by Rob Halliday
From its founding days, White Light has looked forward, constantly embracing new technology as it has appeared. Over the decades the company was the first to supply to the West End, amongst other things, the CCT Silhouette, Arri lighting consoles, a wide range of moving lights, the ETC Source Four and countless other products that went on to become industry standards – and in many cases have gone on to be considered classics.
We also appreciate those classics, having long played host to a mini-museum of industry defining lighting products at our Wimbledon base (open to all – just ask!), and back once again this year as a key supporter of the Classic Gear Live stand at the PLASA Show, which runs at Olympia in London from September 7-9th.
For this, we are both lending some of the classic products – some from the museum, some, such as the DHA Pitching Digital Light Curtain and the VSFX effect system and discs, still in the rental stock because they still feel unique niches that newer products can’t quite match that we know one day someone will come calling for – and the more modern infrastructure, including power distribution, cabling and control, to make it all work.
And sometimes, of course, it also gets involved in the interface between the modern and the classic, forcing the likes of technical director Dave Isherwood and service engineer Andy Syposz to dive deeply into their memories and sometimes the bottoms of their ‘useful bits’ boxes. “Every year Classic Gear Live organiser Rob Halliday throws a few curve-balls at us,” Dave Isherwood notes. “Do we have a monitor old enough to connect to an old lighting console? We did! But do we then have the cable to connect the two? Figuring that out always provokes a flood of memories along with, of course, a bit of, I remember when that was new, how can it possibly be a ‘classic’ already!”
Classic Gear Live has a new location at PLASA this year, upstairs on the balcony at Olympia across two stands. Stand K109 has a display of remarkable, era-defining products including ‘Betty’, the first Strand System CD console from the Palace Theatre in London, a Thorn Q-File, ETC’s Microvision, Obsession 2 and the fifth Source Four off the production line to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary, moving lights including a pair of joystick-driven PanCans, and DHA’s unique Pitching Digital Light Curtain. Also on show will be a selection of lighting plans from classic shows including the original Cats, Phantom and Les Mis along with the stencils and tools lighting designers used to create them pre-CAD. Across the aisle on stand K82 will be a dark space featuring a range of psychedelic and effects projection, including a selection of the wide range of effects discs – rather more than just clouds! – that we still hold in stock. Finally to celebrate the 40th anniversary of industry publication Light+Sound International, every issue of the magazine – over six feet of paper! – will be there to browse so people can find their favourite stories from across the years.
“White Light are very generous in providing a home for the display of classic gear through the year,” notes the stand’s organiser, Rob Halliday, “and more generous still when it comes to actually being able to get all of this on display at PLASA. I can’t thank them and our other key supporters enough. I look forward to seeing you all at the show, and I hope you enjoy what you find there!”
Classic Gear Live 2025: https://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/archive/classicgearlive/
The PLASA Show: PLASA Show | UK’s market-leading trade event for live entertainment tech
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