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Award for SineWave Dimming at Dutch Theatre
The Schouwburg Theatre in the Dutch city of Almere has won the Installation Europe Award 2007 for best auditorium project, with its ETC IES Matrix Mk II SineWave dimming receiving special praise from the judges.
The Schouwburg Almere is an exciting new state of the art multi-venue performing arts centre designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANNA which provides a flexible environment in which to present a diverse array of music, theatre and dance.
With three adaptable spaces receiving incoming shows often only playing for a single night, the theatre has a rigorous schedule, demanding flexibility in technical infrastructure and equipment. To that end, the theatre consultant on the building project, Theater Advies BV, specified ETC IES Matrix Mk II SineWave dimming and ETC Congo lighting consoles throughout the building. Lois Janssens, consultant for Theater Advies explains: “The equipment we bought ideally suits the needs of the client. With portable ETC Matrix II dimmer racks for stage use, the venue’s technical staff can position the dimmer racks exactly where they are required, such as in four corners or all at one side. An added bonus is that the dimmers can also be used in other auditoria and in the building’s foyers.”
Winning the tender to supply and install the equipment was ETC’s Netherlands distributor Lightco bv, a subsidiary of Ampco Flashlight. Bas Van Schelven, project manager for Lightco, says: “The main auditorium is specifically designed to provide a suitable environment for opera and choral performances; it is essential that the ambient noise threshold be kept to a minimum – around 23dbs. In view of this, Theater Advies, in consultation with the client, felt sine wave dimming to be the ideal solution.
“Sine wave dimming is inherently silent in its operation. By controlling the amplitude of the AC sine wave, lamp filament noise is eliminated. Sine wave can also provide quiet dimming for almost any load – even ballasted HMI fixtures and low-wattage LEDs, plus there is no acoustical interference. By eradicating load switching and reducing peak voltage, sine wave dimming extends lamp life and, with its less than 1% harmonic distortion, it also reduces power consumption.”
The theatre is also making good use of ETC DimStat reporting software, which features dynamic load sensing and curve-correction options, plus instant diagnosis of dimmer faults. The advantage is that DimStat allows remote control of dimmers via laptop from practically anywhere on the network. In the case of the Almere, it has installed a single 1Gb network, which not only carries lighting data but also
telecommunications, video and audio streaming around the entire building. This means lighting systems can be accessed from practically anywhere in the venue.
Each performance space has its own ETC Congo console permanently connected to the network, and there are two further consoles running in full tracking backup mode at all times.
Van Schelven says: “The Congo console is ideal for multi-purpose, high turnover venues such as the Almere. It is a preset-style console designed for total flexibility and easily handles both moving lights and conventional fixtures. The Congo has two physical universes of DMX output for a total of 1,024 outputs on 3,072 channels, but you can easily expand the outputs up to 12 universes of DMX.”
In picture: lighting technician Martyn Elenga with the Schouwburg Theatre’s Congo.
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