Queensland’s John Paul College has always made the performing arts a priority to the point where it now attracts students choosing performing arts as a career path.
During the past three years their main 220-seat auditorium has been going through the process of refurbishment and recently the college were able to fund the purchase of a new lighting console.
“We’re constantly looking for the ability to teach our students how to use standard industry equipment,” remarked William Wallace, School Of Performing Arts Facilities and Technology Coordinator. “We have a stock of lighting already and the idea was to buy a console with the view to adding more lighting in the future. Ideally we’d like to purchase moving lights and also be able to move our lighting equipment around the campus as there are other venues we need to do shows in.”
With that in mind, William looked no further than the Martin M1 console which offers the full power of a larger console and the agility of a smaller one.
“I was familiar with the Martin M1 as crew that come in to do our productions usually had one and they recommended it,” added William. “For me, it was a case of what I know and it’s very straight forward and intuitive. In fact the M1’s ease of use is incredible. The level of fixtures inbuilt in it already is amazing; we have some cheap Chinese lights purchased quite a while ago and I wasn’t expecting to find them inbuilt into the console but they were. The level of depth Martin have gone to with pre-loaded fixtures and the ease of use to load them up ready to use has been great and very straightforward.”
William is also impressed at how simple it is to show his students how to operate the M1, particularly with the touchscreen, and he says that they pick it up very rapidly.
Kosmic Sound Light Vision supplied the M1 console to the college.
