Located in Darling Harbour, adjacent to the new International Convention Centre Sydney, the 5 star Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour sets the benchmark for luxury and exceptional experience. The 590 rooms and suites combine French elegance and contemporary design, with breathtaking views of the Harbour. The hotel also features three bars, a restaurant, club lounge and outdoor pool.
The nine meeting and event rooms at Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour recall the wharves in their names and design. Ranging in size from 19 to 508 square metres, each can be tailored to suit the client’s needs and feature the latest in event technology. The Magnifique ballroom, decorated in subtly elegant cream tones, provides space for up to 450 guests. It’s a versatile, opulent venue for receptions, banquets and conferences.
A first class hotel needs to offer first class audio visual solutions for its meetings and events market, hence Audio Visual Dynamics was appointed in house provider. The quality flowed through to the AV equipment specified by AVD including an MA Lighting dot2 core for the important control of lighting. 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.
Lisa Hawken, Venue Operations Manager, loves the simplicity of operation that the dot2 core offers as well as its’ versatility.
“It’s not overly complicated and our junior technicians can learn how to program moving head lights very easily,” she commented. “They can also go online to look at tutorials which is useful. Our more experienced techs can also utilise the dot2 core for programming larger shows, and have a bit of fun with it.
The compact size of the dot2 core is another bonus as it is easily transported and tends to be more invisible than other consoles.
“We’ve been using our dot2 core since the hotel opened last October and it has been 100% reliable,” added Lisa. “It gets hauled around our venue and always works fine. It’s durable and remarkably lightweight.”
With the dot2 core you simply Patch and Go, with no additional setup required. A full range of clever programming and playback features provide intuitive access to advanced functionality.
“I like the preprogram features such as colour chases and movement that you can adjust the parameters of,” said Lisa. “When you have fixtures that you know, you can easily put together something quite quickly. If a client wants to change a colour or add an effect at the last moment, it’s not over complicated to program it and re-save a scene or button.”
AVD also supplied the hotel with twenty-four Show Pro LED UP Quad-4 battery operated LED uplighters and Lisa has fallen in love with them.
“They are extremely versatile and we use them on everything,” she said. “We love the Wireless DMX feature and the fact they are battery driven – no more cables running everywhere is a god send. You just set them up wherever you wish. If it’s just a normal set, we’ll do two different DMX addresses so we can alternate the colours. Or if we’re going more complicated, we’ll give every fixture a different DMX address. The batteries last a long time; you just put them on charge over night between gigs.”
Lisa commented that AVD has over a hundred Show Pro LED UP Quad-4 in Melbourne and are looking at purchasing even more such is the popularity.
