Theatek have been busying themselves at the Bristol Hippodrome throughout the start of this year servicing the theatre’s visiting shows with sound systems.  The Hippodrome has hosted a diverse programme of events and Theatek was pleased to be involved with a large number of them.  Temporary sound systems were installed for comedians such as Julian Clary, Reginald D Hunter, Lee Mack and Andy Ford through to the dance performances of the English National Ballet, Russian Ice Stars and the drama performance of The Hobbit amongst others.  Theatek can provide systems for similar events at extremely competitive prices.  Complete systems or individual components can be hired from one day with or without installation and operators.  Please get in touch to find out more.

Theatek are official stockists for MSL Firecheck.  Firecheck is a water-based fire proofing spray and is colourless, odourless and non-toxic.  It can treat a variety of materials including cardboard, untreated wood, polystyrene, hessian, foam rubber, cotton, wool and cotton-backed draylon.  It can bee supplied as a 750ml Spray, 5 litre container or as a 25 litre drum.  Empty spray bottles are also available.

Pricing currently is as follows:

750ml Spray - £10.58

5 litre container - £58.75

25 litre drum - £250.00

Empty spray bottle  - £1.15

Prices include VAT, but exclude delivery.

Theatek have recently acquired Le Maitre’s Electric Air Cannons to add to it’s special effects inventory.  The air cannons are CO2 powered and fire confetti, glitter and streamers although Le Maitre themselves say:

“The cannon can be filled with anything that will not cause injury as it falls back to the ground. The main effects that are used in the cannon are Confetti, Glitter and Streamers. We have however put various things in the cannons including T Shirts, Condoms, Water, Jelly Babies and Bank Notes.”

The controller has 4 channels and each channel can fire multiple units.  The cannons themselves come with a powercon outlet for daisy chaining units together and can be floor or truss mounted.  The controller is priced at £18/week and the cannons are priced at £28/week.  Various consumable items can be supplied to fire from the cannon.  Please contact us for further information.

On May 25th 2010, HRH the Duke of Kent opened the brand new Writhlington School. Theatek has been heavily involved as consultants to the performance space for over a year, ensuring that the equipment and the space would meet the diverse needs from both the school and the community.  We wish the school every success in it’s new premises, and look forward to a long association with them.  You can read more about this story here.

Hot off the back from our involvement with Redland Green School, Theatek’s Chris Horseman was invited to act as a consultant to Writhlington School’s brand new 400 seat theatre space.  The project, which started for Chris in February 2009, has just been completed and was part of the £25 million new school buildings. Chris has been working closely with Derek Quilter from BANES Council, Andrew Lintern from Capita Symonds (part of the Kier Western Construction Group) and Head-teacher of Writhlington School, Marie Getheridge.

The school had an ambitious and visionary brief.  They required a space that could accommodate every day school activities, like school assemblies, it needed to be a suitable theatrical teaching environment, and also the school wanted to hire out the space for community and professional theatre and conferences.  The facilities and equipment therefore had to be considered carefully.  Chris comments:

“We started the consultation process by establishing what the school wanted from the performance space and then interpreted their brief into a working model for the construction and installation teams.  There were various challenges along the way including eliminating the need to climb a ladder for focussing lanterns and finding suitable rooms to double as dressing rooms and creating access to them.  We contracted Unusual Rigging to engineer a track with a chair attached which was installed behind the advanced lighting bar.  A person can now safely focus the lanterns by being strapped into the chair and rolling along the track.  Adding a door from the music practice rooms created easily accessible dressing room accommodation.”

The space had to be suitably equipped to a high standard and we helped the school to choose equipment from world-leading manufacturers including ETC, Selecon, James Thomas, D & B Audiotechnik, Allen & Heath and Sennheiser amongst others.  The school was officially opened on 25th May 2010 by HRH Duke of Kent.

Theatek welcomes enquiries from schools and colleges.  We are able to offer friendly help and advice for everything from school shows through to refurbishment and equipment purchases.  Please get in touch to find out more.

May saw Theatek working closely once again with UWE, Bristol.  Graduates from the university’s fashion and textiles courses were given the opportunity to exhibit their work at a fashion show held in the historic surroundings of the Passenger Shed at Bristol’s Temple Meads.  Forty-eight designer collections were exhibited to an audience of 650 people from the catwalk.  Theatek was chosen again as the sound supplier for the event and provided the sound design, equipment hire, crew and operators.  The design was based around Nexo loudspeakers with radio microphone and playback systems.  The event organisers congratulated us with the following message:

“Just wanted to say a huge thank you for Saturday, we were all so happy with how it all looked and ran. Your whole team did such an amazing job so please pass on our thanks to them as well!”

We were extremely pleased that the event was a success and are already looking forward to next year with anticipation.

If you have a similar event in mind then please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Theatek’s new Le Maitre Electric Air Canons have just returned from an intensive UK and European tour with Brighton based theatre company Lone Twin.

Lone Twin have been making performance events since 1997.  Across the world the company’s work is met with critical and popular acclaim with a truly international audience enjoying an ever-diverse range of works for stage, studio and public space. The company’s debut work Alice Bell premiered at KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, Brussels before embarking on sell-out international tours. A second piece Daniel Hit By A Train premiered at Wiener Festwochen and continues to tour. 2010 has seen the company create a third work, The Festival, completing The Catastrophe Trilogy, which premiered at the Barbican, London before touring the UK and Europe.

“The canons were exactly what the directors were looking for, each time an audience witnessed one going off they ooohhed and aaahhhed. Theatek were quick to send out extra consumables and came in with a price that was perfect for our budget” – Rebecca Curtis, Lone Twin Theatre Production Manager.

Picture taken by Francis Loney.  The Festival: Lone Twin Theatre

Mixed emotions  pervaded March as we worked closely with Filton High School for the final time in their current school hall.  The school’s latest production of High School Musical was a triumphant finale to 33 years of exceptionally strong school productions covering shows such as Les Miserables, Fame, Bugsy Malone, Guys and Dolls, Joseph, Sweet Charity and many more.  Theatek has worked since 1995 with the school’s music and drama departments and was pleased to be chosen once again to assist in their latest extravaganza.  Whilst assisting students and teachers with both the lighting and sound designs, we supplied additional sound and lighting equipment, augmenting the school’s own stock, to provide a truly spectacular spectacular!  We wish the school every success in moving to their brand new premises this summer and look forward to renewing our association with them later this year.

“… this is a production that will grow better and better at each performance.” Crackerjack.co.uk

Theatek was extremely pleased to work for the first time with Bristol Amateur Operatic Society (BAOS) in March.  BAOS (which was founded in 1894) asked Theatek to provide sound design, equipment hire and operators for it’s production of West Side Story which took place in Bristol University’s Victoria Rooms.  Theatek supplied a system based around Nexo loudspeakers, a Soundcraft K3 Theatre console and AKG WMS4000 radio microphones.  An orchestra of 20 (with a drum kit and full percussion) also had to be accommodated.  Both BAOS and Theatek enjoyed a very successful week!

Also in August Theatek supplied a sound and lighting system to the Theatre Royal Bath’s tour of Max and Beth and lighting equipment to the Precarious Theatre and Multimedia Physical Dance Companies tour of “Anomie” - both productions appearing as part of the Edingburgh Festival as well as elsewhere.