A nightly performance at one of the Britain’s premier arts venues is generating revenue in excess of £1m for one of the North West region’s most successful building services engineering companies, as it steers towards its £35m turnover forecast this year.
Blackpool-based Ameon, is currently enjoying an extended run at The Lowry, Salford Quays, where a cast of technicians and electrical engineers are engaged in the contract to upgrade the venue’s lighting systems in theatres, exhibition and conference suites.
The company’s contract also includes backstage lighting systems, overhead gantries and dressing rooms and is intended to provide substantial energy-saving benefits for the theatre and arts venue.
By the end of the contract, over 3,000 lights will have been replaced at the venue, which is the size of five football pitches and in use 363 days of the year, with low energy and LED lighting systems replacing the less energy efficient, conventional systems in use at the building since its opening in 2000.
Working mostly night shifts, using a team of around 25 electricians, the project is having minimal impact on The Lowry’s business activities.
The venue, hosting 1,000 performances a year, welcomes approximately 850,000 visitors a year and was Greater Manchester’s most visited attraction in 2014.
The contract required the use of a team of specialist abseiling electricians, to replace floodlights on areas of The Lyric Theatre roof, which were impossible to reach by conventional methods.
The Lowry contract is one of a number of high-profile projects for Ameon across the UK, among them in the North West, work on Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium expansion, Lancaster University’s new science facility.
The works form part of a raft of contracts worth over £11m, in the last six months.
Ameon has almost doubled turnover in five years. Managing director, Robin Lawson said: “The Lowry contract is one of a number of prestigious projects for us and illustrates our ability to provide solutions for clients.
“Our deployment of abseiling electricians to solve an unusual problem epitomises our service philosophy and is one reason why we’ve managed to weather the recent economic downturn, when others have not been so fortunate.”
Taken from Blackpool Gazette.
