UK: Park Panto Tour

Car Park Panto partnered with DTS Lighting for their Horrible Christmas tour that reached more than 40,000 people over 15 venues.

 

Coalition Agency sparked a huge amount of press coverage for their UK Christmas tour on December 2020. At the end of a very difficult year for the entertainment industry, it was thanks to the drive-in format that 40,000 people could attend to this engaging and exciting experience which run through the cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, and many others.

The performance, inspired by the children’s book series “Horrible Histories” by Terry Deary, explores what lies beneath the holiday season through the story of a young boy who wants to save Christmas.

DTS gladly and enthusiastically accepted the chance to participate as technical sponsor to this very innovative event: in fact, the vintage style of this format allowed for the public to watch the show from the safety of their own car and let the professionals work again on stage.
It was the experience of Coalition, the event organizer who took care of promotion, management and logistics, which ensured maximum safety by applying all measures against Covid in order to get the best immersive experience with virtually no threats to the public’s health. Cars were parked at least 2 meters from one another and radios were used so that the show could be enjoyed remotely.

DTS Lighting and UK distributor GDS gave their technical support by sponsoring the event with more than 30 luminaires: Synergy 5 Profile, Brick, and Katana, among others. The installation and technical support for the products has been entrusted to Encore, formerly known as Hawthorn, the international service for the management of audio and video technologies.

Putting on an outdoor show in the British winter is highly challenging. With the production facing wind, rain and snow, the rugged and durable DTS luminaires were dependable workhorses for the tour.

It was so that DTS got involved in this project which we could define as “contemporary”. All partners were happy they could be part of this initiative, especially for what this meant for the entertainment industry.

As stated by Raffaella Scaccia, Sales Director of DTS Lighting:

“We wanted to give our best by supplying the fixtures with the best performance in our portfolio since it’s really important in this moment to be united and give each other strength in order to let the entertainment world start again. We are very happy that the show, even during these trying times in the UK, could gather such a big audience and could get such a wonderful reception. The partnership with Coalition, supported also through our British distributor GDS, has been for us extremely positive and I hope that this can be a foreword to many more collaborations in the future.”

Guy Robinson, Coalition CEO, has also praised this partnership.

“I’m so grateful to DTS for supporting our Car Park Panto UK tour. Performing drive-in live theatre outdoors to over 40,000 people at 15 locations in the depths of winter presents many challenges, not least was the careful balance between making a stage on a truck trailer immersive for the audience, but also lighting and designing it well enough that it could also be enjoyed by those who watched it on the 100 square meter LED screen at each of the venues. The selection of DTS products used were perfect to help achieve this, and we enjoyed nothing but positive feedback from our customers who attended. We will definitely be using them again on future tours.”

Richard Cuthbert, Managing Director of GDS was also happy with the outcome of the show.

“During these extremely tough times in our industry, GDS and DTS are very proud to be supporting these events that give hope and inspiration to keep the entertainment flag flying. With significant challenges facing live entertainment, these events simply wouldn’t be viable without sponsorship support, so we are very happy to assist where we can.”