Helsinki City Theater recently supercharged its original productions while simultaneously taking giant green steps in energy efficiency with a brand-new Martin lighting rig consisting of MAC Ultra Performance, MAC Ultra Wash and MAC Encore Performance fixtures. Originally opened in 1967, the Helsinki City Theater is a city-funded bilingual repertory theater company in Finland’s capital city. Between their six active venues, Helsinki City Theater produces a wide range of stage works each year. In 2023, the Helsinki City Theater decided to replace their main stage’s outdated conventional theater lighting fixtures with LED technology to save money and energy in accordance with the government’s go-green initiatives. After careful consideration of numerous suppliers and manufacturers, the production management team selected an entire rig full of Martin MAC Ultra and MAC Encore series lighting fixtures.
“As a theater, we wanted to consume less energy and be more efficient,” said William Iles, Resident Lighting Designer, Helsinki City Theater. “We’re consuming considerably less energy than we did with the previous lighting fixtures. We haven’t had any maintenance issues with our new Martin fixtures. I don’t miss the old halogen and gas-discharge fixtures at all. There were a lot of problems every year. We’d spend time and money repairing them. With the Martin fixtures, we don’t have to buy new bulbs every year. That saves us tens of thousands every year just in bulbs.
To ensure high-quality front-of-house key lighting, Iles selected MAC Encore Performance fixtures for their ability to generate pristine, full spectrum light with ultra-high color rendition. The overstage lighting plot consists entirely of MAC Ultra Performance and MAC Ultra Wash fixtures, chosen for their unmatched brightness and astoundingly low noise levels.
“We use the Encores for front lighting to deliver quality white light that’s perfect for skin tones and color rendering when it comes to a person’s face,” said Iles. “The Ultra Wash and Performance we are using on top of the stage and behind as backlight. The Ultra fixtures are very quiet. The previous rig was so loud, it sounded like standing in a server room full of computers. It was horrible. Now, the actors and stage crew are amazed at how quiet it is. It’s actually quite nice. Our sound designer was also very pleased with how quiet the MAC Ultra lights are.”
It was paramount that the new lighting rig empowered Iles and his team to support a wide range of plays and stage productions. Helsinki City Theater’s new Martin MAC Encore and MAC Ultra fixtures give him the confidence and tools to deliver a stunning original lighting design for any production hosted there. “Every other evening we have to switch between different shows,” said Iles. “The same light plot has to work between them. We needed the fixtures to be versatile, and I am really pleased with the Martin MAC Ultra and Encore fixtures we got from trusted distributor StudioTec. I achieved everything I wanted to do and more. With the versatility of those lights, there’s nothing we can’t do.”
Learn more at Helsinki City Theater: https://hkt.fi/; StudioTec: https://www.studiotec.fi/
Find more information about MAC Ultra at https://www.martin.com/en-US/product_families/mac-ultra and about the MAC Encore at https://www.martin.com/en-US/product_families/mac-encore
