The Shellharbour Club recently opened a dining area entitled The Precinct and CMG Audio Visual were given the task of providing a versatile, immersive look and feel for this brand new innovative food-theatre space. CMG provided a comprehensive AV design for the room, encompassing lighting, audio and video, all to be controlled with a simple user interface by any staff member.
CMG combined architectural highlights, building facade wash and general purpose lighting, all using RGBW colour changing instruments so that the room can go from a brig
ht white cleaning state to a deep moody midnight lounge feel at the push of a button.
Because the room was a converted rock’n’roll theatre, the client wanted to pay tribute to the history of the room and incorporate some of the old technology to create a sense of nostalgia. Getting these items to sit within a cutting-edge 21st century system provided a few challenges, and as they were gradually unearthed from storage and delivered to site during the project, there were a few moments of rapid design adjustments!
CMG decided upon a ShowPro solution as the ShowPro fittings provided a cost-effective, robust solution that was compact enough to install in a wide variety of places and bright enough to provide functional light for the whole space, even in richly saturated colours.
A total of sixty ShowPro Quad 18s provide the bulk of the functional light in the space. The dining spaces are flooded from overhead trusses whilst the street
scape and building facades are front-lit using these fixtures
Added to that are twenty-seven ShowPro Quad 7s to provide the column highlights in a part of the room constructed solely of steel beams. The compact body 
and tight beam angles really made this a logical choice for that part of the job.
ShowPro HEX16s are uplighting the entry corridor, which is actually a cut-up shipping container. They are hidden behind a pelmet on the floor and squeezed nicely into the concealed space, making the rich colour of the container really come to life, and the source is invisible until you get up close.
ShowPro EX21 units are lighting the windows in the streetscape from behind, changing tones to reflect time of day and to provide some contrast to the colour schemes in the room.
Control features Crestron time-schedule and client interaction via iPad control of all AV elements in the space. There is also provision for the lighting tones to be triggered by the content playing on the large-format projection screen on the wall opposite the entry, for a truly immersive dining experience!
According to CMG, the venue staff have been great to work with, and together they have really enjoyed learning how to get the most value out of such a flexible system. One of the great recent successes since opening has been the bluest room you can imagine for State of Origin, showing on the giant projection screen, complete with triggered colour-coded chase effects for tries and goals!
CMG added that Show Technology has been extremely supportive all the way through the project, from design through to commissioning. No challenge has been too great for them, and in some cases CMG stated that they received the items they needed only hours after requesting them!
