Lighting resources manager for the National – Michael Atkinson – is getting hooked on the ETC Eos desk. The National Theatre is switching over to run a bunch of Eos and Ion desks from their previous console choices after testing a series of consoles to determine the best fit. TPI ran a story about the topic a few days ago, and Michael Atkinson talked about the Eos as a choice:
Eventually, Michael settled on ETC’s Eos product family: initially five Eos desks, three of its smaller sibling, Ion, and four remote processor units for backup — plus another Ion for off site shows such as Warhorse, which has just moved to the West End. In time, the National also intends to purchase a further two Eos systems for use by the video department and another for touring.
“We really liked the fact that we are using a desk at the beginning of its product life cycle, and are able to influence its development,” he adds. “By sending feedback to the product team, we’ve been able to tell those working on the software how we think it should work — and some of those ideas have been included in software updates.”
I don’t know what the previous console was inside the largest of the National’s theatres, the Oliver, but with their 100+ moving lights in the main theatre, I can only imagine how many conversations ended in some sort of swearing when running a few productions in rep and updating focus positions and cue stacks. From the article:
“It’s been a relatively easy transition from our previous desk, because the programming styles have some similarities. There are many things we can do on the Eos which we couldn’t do on the previous desk; and a few things we can’t do now that we used to be able to. But we were even given our own section on the ETC community forums so that we could note our concerns. That way our technicians, who all work different times, could share information with each other and with ETC’s support people.”
Also, The National Theatre is looking for a lighting technician! If you’re going to be living near London and feel like sending in your application, hurry up – the search ends March 12. The information on this gig is here.
