Metropolis’s brief also included the design of an integrated operating system for all things technical in the venue. The Metropolis team was headed by Simon Harris, and included site manager Stuart Clowes, technical director Shane Winterbourne, design project manager Martin Geraghty and installation engineers Shane Stanley and Ian Benstead.
The open plan venue has three levels, including a 1200-capacity Function Room/Showroom; a central Media Bar; a large Media Dining area; a mezzanine area circumnavigating the entire basement space level and also overlooking the Function Room, a games room; a dance floor; breakout bars and several ‘Sky Box’ meeting rooms, each with its own in-room sound and AV system, consisting of Alchemist Nexus integrated amplifiers, Infinity Alpha 40 speakers, Alpha Sub bass units and Thomson VCR/DVD combination units. Each Box features control facilities to select viewing of any one of the eight satellite receivers, or to view their own media content via the VCR/DVD unit.
It’s also possible to route any sound or visuals being distributed throughout the club to the Sky Boxes from Lucid’s technical hub - the Broadcast Booth. Metropolis specified an AMX Netlinx system, complete with a PC and 17" touch screen running MS Internet Explorer as the ‘brain’ of the technical and overall show control. This is located in the Broadcast Box, Lucid’s technical core, a large glass-fronted space. Via Explorer, the system accesses web pages held within the NXI Integrated Master which enables control of the house audio, lighting, video, video switching and various other operations.
Using the AMX as an overall system manager, each separate area within the venue can function completely independently in all technical aspects. This enables one operator to manage and co-ordinate requirements for many different areas simultaneously. The Broadcast Box also contains five impressive full height 47U Metropolis racks, containing 21 amplifiers, video matrix, satellite receivers, and three Thomson VCR/DVD combo units, video distribution amplifiers, DMX distribution, a Rolec hard disk music system, radio tuners, control boxes and a Multimedia PC for displaying PowerPoint presentations and the Lucid website.
Lucid’s audio is run via two BSS 9088 Soundwebs, processing for feeds including DJ mixer, satellite TV receivers, combined DVD/VCR inputs, a Rolec MP3 player and others. Live bands are mixed using a Soundcraft Spirit Folio. Metropolis utilized HK speakers throughout, a combination of the IL112 and IL115 subs on the dancefloor and Media Dining Room and IL82s throughout the rest of the club. Amplification comes from a mix of Alto Macro 830, 1400 and 2400 units.
Dancefloor lighting included 70 Robe moving lights (Robe 160 spot and wash fixtures) plus 60 Par cans. The effects lighting was programmed by Maria Jenkins of Mouse Lighting. The Function Room also contains its own lighting rig, again rigged on a Mini-beam box truss complete with 18 Robe moving lights and 20 Par cans. This area can be controlled directly from the Broadcast Booth’s LightProcessor QCommander 512 console, and, if required, a second QCommander 512 can be patched in via the room’s stage box. Dimmers throughout are the new LightProcessor Dimension 18 x 10 Amp modules (the first installation of these dimmers). A LightProcessor QMerge DMX merger and a QCommander Replay unit is used for the house lighting, triggered by the AMX.
(Ruth Rossington)
