A leading theatre organisation has chosen UNITOUR racks from LSC Control Systems to provide power management and dimming solutions. With five UNITOUR racks specified for its three auditoriums in Heerlen, Parkstad Limburg Theaters (PLT) is one of the latest performing arts hubs to adopt market-leading solutions from the Australian manufacturer.
PLT operates seven venues across the cities of Heerlen, Kerkrade and Sittard in the country’s south-eastern region of Limburg. Ranging in capacity from 120 to 1,100, these venues play a significant role in the cultural lives of the communities they serve. Across the organisation, PLT hosted almost 1,500 events in 2024.
Amid this busy environment, PLT’s head of lighting, Rob Debets, recalls his team looking for a “very flexible and reliable rack” when they saw the UNITOUR on the LSC booth at Frankfurt’s Prolight&Sound exhibition in 2024. Although Debets was already aware of LSC’s UNITOUR, this was the first time he had been able to consider investing in it.
At that time, the PLT team was also considering product from another manufacturer. However, some supply issues, added to the fact that the system’s protection could only be configured in blocks of channels, rather than individually, led them to decide in favour of the LSC UNITOUR solution.
Debets explains, “What especially stood out for us with UNITOUR was both the earth leakage protection it offers on every channel, and the HOUSTON X monitoring and configuration software.”
Another notable feature was UNITOUR’s ability to be configured using just Power over Ethernet (PoE) instead of requiring mains power. “We don’t do much configuration away from power,” says Debets, “but the POE capability is a nice feature to have.”
The specified solution sees five UNITOUR racks employed across PLT’s three auditoriums in Heerlen. Four racks (three 48-channel and a 24-channel) serve the two main houses – the RABOzaal (RABO Hall) and the Limburgzaal (Limburg Hall). The racks for both these venues can be used flexibly, mainly for lighting but also for video as needed. Finally, a fixed 24-channel rack is dedicated to the house lighting system in the smaller, 142-seat INGzaal (ING Hall).
Says Debets, “We have all the racks equipped with a dim/switch module, to give us the maximum flexibility for use with dimmers and direct power, as and when needed.” And the team’s verdict? “We think it works great,” says Debets.
As well as bringing flexibility and reliability to the PLT technical team with its increase in speed of workflows and peace of mind, the result also significantly reduces clutter. “We used to have loads of break-in cables and 32A CEE blocks for direct power,” says Debets, “so our side stage area is much cleaner and easier now!”
