Perth’s Stage & Studio Productions is proud to be the preferred audio-visual supplier at a number of quality venues throughout the Perth metro area. One of their latest projects is the installation of a new lighting system into the auditorium of Kennedy Baptist College located in the suburb of Murdoch.
Built in 2000, the auditorium forms an integral part of Kennedy Baptist College. It seats 1,200 and offers a large stage suitable for a wide range of performances and events.
A significant feature of the auditorium is the 20 students who form part of the College tech team. These students take on the responsibility for running the sound, audio-visual, and lighting for assemblies and other College events.
As well as catering to the school, the auditorium is available for external hire on weekends and evenings outside school hours, hence the need to offers built in stage lighting, sound, and audio-visual facilities for said external functions.
Stage & Studio Productions are asked to design, supply, and install a lighting package to suit the venue’s wide variety of needs. A flexible, cost effective package from Jands was recommended, which included Jands SLX-100 and JLX-PRO lighting bars, an ETC SmartFade for incredible control, and a FPX dimmer to replace the retiring Jands GP12 dimmer currently installed.
The four JLX-PRO lighting bars are modular, pre-wired lighting bars that feature top and bottom strut channels for fixing wire ropes, chains, or pipe battens. “The JLX-PRO lighting bars have been great,” remarked Adrian Ward, Technical Director, Stage & Studio Productions. “They’re economical, quick to install, and designed to meet all electrical and safety regulations.”
In one particular section of the auditorium it is necessary to bring in a boom lift in order to change the lighting fixtures. Stage & Studio Productions’ solution to make Kennedy’s technicians lives easier was to install the two Jands SLX-100 motorized lighting battens. These off-the-shelf hoists are ideal for school halls, auditoriums, or anywhere that there is the need to easily and safely raise and lower lighting fixtures.
“Now the lighting bars can be lowered at the simple press of a button,” added Ward. “The SLX-100 requires very little maintenance compared to a traditional winch up bar. I like how neat and tidy they appear, and the ease of installation, plus they’re great for cable management.”
A Jands FPX 12 channel dimmer which is ideally suited for applications where ease of use and cost efficiency are primary concerns was a sensible choice. The students have no trouble handling the simple menu to access the configuration and test options.
As the auditorium features a number of LED PAR luminaires, Ward decided that an ETC SmartFade would be the ideal control console. This compact console has some serious power under the hood yet is easy to use while including a rich special-feature set when you need it. The SmartFade console also delivers diverse functionality at an impressive price. The console fits perfectly into venues such as the Kennedy Baptist College auditorium that has a bit more than conventional lighting.
“The SmartFade has the ability within a standard format console, to control static lights really easily, and has palettes for the LEDs so you can easily pick the colours that you want,” remarked Ward. “You can pick the exact colour you want your LED fixture to go to without having to move your red fader, green fader, and your blue fader. It makes it a lot quicker to program the LED PARs and is simple to operate even if you haven’t got a lot of experience. The SmartFade also has moving light control which may be handy if they decide to get such lights in the future.”
Of particular importance to the school’s students is the fact that you don’t have to be a lighting professional to use SmartFade. Ward also took into account the fact that ETC does a great job supporting all their consoles and fixture libraries along with software updates and tech support.
“Jands has also been really helpful and I know if I need any technical support for them, they’ll be there for me,” concluded Ward.
