The City of Wyndham is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, in the outer south-western suburbs of Melbourne. With a population of over 160,000, this is a thriving community that has Wyndham Cultural Centre as its heart.
This important building - which houses the Tattersall's Theatre, two exhibition galleries, the CBD library, Visitor Information Centre and café - was opened to the public in 2001, but a certain approach to construction meant there were some problems from the outset, as Gavin Hume, director of MultiTek Solutions, explained.
"The venue had some troubling times during the original construction. The theatrical infrastructure was lumped in with the general electrical scope of works with many things done in a non-industry standard way. This made the venue very hard to use when it first opened in 2001," he said. "However, the current technical managers and technicians have really done a great job in bring the venue up to a great standard by methodically fixing all the errors made during the construction."
MultiTek Solutions have had a long association with the WCC, from the initial post venue construction fix of the cabling infrastructure to ongoing preventative maintenance and equipment supply, so when the time came for an upgrade of the sound system in the auditorium, it was a job they approached (the brief) with some careful considerations in mind.
"As a regional arts centre they host the full gamut of shows, from the professional touring theatre company to the high school musical and Callisthenics production, along with the all important end of year dance school extravaganzas. They get it all. So the system has to cater for all of them and their specific requirements," said Hume. "Whatever solution we put in place had to improve the overall coverage of the system throughout the venue, specifically the front few rows and the extreme rear. We also had to tidy up the sight lines and mount the subwoofers out of the way. As well as that, they wanted to increase the headroom of the system and provide some image steering for musicals."
Two Tannoy VX 12HP were mounted either side of the arch and another pair from the lighting bridge for delay. A single VX 12Q was mounted in the centre above the stage to help fill in the front row and also provide some image steering for musicals. Four VX 5.2's were employed across the front lip of the stage for those occasions when there is an orchestra in the pit, but we attached these using custom mounts to facilitate easy removal when not required. The VSX 18DR subwoofers were flown above the proscenium walls, giving a more aesthetically pleasing look to the stage overall.
The amp racks were also rebuilt using Powersoft amplification, as well as using multiple BSS London's for full DSP processing.
(Jim Evans)
