BRINGING THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL'S THEATRE UP TO DATE
One of London's most unusual theatres, nested deep within the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, brought in Live Business International (LBI) to install a new sound and lighting system, and to help an amateur cast with its first musical production.

The Royal Free's 380-seat theatre hosts student lectures, as well as plays and Students' Union performances for hospital staff, patients and local people, but the original, antiquated sound and lighting systems were a major stumbling block.

LBI was hired to replace them with high-tech systems including state-of-the-art loudspeakers and radio microphones and a new stage lighting system - and to build in spare capacity so that extra lighting for larger productions could be hired-in and plugged into the new control system at minimal cost. LBI's system design incorporated a lot of sockets and cabling infrastructure to allow for this.

The hospital then asked LBI to help with a production of Cinderella, bringing in extra radio mics, more lights and pyrotechnics. The final touches were temporary comms and video links into an extra dressing room, needed to accommodate the sizeable Cinderella cast.

Hemming adds: "The difference with us compared to many installation companies is that our backgrounds are in show production, so we knew exactly what the theatre was trying to achieve and how to make it work."