Unit 11 Final Version

Here is the final version of my Unit 11 dissertation

Eco-Design Working Plan 2016-2019

What effect is it going to have on theatres?

Due to energy inefficient electrical appliances, the EU is continuously pushing for those appliances to become as efficient as they can in order to decrease their carbon footprint. In 2012, the EU released a set of efficiency requirements which targeted lights, forcing office and domestically used lights to be replaced with LEDs. However, in their regulation document, the EU outlined that theatre lights were exempt from the requirements as they were classed as ‘special purpose products’ (European Union, 2012). Theatre lights were able and will be able to continue to be used as normal until September 2020 as the European Commission have published a new working plan which bans all tungsten lights in the entertainment industry.

Incandescent lights have been used for several decades to light shows. Without them, we would be greatly limited in terms of what we could do to set the mood, weather and time of day. On the other hand, tungsten lamps are incredibly energy inefficient, 80% of the energy used by tungsten lamps is wasted as heat meaning that theatres leave a massive carbon footprint. This is why the European Commission is putting forward a new legislation which will ban all tungsten lamps and force all theatres to replace their current lighting fixtures with LEDs. The European Commission have named the new legislation ‘Eco-Design Working Plan 2016-2019’ (Association of Lighting Designers, 2018).

If the EU’s efficiency requirement of ’85 lumens per Watt’ (Association of Lighting Designers, 2018) is implemented, then all of the theatres would struggle to comply with the regulation as it would be costly to replace entire lighting rigs with LED fixtures that meet the European Commission’s requirement, especially as individual LED luminaires are incredibly expensive. It may even be costlier than just buying LEDs and rigging them up. Chances are that you will have to invest money in changing the whole lighting system as LEDs don’t work in the same way that generics do (Town, 2018). The sheer cost of replacing entire lighting rigs would cause several smaller venues to shut down.

Another concern is that there isn’t an LED unit which is an adequate replacement for the generics as they lack the dimming capabilities and warmth that is offered by tungsten lights. Performances will simply look completely different; designers will not be able to create the same moods as they would with tungsten due to the difference in the colour temperature. Scenes that intend to portray tenderness or compassion will be incredibly difficult to achieve because of the lack of Kelvin. You’re also able to set the incandescent lights at lower intensities which allows you to set different moods, weather and times of day.

Worse still, the LEDs that are currently being incorporated more and more often into lighting designs, are significantly more efficient than tungsten lights, yet they still don’t meet the efficiency requirement and LED manufacturers don’t think that it will be possible to create an LED unit which will meet both the ‘optical and performance design’ (Association of Lighting Designers, 2018) and efficiency requirements by September 2020. This would leave lighting designers with poor quality lights that wouldn’t be able to produce lighting states at the same sort of standard which will severely damage the quality of shows.

On the other hand, there are a few advantages of using LEDs. They radiate significantly less heat which increases the safety of handling them. It also means that the environment in which you are working may be more comfortable as it is not being heated up as much. You don’t need to spend time replacing lamps as you do with generics which may gain you some crucial time during tech week. Another benefit of using LEDs is that you don’t need to spend time testing and cutting out gels as LEDs come with a built-in colour palette which allows you to mix the primary colours by adjusting the intensity of each colour (Prestige LED Lighting, 2014).

In my experience, most theatres and lighting designers prefer the conventional lights as you’re able to use a wider variety of effects with them then you can with LEDs, even if you need to spend more time maintaining the incandescent fixtures or fitting them with gels.

In conclusion, the Eco-Design Working Plan 2016-2019 will have negative effects on theatres as it will be costly to replace the lighting rigs with LED luminaires. The incredibly high cost of such an operation will force several venues to shut down as they simply don’t have the budget to do such a thing. The LED lights that are currently available to us are not an adequate replacement for the conventional units as they are unable to do the things that we need them to do; from dimming to low intensities to producing warm light, LEDs just haven’t yet been developed to that point.

The EU have good intentions in trying to reduce the carbon footprint that is left by theatres but they are going about it with the wrong approach. They are forcing theatres to do the impossible and by doing so they are crippling the entertainment industry.

Reference:

European Union (2012) Regulations. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:342:0001:0022:EN:PDF (Accessed: 12^th February 2019)

Association of Lighting Designers (2018) The Proposed EU 2020 Lighting Regulations and their Potential Impact on Performance Lighting.  Available at: https://www.ald.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/ALD_EULighting2020BriefingDoc20Apr18.pdf (Accessed: 12th February 2019)

Town (2018) #SaveStageLighting to Save Europe’s Theatres. Available at https://uktheatre.org/who-we-are-what-we-do/uk-theatre-blog/save-stage-lighting/ (Accessed: 12^th February 2019)

Prestige of LED Lighting (2014) Benefits of LED. Available at: https://www.prestigeledlighting.com/v/benefits-of-led/19 (Accessed: 12th February 2019)