What does a lighting and sound production company do when they realise there is a gap in their hire stocks? Well, Production Services Ireland (PSI) asked ETC to help.

Brian Reilly, owner of PSI, explains: "We are frequently asked to supply theatre-style lighting desks to control generic lighting rigs for theatre companies and television and film shoots and although we already have several lighting control desks that could do the job, customers were asking for one with a familiar programming style."

After considering a few options, project manager at PSI, Alan Clarke narrowed the choice to two - the ETC Congo jr and ETC Ion. Both are compact and light enough to be easily toured, yet still powerful enough to run almost any size of generic rig - with the added bonus of being very capable at running intelligent luminaires. In the end, the Ion won, owing to its command line syntax, a concept favoured by many of PSI's customers. PSI has also taken delivery of an ETC SmartFade which will act as a back-up control desk.

Brian continues: "Having worked with ETC for many years we knew we could trust their desks. We hold a great deal of ETC equipment in our hire stock and always find it durable and reliable. Moreover, ETC's after sales service is faultless."

PSI's Ion has already been used as a house desk at Stranmillis University College in Belfast and during this year's Belfast Festival at Queen's University. It was also hired out for the Irish reality TV show Class Acts, and will be touring with panto shows during the festive season.

It has been a busy couple of years for ETC and PSI in Northern Ireland, with Sensor dimming being installed at the Ardhowen Theatre in Enniskillen, the Island Arts Centre in Lisburn and Belfast's Grand Opera House with ETC Sensor dimming as well as the Alley Arts and Conference Centre in Strabane. PSI is also set to supply dimming for Belfast City Council's Ulster Hall in the New Year.