- Christie Lites has opened a new stage lighting and equipment sales and rental office in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The new location - its thirteenth – is aimed at strengthening Christie Lites’ multi-office network of full service and equipment across North America.
- “Winnipeg is a great city with plenty of culture and entertainment,” said Christie Lites CEO Huntly Christie. “I am very pleased that Christie Lites will be able to offer local support to the many events which use stage lighting.”
- The new Winnipeg office is located at 25 Terracon Place, Unit 19.
- Ken Alexander, VP Rentals for Christie Lites, said, “The Winnipeg market is already welcoming the Christie Lites Rentals team and equipment to town with open arms. The new shop location will be supplied from our nationwide inventory of lighting and rigging equipment; this includes Martin moving lights, TourRig double brake motors, and a large stock of grandMA and Martin consoles, to name just a few.”
- Along with its extensive inventory, the new office is staffed with an experienced team of industry professionals. More than a dozen of Christie Lites’ Canadian Rental Reps are already supplying clients within the Manitoba marketplace, Alexander said.
- Leading the Winnipeg team are Ben Kantorovich and Gary Sywake.
- Longtime Christie Lites Rentals Rep Ben Kantorovich, who is from Winnipeg and has a long history with clients there, has already started servicing the local clientele. He has already added the new Winnipeg location to his regular itinerary traveling between his home-base in Toronto and the many locations across America where his Broadway touring clients take him. “Ben’s familiarity with the Winnipeg arts and entertainment marketplace is a strong advantage to both Christie Lites and our clients,” Alexander said.
- Gary Sywake, formerly with Epic Production Technologies, has more than 20 years of entertainment industry experience. Also a Winnipeg native, Sywake graduated from the local Tec Voc Institute in Radio, Television and Theatre in 1982 and has been a mainstay in stage lighting manufacturing and sales with Westsun, William F White and Q1 Production Technologies ever since. Sywake’s focus is in project sales and integration but he is well known in the Rental and Production marketplaces as well.
- Sywake said he’s pleased to join the Christie Lites team. “I look forward to continuing relationships with clients old and new and building Christie Lites into a household name for the professional lighting industry in the Manitoba region.”
- In addition to locally based Reps, support for the newest Christie Lites location comes from the many other Canadian Christie Lites reps based in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax - as well as the rest of the team located in Christie Lites’ US-based offices in the major entertainment hubs of Orlando, Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, Dallas and Seattle.
