Hobart's Theatre Royal has joined the growing list of venues to install Strand Lighting’s Light Palette Live console. A Light Palette Live console was supplied by Bytecraft Entertainment as part of the refurbishment process that saw the control room grow from a tiny shoe box into a real control room with space for the followspots.

Now commissioned and ready for use, the console brings a new range of options for the venues operators. Bytecraft's training day for the key operators was a casual affair, with the national sales manager John Grimshaw taking Chris Harris and Don Hopkins through the operation and potential of the console.

"It is typically the ease of use that takes most users by surprise," says John Grimshaw. "I think a competent live event console operator would take about 30 minutes before they could plot a standard show, maybe another 30 if there are serious moving lights to plot. A novice takes a little longer, but not that much longer. Over time, I would expect that a serious operator will learn to create lighting effects that would be diabolical to plot on any other console."

The Hobart Theatre Royal is a real treasure of world theatre history, with the 700+ seat auditorium retaining all of the elegance and style that stems from its construction back in 1834. Saving several times from destruction by fire and developers, the Theatre Royal today is now a very well-equipped and modern venue.