Purple Rain at Colston Hall

We transformed Bristol’s Colston Hall into a cinema, complete with surround sound, for a screening of Purple Rain, the iconic 1980’s movie starring the late global superstar Prince.

The show, part of the BFI BLACK STAR season, was a combined production between local arts cinema The Watershed and Colston Hall’s head of programming Todd Wills.

Normally used for concerts, the hall was sold out for this rare event, with many of the audience dressing up as Prince for the evening.

To help give ticket holders the cinema experience we provided an immersive 5:1 surround sound system in the stalls and a 3:1 system upstairs in the balcony. The sound was controlled via a DANTE network using Yamaha QL mixing desks. Nexo NX amplifiers, among the industry’s most powerful while being lighter than similar systems, were also used.

For the film itself a 20k Christie DCP projector and server, supplied by the Arts Alliance, was used to project the 1984 cult film onto the 30ft-wde screen, which was suspended above the stage and framed with our drapes.

That wasn’t the end of our contribution to a memorable night however, as legendary DJ Norman Jay MBE played an exclusive post-show DJ set, our team was on hand to supply the powered speaker systems and wireless uplighters – in purple of course!