The building which houses The Empire Theatre originally opened its doors as The McCarthy Theatre in 1938 as a venue for both feature films and live performance.

After 24 years of operation the McCarthy closed it's doors in 1962 and would remain vacant until 1974 when it became Stephen Licence Limited, a sports and hobby store.

In March of 2002, Royal Lepage ProAlliance broker/ owner Mark Rashotte purchased the McCarthy building with a dream of bringing to Belleville a state of the art theatre for live performance andcinema. Rashotte, also a professional musician and recording artist, spent many years touring Canada and the Northeast United States performing in various theatrical venues.

Mark Rashotte contracted our firm and we spent the summer designing and tendering the system. Band World was the contractor, and Bartnes and Associates managed the project.

The design is the “mullet” of lighting, all business out front, and a party in the back. The FOH coves have 14 S4 leko and 16 S4 pars. Over the stage there are 3 x 32' truss' on motors. The rig consists of 8 Mac 250 Kryptons, 6 Mac 300 wash lights, 2 x 575 Satellite follow spots and approx 100 conventional fixtures, all running from a Jands Hog 1000 and a ETC Unison house light system.

We have used the ETC dimmer doubling technology on a Sensor instal rack. This allows us to double the number of dimmers, using a special two-fer and 77 volt bulbs. To read more, please visit ETC Product.