London’s most iconic gay nightclub – Heaven – has recently installed a new Avolites D7 console in its main room, delivered via technical production and installation specialist Subfrantic, to provide powerful and flexible lighting and pixel control for the main room, a high-energy dance environment open seven nights a week.
The console upgrade project was led by the venue’s head of lighting, Shane Finucane, and regular programmer / operator, Dan Sanders, who were looking to upgrade the previous Avolites Sapphire Touch console that had been installed around 10 years ago.
Located under the Charing Cross railway arches on Villiers Street at the vibrant core of London’s West End, Heaven has been a popular safe space and entertainment hub for London’s vibrant LGBTQ+ community since its opening in 1979.
It occupies three-and-a-half arched tunnels, with a total capacity of 1,725, and is loved for the great atmosphere and a rich musical mix of electro pop, techno and dance, often with live bands and drag acts for additional flair.
Dan joined the lighting team working regular operator shifts there around 2 years ago.
After a decade of full-on service, the old console needed replacing with faster and more contemporary technology, and this coincided with Avolites revealing its powerful and portable ‘next gen’ D7 range, complete with all the futureproofing and functionality they sought.
Dan has been an Avolites user for three decades, so is already very familiar with Avo’s Titan software architecture, and the two smaller rooms at Heaven also run on a Titan T1 setup.
With the old console having given great service, they automatically looked at Avo again.
The main room demanded a potent, fast and intuitive console for programming the often complex looks and sequences needed to enhance the dance music experience, and a platform that worked for guest LDs, so again, Avolites was an obvious choice.
Shane and Dan started talking to different people from the Avolites team about the new console and the directions that the brand was taking since being acquired by Robe lighting s.r.o. at the end of 2023, and he was confident that this was the way to go.
Good feeling faders were essential for Dan, so this is a D7 feature he immediately loved! “The light weight and high quality of the faders, and the feel of the motorised faders and flash buttons are fantastic,” he declared.
Running lights at the club is a completely hands-on experience for Dan who mostly freestyles, and while he doesn’t need a massive amount of programming macros, he does utilise every last flash button to craft this highly syncopated style of operation.
He likes to play his console like a classic keyboard. “I like a certain level of tactility and granularity on these, so you know exactly what to expect when you’re playing arpeggios – exactly how much muscle power to apply, etc.,” he enthused.
He finds that this fluid and kinetic workflow is vital, especially for lighting trance and heavier dance genres, where multiple lighting effects can be applied simultaneously to offer the absolute best visual effects down on the dancefloor: “Everything is in these faders, including a degree of separation so the lighting rig effectively becomes like an orchestra of performers and instruments.”
Dan’s lighting career started at another famous central London venue of its day – The Astoria – in the 1990s, which is when he first started using Avolites consoles.
After 35 years of active club lighting operation, he’s perfected the art into this stylistic approach which riffs with the flow and groove of the music.
Feeling the atmosphere as the night progresses is also vital, as this can shift quite dramatically depending on groups that are coming and going from the dancefloor, and all lighting operators need to be tuned in to this.
He loves the D7’s playback touch screens and the Active Playback Window, usually having 20 or 30 open on the centre screen when running a show, plus running virtual playbacks for haze, video wall intensity and the group master.
He uses the 10 macro buttons along the bottom for his strobe bumps, and he also adds his own 16 button InTech MIDI trigger pad to playback effects out of sight of the window.
Dan notes that the physical size of the D7 is a great fit for Heaven’s operating space. While the console is rarely moved, he likes the fact that it looks and feels like a proper full-size console yet is still a one-person lift.
He also appreciates the new black Avolites livery, the cool LED strip light across the top of the screens, the tip-able screens and the generally well-designed ergonomics of the user interface.
Heaven’s D7 is currently controlling approximately 50 intelligent lights, primarily Robe Pointes and LED washes, and it also triggers the five video walls and lasers.
On top of that, there are 36 channels of incandescent lighting, and Dan still highly values that classic feel of a ‘fader desk’ present with the D7, as he believes there is still a “unique, natural quality” to finger pushing a burning filament.
From an integrator / installer perspective, Steve Davies at Subfrantic commented that Avolites products offer ease of use and familiarity first, followed by all the right features and functions plus ideal form factor and size.
“Support and training are also hugely important, and Avo has always excelled at this,” he added.
He started Subfrantic in 1993 after leaving school and has maintained a strong affinity with Avolites since day one of working with lights.
Avolites has been a key component of their rental inventory since the late 1990s, with Pearls, Tigers, Sapphires and Arenas and now their first D7-215 available for shows and events.
This D7 is the first lighting console that Subfrantic has sold to Heaven, but their initial encounter with the club was back in 2005, when the company purchased Heaven’s then-old PA system and repurposed it for another client.
Steve noted that for Heaven, the continuity of changing the old Sapphire for the new D7 was a great asset, as no one had to learn a new OS, and old show files could be seamlessly transferred and tweaked rather than rewritten, making the changeover “quick and painless,” and Dan confirms that the transition from the old Sapphire to the new D7 running the room took “literally minutes.”
Echoing Dan’s rationale for choosing the console, he highlights a favourite feature from both legacy and current Avo desks, which is how well both are set up for busking and playing ‘live’.
“This was clearly another key reason why Avo was the right choice for Heaven, together with the excellent size-to-power ratio,” he concluded.
