In Sydney, a groundbreaking new venue has emerged within an iconic heritage-listed building. Its vision is to attain elite status among the world’s top super clubs.
The Plaza Hotel is a notable example of the inter-war building boom in central Sydney, featuring a striking Spanish Mission-style facade. Since its opening in 1930 as a movie theatre, it has played a significant role in the local entertainment scene and has undergone various transformations. Under the ownership of the Winchester Hotel Group, with creative direction from Sarah and Ryan Maloney, the theatre has been revitalised with new energy and vision.
The Plaza is unique because it offers six distinct areas for hosting events. These include a five-star dining restaurant, an underground vinyl bar club, a sumptuous classic 1930s movie theatre, themed VIP rooms, and the main superclub dance floor.
The club’s lighting design brief from Ryan was to craft an atmosphere that fuses the glitz of Las Vegas crossed with iconic Ibiza nightclubs. A design collaboration between Xcite Audio Visual and CVAV resulted in a truss structure consisting of over 200m of custom-made F34 Global Truss provided by Design Quintessence, spanning the enormous heritage roof truss.
Utilising this structure, Show Technology was able to design a venue specific rig boasting an impressive array of fixtures, including 12 Martin Era 300s, eight ShowPRO Pluto 8000s, six ShowPRO Diamondbacks, 14 ShowPRO Alligators, 38 ShowPRO Pluto Beams, and two Look Solutions Unique 2.1 Hazers. This meticulously curated setup offers endless creative possibilities, from breathtaking aerial effects that utilise the venue’s soaring ceilings to intricate segment control that floods the dance floor with vivid patterns and colours.
Riley Holt, lighting operator for Plaza nightclub, has thoroughly enjoyed programming and operating this venue. He especially loves the Diamondbacks mounted on the wall behind the DJ. “Whenever someone asks me what my favourite fixture is, I say the Diamondbacks; they are so versatile; you can use them as blinders, wash lights or beams and the huge range of visual effects and patterns you can create from them is phenomenal. I am also a big fan of the Alligators; they are fun to operate, and I wish we had a few more… the dual face combined with the unlimited pan and tilt give me a lot of options throughout the night to change the lighting atmosphere throughout the club.”
At the heart of the venue’s lighting setup is the grandMA3 compact console, paired seamlessly with a Luminode 12 processor. With only two touch screens for operation, Riley recognised the importance of screen real estate in a nightclub environment. “The start show file was a great foundation. In MA2 I always created the groups, wings & MA tricks, but you already have those available in MA3. I then combined the start show screen layers into two pages as initially they were split into each attribute, so I had everything available at my fingertips”.
The challenge was always to balance the design against the backdrop of an enormous video feature, ensuring that neither became the predominant main feature or star of the show.
