With lighting equipment approaching its 10-year mark, The Art House Wyong, a community-focused performing arts venue on the NSW Central Coast, expanded its existing lighting system with ETC Lustr 3. The upgrade is designed to strengthen consistency, flexibility and performance across the main auditorium while building on an established ETC platform.
Key Players
- * The Art House Wyong: A Central Coast performing arts venue opened in 2016 with a 500-seat theatre, studio space, foyer exhibition area and meeting facilities, serving both touring productions and the local community.
- * ETC: Founded in 1975 in the USA, is a leading global manufacturer of lighting and rigging technologies. It serves the theatre, live events, and architectural lighting industries with advanced control systems and fixtures. The ColorSource family is purpose-built for small to mid-sized venues and education, delivering calibrated colour, reliable performance, and an integrated, easy-to-use workflow for students and staff.
- * Jands: Since 1970, Jands has distributed world-class audio, video, lighting and broadcast technologies across Australia and New Zealand, supporting partners with design guidance and product expertise throughout the project.
The Challenge
The Art House already had a strong ETC foundation in place. In the main auditorium, the venue had been running ETC Series 2 LED profiles as part of its original fit-out.
The system has expanded progressively as part of an ongoing upgrade cycle, including the addition of Desire X8 Fresnels, ETC Response Gateways as sACN nodes, and ETC control consoles including a Gio and an Apex 5. “Those ETC fixtures have proven to be incredibly reliable with no issues,” said Tom Skelton, Production and Operations Manager at The Art House Wyong. “They’ve been absolute workhorses for us and have done everything we’ve thrown at them over the years.”
The next step was to evolve the rig without disrupting what already worked. The venue needed to maintain compatibility, improve on-stage consistency, and support a wide range of productions within its existing ETC environment.
The Solution
The venue selected ETC Lustr 3 fixtures as the next stage in its lighting upgrade, beginning with on-stage positions in the main auditorium. Built on ETC’s Source Four LED Series 3 platform, Lustr 3 uses the Lustr X8 eight-colour array, delivering greater colour depth while maintaining high output.
“Having the engines matched on stage is hugely beneficial for us because the output and colour match with basically zero effort. That’s a huge advantage,” Tom said.
This consistency is particularly valuable in a venue like The Art House, where the lighting system must support everything from community presentations to touring productions and more detailed design work. With ETC fixtures and ETC control working together, the team can move quickly when needed while maintaining accuracy and repeatability.
“Having ETC consoles as well means that when you press a colour in the gel swatch, the light does what you ask it to do,” Tom said. “Being able to do that for shows we’re busking, where we have short turnaround times, as well as for the higher-end design work we do on some of the larger shows we’re producing and presenting, is a huge advantage to us.”
The rollout is intentionally staged. The initial Lustr 3 installation covers all on-stage fixtures, with future phases expected to extend into front-of-house bridge positions over time. This approach provides a practical and cost-effective pathway to continue improving the system while maximising the value of existing infrastructure.
