Hawke's Bay Opera House Upgrades to LX600

	Henry Norton, Dane Fletcher, and Cameron Lithgow

The Hawke's Bay Opera House situated in Hastings in New Zealand is one of the Southern Hemisphere's most impressive examples of Spanish Mission architecture.

The theatre, with its extravagant art nouveau interior decorations, is the keystone of the complex. Originally known as The Hastings Municipal Theatre, Hawke's Bay Opera House was built in 1915 for £12,000 -- a considerable sum for the day, reflecting the community's support for performing arts.

Under recent new management, the theatre has been undertaking a refurbishment plan that included the replacement of their lighting console with a new LX600. With the main stage and house lighting dimming, wall plates, and DMX distribution already LSC products, LSC reliability and ease of use was already well known to the venue and operators alike.

Henry Norton, technical operations manager at the theatre commented: "Running a busy touring venue, we are exposed to many different systems and this gave us a good basis to gauge what is in use and what is required. Naturally we had to be conscious of budget, practicality, and capability in our choice and as part of our evaluation, we had been trying Clarity software PC version with a wing."

"We liked the simplicity of Clarity and being able to show clients how to operate their own lights quickly and effectively is a key part to our operation."

"After running several shows with Clarity and looking at the ease of the software, we came to the realization that a console version would only further advance a fantastic product. As a result, we purchased an LX600 console in July and haven't regretted it for a moment."