ETC equips private school in Switzerland

The Institut Le Rosey on the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland is one of the world's most renowned private schools. The prestigious boarding school houses a large number of classrooms of different types and a modern concert hall: the Paul & Henri Carnal Hall. This complex comprises the 900-seat Rosey Concert Hall and the 227-square-meter (2,443-square-foot) Black Box Studio. The venue is equipped with a large number of products from ETC that were installed by Electric Claudio Merlo (ECM), ETC's distributor in Switzerland. These include Gio® , Ion® and Element™ consoles, as well as Selador® Desire® D60 fixtures and conventional Source Four® Zoom and Source Four Revolution® luminaires.

The Rosey Concert Hall

The Rosey Concert Hall is used not only for school assemblies but also for concerts and plays. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic have both performed there. To ensure that the lighting design for events staged in the hall is flawlessly implemented, a Gio lighting console from ETC has been installed there. René Meyer and Chris Bérubé, the chief technicians, were impressed by its user-friendliness: "What pleased me the most about the console was the clarity of the layout and its intuitive user interface," explains Bérubé. "The Gio delivers the high quality of the Eos® consoles at an attractive price." The Gio qualities are important when it comes to setting the spotlights. "The uncomplicated control of moving lights afforded by the Gio was an important factor in the purchasing decision," adds Meyer.

For the lighting of the 183-square-meter (1,970-square-foot) main stage, 12 Source Four Revolution luminaires and 32 conventional Source Four Zoom spotlights are employed. "We have no access to our front-of-house spotlights to focus them," explains Bérubé, "which is why ETC's moving lights were the natural choice. They are quiet, offer Source Four quality, are simple to set and relatively inexpensive."

One of the great challenges of the installation, according to Bérubé, was the fact that the Rosey Concert Hall not only stages concerts but also theatrical productions. The hall has no control room, so the console is placed in the auditorium for theatrical productions and on the balcony during concerts. The integrated network technology makes this possible. "We have a fully Ethernet-based system that allows patching from a variety of places," explains Meyer. "We also have a variety of Net3 Gateways for the control of the system via Net3 or DMX." If theatrical groups require more sub faders, Bérubé brings in the Element console. The fact that the various desks are compatible with one another is a great advantage in this context. "With the encoders on the Gio, it is far simpler to focus the Revolution spotlights. We can then simply load the show file into the Element and continue the programming and implementation of the show from there," explains Bérubé.

The Black Box Studio

The Element console is mainly used in the Black Box Studio. This is where school productions like talent and magic shows, and rock and pop concerts take place. The room is primarily a place of learning, where students are taught how to program and control their own shows. "What I like about the Element console," says Bérubé, "is that it makes it so easy to access saved shows, and you can switch between channels and submasters without difficulty. That allows me to show a non-technician how to deliver light in less than 30 seconds." The students, too, appreciate the professional programming interface afforded by the Eos software. "They love making their own Magic Sheets," describes Bérubé, "and they are getting better and better at programming cues." 

The Black Box Studio is also equipped with twelve D60 Lustr®+ luminaires. Bérubé particularly values the quality of the colors and their brightness. "The D60s are wonderful. We use them all the time," she continues. "Our only regret is that we do not have more of these marvelous lights."

The school's most recent acquisition is an Ion console: "We will be using the Ion in the future not only in the Black Box Studio but also for theatrical productions in the Concert Hall, as it is equipped with encoders and a large Fader Wing , says Bérubé."

Thanks to the equipment from ETC, Bérubé has succeeded in winning over a number of students with lighting technology: "We have a wonderful group of students who have fallen in love with the subject. They keep sending me messages saying how cool they found the lighting at this or that concert or show. All the ETC equipment is of tremendous quality. It makes mastering the basics easy, and offers so many possibilities to those wishing to go into the subject in greater depth."