in the Covent Garden Piazza, the red carpet area in front of the theatre, the post-show party, and the outside broadcast areas. All of the equipment was loaded-in on a tight schedule, with the rig in the theatre pre-hung over two days before the event, (working around the Opera House's busy schedule), to be ready for rehearsals and then the show itself on Sunday, April 15. The other areas were set up on the day itself.

In the theatre, Cracknell called on a wide range of equipment from White Light's extensive inventory to allow him to light the award presentations themselves, the auditorium, and the audience, plus the extracts from 14 nominated shows performed during the evening -- the aim during each of these being to give a taste of the original show lighting.

At the core of the rig were Martin MacIII profiles, powerful and versatile enough to create everything from dramatic strobing backlights for We Will Rock You to precise spotlights for the children of Matilda. The MacIIIs were supported by Mac700 profiles and washes, Vari-Lite VL3000Q spots and washes, and VL1000AS units. Around the auditorium, LED fixtures were used to dress the house and the audience in an enormous range of colors without excessive heat or power consumption. The rig included Vari-Lite VLX, JB Lighting VaryLED A7 zooms, and Martin Mac Auras. The entire rig was controlled by a MA grandMA2 light console programmed by Alex Passmore, which also drove White Light Arri dimmer racks for the conventional rig and a Catalyst media server running LED fittings built into the set and band riser.

"The Olivier Awards is a challenging show and requires a versatile lighting rig to serve it," explains Cracknell. "The Mac IIIs were the workhorse of the show providing beams, texture and color washes while the key lighting was provided from Vari-Lite VL000AS and VL3000s. The LED washlights allowed me to light the beautiful auditorium of the Royal Opera House while keeping the heat, power consumption, and visual impact of the fixtures themselves as low as possible."

Given the tight schedule of the day, Cracknell and Passmore worked with the Royal Opera House's James Simpson to pre-program the show a few days prior to the event itself using the Royal Opera House's visualization system. "I use pre-visualization a lot nowadays when prepping the lighting for a show," Cracknell notes. "It is a useful tool to structure the cues, create presets, define the usage of a rig, and create a common language for the design between myself and my programmer. In the case of the Olivier Awards, the ESP suite at the Opera House was invaluable -- without this we simply could not have delivered the show we did, given that we had almost 1,000 cues and, prior to the show day, had just one evening with the real overhead rig in the theatre to check presets and effects. The first time we had the complete rig with the stage set was 9am on Sunday morning, with the show that night!"

On the show day itself they started very early in the morning and then just kept working, refining each number's lighting as it rehearsed on stage to ensure that it looked good both live and for the television cameras that were broadcasting the event via the internet and on the BBC's red button.

As Cracknell, Passmore, production electrician Cy Dodimead, and the Royal Opera House's lighting team worked inside the building, other teams were busy outside: Humphrey McDermot leading the team in the Piazza rigging Martin Aura, Mac101, Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500, Coemar Infinity ACL, JB Lighting VaryLED A7 zoom, and Vari-Lite VL2000 spot fixtures; Tim Mathews leading the red carpet team rigging PAR cans; Steve Richardson running the party team rigging Martin Mac101s, GDS LiteWare wireless battery uplights, and Coemar parlites; and John Higgins looking after the outside broadcast team that provided power to the outside broadcast trucks. Lee Batty production managed the entire event for producer Julian Stoneman and the Society of London Theatre.

Summing up the event, Cracknell comments: "It was an epic couple of days working on the Olivier Awards. The show was challenging as ever but I was grateful to work with such a supportive team led by Nick Ware at the Royal Opera House, Cy my production electrician, Alex my programmer, and Bryan and the team at White Light."

As well as supplying the lighting for the event, White Light also sponsored the Best Lighting Design award, won this year by designer Bruno Poet for his work on Frankenstein at the National Theatre.

"It was a fantastic evening this year," comments Raven, "a real tribute to all those people, led by Julian Bird at the Society of London Theatre, who have been working to expand the profile of the Olivier Awards and London theatre over the last few years and to those who worked so hard to deliver the show on the night. We were delighted to support both the show itself and the Best Lighting Design category, congratulate all of the nominees and winners, and look forward to working with all of them, and others, once again over the next 12 months!"

Named for Sir Laurence Olivier and run by the Society of London Theatre, the Olivier Awards have been presented annually since 1976. Further information about the awards, as well as a full list of this year's winners, can be found at the URL below.