The College is very pro music and sports hence their new Canterbury Events Centre caters to both disciplines. The footprint of the building is 75m x 45m with a stage size approximately 24m x 12m plus wing space and side of stage areas. In full seating mode the centre can host 2000 seats.
The building itself is a BER funded project whilst the sound, lighting, audio visual and curtains have been funded by the College via fundraising along with some government funding.
"The Events Centre is used for many presentations such as speech night for senior, middle and junior levels and recently a Disney mjusical Beauty & the Beast with three fully sold out shows," commented Noel Martin, managing director of Performance Lighting & Sound who supplied and installed all of the technical gear.
Martin decided that JBL VRX900 Series self powered line array consisting of eight VRX932LAP and four VRX918SP subs would best suit the venue.
"We have installed a number of the VRX 932 unpowered versions, and decided to run with the powered 932 mid high boxes four per side and the two 918 powered subs," he noted. "They are just an easy box to fly and point. They work very well within this venue and the customer is very happy with the clarity and coverage of the system. The low weight of the boxes was also critical as we had issues with engineering restrictions. We also have three JBL AE Compact AC29/95 boxes for rear delay powered by a Crown XLS2500 amplifier."
"I've also installed a dbx 4800 digital audio processor," continued Martin. "I just don't know how we would have got away with not having the 4800, as it is such a useful tool and the LAN control is great for diagnostics and mid show changes, etc. Added to that is a Lexicon MX300 digital effects unit."
For foldback there are two JBL EON510 boxes and two EON515 boxes. For audio control a Soundcraft LX7 MkII console was chosen. As well as a wide selection of Shure microphones there is a Jands Ezicom 4 Channel Master Station with seven Ezicom Beltpacks.
The lighting fixtures consist of 30 Spotlight Combi 1200w PCs with barndoors, 18 Spotlight Combi 1200w Fresnels with barndoors, and four ETC Source Four Zoom Profiles.
"For control an ETC Smartfade ML was chosen as it's a very powerful tool once you get your head around it with unlimited control," added Martin. "It appears that the students from the College are beginning to master all the ML attributes, yet on the other hand it can be used in very simplistic lighting control as well. Once again we have installed many WM patch and wall mounted Jands dimmers as they just go together like hand in glove - very reliable simple workhorses."
(Jim Evans)
