Raymond Gubbay Christmas Spectacular at the Royal Albert Hall

©Richard Rhys Thomas

London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall used their Jands Vista T4 console to provide thrilling lighting for Christmas Spectacular – the venue’s first festive show co-produced by the Royal Albert Hall and renowned popular classic music promoter, Raymond Gubbay.

One of the leading providers of concerts, opera and ballet to major venues across the country, Raymond Gubbay’s popular Christmas Festival concerts have become part of a festive tradition.

Christmas Spectacular was the perfect event for keeping Christmas spirits high – with a stunning combination of favourite music classics, breathtaking dance, thrilling lights, sensational lasers and a fantastic indoor firework finale! Special guests included West End star Kerry Ellis and acclaimed chorister, Jack Topping.

Royal Albert Hall (RAH) Lighting Design and Systems Manager, Richard Rhys Thomas utilised the venue’s Jands Vista T4 console to control the ambitious lighting production.

©Alex Griffiths

“The vision for my design was to produce an exciting and dynamic light show in conjunction with lasers and pyrotechnic effects, to complement the music, dance, ballet, and vocal performances,” says Richard. “The music programme was quite varied, with music from well-known ballets, operas, musicals and the movies, and therefore the lighting reflected this with a combination of subtle and colourful looks to more bold and dramatic lighting effects.”

The design utilised the RAH lighting rig, with extras, and consisted of some 130 moving lights – including Clay Paky Alpha Washes & Spots, Vari*Lite VL 3000 & 2500 Spots, Robe Pointes and ETC Source 4 Revolutions.

“The Vista helps by making the job of creating looks with large numbers of fixtures very quick and easy,” says Richard. “You are able to spend more time looking at the stage, focussing on the lighting and less time worrying about the programming, which for a show with a load in, a morning rehearsal and two performances in one day makes a real difference.”

“I love the speed and power of the Vista console as a simple interface to create exciting shows with minimal effort.”

The Vista range includes a choice of portable, flexible control surfaces and self contained consoles all running the same Vista v2 .

Jands’award-winning Vista lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, companies and venues all over the world on
a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there’s a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.

Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include ‘The Smiler’Rollercoaster launch at Alton Towers (UK) Resort, and international concert tours by Peter Gabriel, Fall Out Boy, Bloc Party, Deftones, Dierks Bentley and Little Big Town.

The Jands Vista console range will be showcased at Prolight & Sound, Frankfurt in March on the stand of UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies (stand location 9.0, E63).