Technical information

Your technical needs

For any show at either the Compass Theatre or Winston Churchill Theatre, we need the technical requirements emailed to the senior technical team no later than 6 weeks before your get-in date. This is to ensure that all licensing permissions are in place and to allow us to discuss any potential issues with you.

The best way to submit your technical needs is by emailing theatretechnicians@hillingdon.gov.uk. 

• Risk assessment information and guidelines (PDF) [126KB]
• Risk assessment template (Word doc) (Word doc) [85KB]

Your risk assessment will help you identify any hazards in your show, to work out how dangerous those hazards might be, and assess how high the risk is that someone might be hurt, injured or made ill. Once you have assessed the risk, you can identify ways of reducing it, by putting measures in place to control it. 

If you need help completing your risk assessment, you can either bring it to a production meeting or email theatretechnicians@hillingdon.gov.uk to request help.

Technical information for events at the Compass Theatre

• Compass Theatre Technical information pack (PDF) [93KB] (currently under review)
• Compass Theatre lighting plan (PDF) [103KB]
• Compass Theatre stage plan (PDF) [97KB] (scale 1:50)
• Compass Theatre backstage plan (PDF) [72KB]
• Compass Theatre small stage - technical pictures (PDF) [285KB]
• Compass Theatre auditorium - technical pictures (PDF) [175KB]
• Compass Theatre gobo stock list (PDF) [59KB]

Technical information for events at Winston Churchill Theatre

• Winston Churchill Theatre technical information pack (PDF) [84KB]
• Winston Churchill Theatre lighting plan (PDF) [33KB]
• Winston Churchill Theatre stage plan (PDF) [5MB]
• Winston Churchill Theatre stage measurements (PDF) [452KB]

Guns (firearms) on stage - clarification 

As venues, both the Compass Theatre and Winston Churchill Theatre need to know about the use of any type of firearm on stage - this includes toy guns, but excludes wooden props - so we can advise you, where necessary, to gain permission for the use of the gun (firearm). 

• If a gun (firearm) is a plastic toy and is not to be used to fire anything (including toy caps), we still need to be made aware of this, and you must make it clear on the technical return that it is a non-firing toy. This will mean that we do not need specific permission to be granted. 
• If the gun is going to be used to fire blanks or toy caps, we must know about this a minimum of 4 weeks before the show, so that we can advise you if specific permission needs to be sought by yourselves. 

Lasers​​​ and laser lighting

Lasers and laser lighting require us to get licensing permission.

If your show will involve the use of lasers in any form, please email artsvenues@hillingdon.gov.uk a minimum of 6 weeks before your show, so that we can gain the correct permissions. 

If you have questions or would like to check availability for putting on a show, email artsvenues@hillingdon.gov.uk.