Inaugurated in 1871, the Royal Albert Hall is one of the world’s most famous venues, regularly presenting some of the best-known performers in a range of genres on its stage. From classical music concerts to rock and pop, from opera and ballet to circus, from community events to tennis, the Hall’s programme is incredibly diverse. So when the iconic West Side Story film was touring the world to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Hall absolutely wanted to stage a live performance, accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. 

“SFL Group always provides us with great audiovisual solutions and are a pleasure to work with,” says Oliver Jeffery, Senior Technical Manager of the Royal Albert Hall. “So we asked them to collaborate with the production company to fullfill the projection needs.” “Jeffery and his team gave some specifications on screen size, brightness and even projectors. We preferred, nonetheless, to use our compact Barco HDX-W18 projectors. After all, we know the solutions through and through by now: they provide exceptional brightness and are very reliable,” Craig Lawrence, AV Director at SFL, continued. 

A twin-stack of HDX-W18 projectors was set up, with a third projector as a backup. The crew controlled it remotely via WiFi. “The projectors truly enhanced the quality of the film,” Jeffery confirmed. Lawrence continued: “The West Side Story production team were really blown away by the quality. They had been touring the world with the film for months and admitted to us that they had never seen the movie look so good on screen before.” 

The next Royal Albert Hall film showing will be Disney’s Fantasia with live music by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. SFL will once again use Barco’s HDX-W18 projectors.