The new, much larger arts centre will attract more acts to the district as the previous arts centre, which had served the district for more than 40 years, had been too small or inadequate for some acts given the size and quantity of material they required on stage.
Other features of the new state-of-the-art facility include a 15m tower above the stage, to improve management of curtains, lights, scenery and backdrops during performances.
Jands designed, manufactured and installed the all-important safety curtain for the Mildura Arts Centre Theatre including related mechanical components with the specified mechanical, structural and control features.
The 3,000kg safety curtain, approximately 13.6m W x 6.8m H, is capable of closing the proscenium opening in under 30 seconds by gravity slide. A motor assisted lifting system via four steel wire ropes is used to raise the fire curtain. The automatic lowering of the fire curtain is triggered by a switching control system whilst the release of the fire curtain is via a UPS supported brake release system.
The fire curtain is designed so as to minimise the penetration of smoke around the perimeter of the opening of the stage when fully lowered. It is counterbalanced by a counterweight frame complete with cast iron counterweights.
Jands also supplied 16 counterweight sets together with the drapes and tracking including the main house curtain and stage masking legs and borders as well as a white cyclorama cloth.
Four Jands JLX PRO pre wired lighting 15.0m bars each consisting of four JLX PRO 3.53m segments lengths end to end provide 24 x 10A 240V outlets, four RJ 45 Ethernet outlets. The dimmed outlets on each JLX PRO lighting are connected to the dimmer infrastructure via flexible multicore cables terminated in Socapex style connections.
(Jim Evans)
