Owen Hughes

Owen provides design consultancy and project management services with specific emphasis on stagelighting systems, stage engineering and technical services.

I’m a Director at Charcoalblue, leading our teams on cultural projects to deliver the best facilities and solutions for the companies we work with. I like to work collaboratively, with the expertise of colleagues, external partners and our clients making each project better, and making me better at what I do in the process. At the end of every project, I hope we’ve delivered a new or improved home for performance where more people than before can be heard and feel welcomed.

What Excites You Most About Your Work

One of the rewarding parts of my job is the opportunity to use my experience as a theatre consultant, and the accumulated knowledge of 20+ years in theatre design and production to help clients and design partners solve problems large and small, with solutions that can sometimes be highly innovative and sometimes extremely simple. But the most exciting part of the job is being challenged in my assumptions; being presented with an even simpler (or more radically innovative) idea; in short, being reminded daily by the many talented people I get to work with that I am still learning.

A Book, Podcast, Building, or Creative Work That Inspires You

Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. One of the world’s stunningly well crafted albums whose near perfection still feels almost accidental. Ten short operas populated by characters full of rage, love, desire, sorrow, regret and looking to snatch moments of joy and peace wherever they can. All set against a backdrop, bleakly and beautifully rendered, of dilapidated boardwalks, empty highways, and dead ends.

Cultural Value You Most Identify With

The Charcoalblue cultural value I’d most identify with is Collaboration, which I strongly believe is also the foundation of all the others. I’ve been very fortunate to have always been able to work within the theatre/performing arts industry, in one capacity or another. At its best, it is an inherently collaborative enterprise, and the energy of a table read, a late night design notes session, or a technical work session is the same energy I love being a part of during an early planning session for a new building, a design workshop, or an “everyone around the table” meeting in a contractor’s trailer to solve a late breaking problem. We make better work together.