The choice of APC products was a straightforward one, based on the predominance and reputation of APC power protection solutions.

The Glyndebourne Opera House, located on the Sussex Downs outside Lewes is one of opera’s sacred sites.  With a world-wide reputation for the quality of its performances and the rural beauty of its setting, Glyndebourne presents Simon Yapp, Head of the Sound and Video Department with a distinctive set of power protection problems.

Opera by its nature requires the coordination of a whole number of creative inputs to shape its overall impact and its subtle variations, including music, voice, action, lighting, props, costume, scenery, sound effects and translation. This means the staging of a performance requires a closely integrated technical network working behind, above and below the stage.  As Simon Yapp explains:

“The orchestra are in a pit slightly underneath the stage and by amplifying the sound and bringing it up to the singers, they have a direct feed to the orchestra so they can sing in-tune and in time. To ensure that, a good quality camera films the conductor in the pit and we relay that to up to 12 LCD screens around, above and to the side of the stage so wherever the singer is looking, they can see the conductor”.

The need for continuous communication creates a particular challenge for Glyndebourne.  The location is rural and supplied by two 11,000 Volt grid supplies, one from the west and the other from the east. Each one feeds into its own 11,000V to 415/240V 1600Amp transformer and the Opera House uses one at a time. The supply is unreliable with 56 outages last year and five this year so far.  And while it is possible to switch from one supply source to the other in the event of power loss, the 9 seconds taken to switch will require all of the IT-dependent equipment to be re-set if that equipment is interrupted:

“We can change over in nine seconds using a mechanical switch and the musicians and singers are very resilient, they will keep going through a nine second technical glitch if there’s enough light. But all of this equipment - technical, communications, video, sound - is computer-based and won’t get through that glitch. My problem is that if this equipment fails then you have to stop the show and spend 10 minutes re-setting everything”.

The re-setting process may include everything from comms to recordings and sound to the 1800 watt LED translation screen, to the tills in the restaurants and the complex stage lighting system – thirty lights each with 78 moving parts and pre-set coordinates.

Thus the need for power protection is obvious. Yapp recalls casualties of a recent power failure which included £2,500 of equipment loss, tills in the onsite restaurants malfunctioning, one delayed performance and twenty minutes in another without the translation screen. Yapp believes that the additional stress of worrying what supply glitches may be “around the corner” is unacceptable at a time when attention should be focussed on the performance.

“When this happens why should we have to run around the building flicking switches and getting stressed? And you can allay the stress by having this done automatically”. 

The backing up of all critical equipment was undertaken progressively using thirty APC Back-UPS CS 350 units, eightSmart-UPS 2200VA Rack-Mount units and a Smart-UPS 3000. The choice of APC products was a straightforward one, based on the predominance and reputation of APC power protection devices used at other sites:

“I visited a number of relatively professional server rooms in Londonand I had a trip round Pinewood and noticed APC products in the racks. I also visited Americaand discovered how unreliable the supply was over there and came to the conclusion that APC must know what they were doing.  And also I have had two other brands here that have let me down – I’ve still got three of them here which I’m dying to replace”.

APC power protection devices are backed by PowerChute software which enables Glyndebourne to log power failure.  Overall, the APC power protection system developed by Simon Yapp is working as required and he intends to develop this into a full UPS maintenance and replacement schedule:

“APC products have not let us down.We had a small glitch that lasted four seconds in a show already this year live to a full audience and everything kept running. The lighting dipped a bit but it was technology and humans working together so the only drama that the audience were aware of was that unfolding before them on-stage”.