Hawthorn’s installation team, led by Alan Jackson recently completed the supply and installation of new houselights and a new lighting system for The Point, Eastleigh, Southampton. The Point is a theatre and dance studios for contemporary theatre performance and dance in the South of England; owned and operated by Eastleigh Borough Council.

Within the foyer, Hawthorn installed new lighting track with GDS ArcSystem track fittings as the main lighting feature to provide audiences with low-carbon RGBW LED tape as accent lighting along picture rails and around windows,allowing for colours to be mixed to enhance events or provide moods within the foyer area. This was first used to cycle through the colours of the political parties for a recording of the BBC’s ‘Question Time’. Theexisting three chandeliers were re-lamped with the GDS ArcLamp 240V.

Within the auditorium, the existing recessed lamp fittings within the eight custom designed chandeliers were replaced with the GDS Decor Single Cell LED fixtures. The wall fittings were replaced with a mixture of 24v ArcLamp and white LED tape with control drivers fitted externally to the auditorium within a storage space at the rear of the balconythusenabling minimum disruption to the auditorium infrastructure and maximising the use of existing wiring. To complement the accent lighting in the foyer, the auditorium was also fitted with RGBW LED tape as accent lighting along the auditorium’s picture rails and windows.

Hawthorn’s installation team, led by Kev Sanderson, completed the installation within a very tight window to fit in with The Point’s performance programme, working around a live ‘Question Time’ broadcast and various children’s events. Head of Installations at Hawthorn, Alan Jackson said ‘being one of the UK’s GDS Three Main Distributors, we are very pleased with the GDS product and have completed many house-light installations using the units, the support GDS provides allows us to provide a solution and service that more than meets any client’s expectations’.

The Points Executive Director, Crispian Cook, was very pleased with the new look and the differing moods that can now be created for the theatre’s audiences in the foyer and auditorium, saying ‘Hawthorn were really helpful and efficient and a pleasure to work with.The overall scheme has given us an energy saving of around 83%, on the replaced fittings providing us with envious ‘Green’ credentials’. The works were financed by the Art’s Council England’s Small Capital Grants scheme and Eastleigh Borough Council.