The Wheel

AVW are excited to be providing the revolve control system for a new BBC television show called ‘The Wheel’.

Hosted by the Bafta award-winning Michael McIntyre, each episode sees a mixture of great contestants, celebrity guests and laugh out loud moments as The Wheel brings a brand new spin to Saturday nights on BBC One.

Working with Steel The Scene; AVW designed and manufactured a control system to power a three and a half ton 14 meter diameter ring revolve. The revolve control system accepts position, speed, acceleration and deceleration OSC commands from the Kinetic Pixel show control system and also returns real-time position and speed information for the syncronisation of graphics to the revolve as it spins.

The control system is based around our established QAxis control system and will form the basis of an innovative new dedicated revolve control system called Revolver.

The Wheel Desktop

WhatsOnStage Awards 2020

The winners of the 20th WhatsOnStage Awards have been revealed and AVW are delighted that the new musical & Juliet, which features the songs of music maker legend Max Martin, won the most awards on the night – six – including one for Best Actress in a Musical for star Miriam-Teak Lee.

Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of the seminal novel Life of Pi, which premiered at Sheffield Theatres last year, won the Best New Play award: audiences in London will be treated to the piece when it transfers to the West End in the summer.

Both of these shows had the AVW QAxis automation system as did Best New Musical runner up Only Fools and Horses the Musical.

For more infomation about the WhatsOnStage Awards 2020 click here.

For more infomation about QAxis click here!

Life of Pi

AVW were proud to be a part of the technical team that staged Life of Pi at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield this year. AVW used their QAxis control system to control a motorised revolve and a hydraulic lift that brings the boat out of the sea as the plot alternates between the ocean and the hospital. The QAxis system also passed positional information to the AV projection system that produced a stunning visual experience that left the audience gasping!

The reviews have been more or less five star and we really hope that this show gets a well deserved West End transfer!

& Juliet

AVW are proud to be supplying a QAxis stage automation control system for the forthcoming production of & Juliet.

& Juliet is the irreverent and fun-loving new West End musical that asks: what if Juliet’s famous ending was really just her beginning? What if she decided to choose her own fate? This is Juliet’s story now. So don’t tell her how it ends…

Soaring with pop anthems including …Baby One More TimeEverybody (Backstreet’s Back)Love Me Like You Do and Can’t Feel My Face, & Juliet is a riotous blast of fun and glorious music that proves when it comes to love, there’s always life after Romeo…

& Juliet will be opening in Manchester from the 10th September 2019 and will transfer to London’s Shaftesbury Theatre in November 2019.

Impressario takes its final bow.

AVW are retiring the Impressario motion control system after 22 years. During this time it has been used on countless productions and venues all over the world. We have replaced the system with QAxis and have already had four successful productions with three more in the pipeline. We will of course continue to support legacy Impressario systems for as long as we can. For more information about QAxis please go to our QAxis page.

The Impressario system was based around our Impressario Motion Processor (IMP) which used the Infineon 167/168 micro-processor. Unfortunately this microprocessor became obsolete a few years ago and so it became apparent that Impressario would need replacing as these micro-processors became ever harder to source as the worldwide supply dwindled. AVW had been using Omron PLCs for over twenty years but it is only in recent years that they have been powerful enough to offer multi-axis motion control; so the decision was made to replace the Impressario system using off the shelf Omron PLCs with our own software. Users familar with Impressario will note many similarities with QAxis as well as some new features that have been learnt with over 22 years experience of Impressario.

If you have any concerns about legacy Impressario systems then please do get in touch.