GDS Picks Up Awards at ABTT

GDS recently exhibited at the ABTT show for its fifth consecutive year. The two-day show at London's Royal Horticultural Halls saw GDS win the ABTT Lighting Award of the Year, become the sponsor of the new Student of the Year Award for The Stage Managers Association, and collect its Theatres Trust People's Choice Award which was won at PLASA 2010.

Richard Cuthbert, GDS' director of engineering, says, "This is our fifth year of exhibiting at ABTT, it is a fantastic show for us and a great opportunity to meet end users, customers and most importantly theatre consultants who have valuable input in to our product development."

The ABTT Lighting Product of the Year Award was given to GDS for ArcSystem, its new LED house-light system. The award was presented to Cuthbert at a ceremony in the iconic Art Deco Grade II listed building. The judges were impressed by the wireless dimming performance of ArcSystem, a custom fitting manufactured for new-build and retrofit existing tungsten lighting in auditoria and front of house locations.

Cuthbert also picked up the People's Choice award from the Theatres Trust stand at the show. The award was given to BluesSystem LED performance working light system. BlueSystem was nominated for the award alongside prominent manufacturers including, ETC, Philips Vari' Light, White Light, i-Pix, JB Lighting, Robert Juliat, and Prism Projection Inc. The People's Choice Award was developed to highlight technologies designed to improve the environmental footprint of theatres and was voted for by industry professionals visiting the PLASA show. It was presented to GDS for the product that demonstrated the most significant improvement in sustainable theatre technology.

The Stage Managers Association also held an awards ceremony where GDS was the sponsor of the new Student of the Year Award, which was was given to Charlotte Archer, from the Mount View Academy for Theatre Arts. The runner-up was Catherine Lewis, from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. There were eight students on the final shortlist. The judges were very excited at the level of new talent entering the industry and commented that it was an extremely difficult decision to choose the winners as the standards were so high.