The Curtin Theatre at Western Australia’s John Curtin College of the Arts provides performance spaces for dance, drama, music and music theatre students. Students experience all aspects of high quality performance production, from stage management, to costume design.
Superbly equipped, the Curtin Theatre offers opportunities for a wide range of uses in theatrical and musical performance and for conferences, seminars and other presentations.
Keeping up with the latest and best in technology is important for the college which is why they recently purchased an MA Lighting dot2 core console and a dot2 F-wing from Elite Audio Visual Productions.
The dot2 core is a compact lighting console designed for small to medium sized productions with up to 4,096 control channels. A full range of clever programming and playback features provide intuitive access to advanced functionality.
“The dot2 core features grandMA software which is considered an industry leader by colleagues, so I knew that would make the purchase a good choice,” commented Terry Wedding, Head Technician Curtin Theatre. “The software is really flexible which is important as I have external clients that come through during the year and we have really tight turnarounds. Fortunately the dot2 core is fast to program. I can easily busk on it or use it in a more theatrical manner with programmed cue stacks, and play cue to cue.”
Terry further remarked that ease and speed of programming was a major consideration in the purchase of the dot2 core. With many of his shows turning around in under seven days, from plotting to closing night, a quick console was a necessity.
“It’s also user-friendly and I have been able to teach a lot of the other departments of the theatre how to use it in a basic manner,” he added. “It can be a straightforward console if you want it to be but also with the MA functionality, you can push it quite hard as well and do some more complex programming.”
The dot2 core is the heart of the dot2 range and includes the full programming section, master playback section, 6 fader playbacks and 12 individual playback buttons. Two built in touch screens and support for one external touch screen ensure the dot2 core has the flexible hardware required for almost any kind of show.
The dot2 F-wing offers modular playback expansion to any of the dot2 consoles. It provides additional 8 faders and 16 playback button with an integrated touch screen for any dot2 console or dot2 onPC.
“Sometimes we only have one operator, depending on the requirements of the current client, so having the dot2 F-wing means I can use a Cat5 cable to have it by the sound desk so we can operate lighting and audio at the same time from the same location,” said Terry.
The wings are connected Plug & Play via Ethernet and can be assigned to the correct fader or button location within the console in seconds. Normal network rules apply allowing wings to be placed remotely.
