The technical specification was prepared by Jerry Godden and his team at Theatre Projects Consultants. The brief was to provide conference and theatre facilities that would enable large corporate clients to stage international conferences, product launches as well as providing local facilities. The late arrival of Theatre Projects into the design team realized a number of problems to be solved as the building works had been proceeding prior to them being appointed. One such problem was of the limited load capacity of the roof structure and access to the installed system.
The stage engineering system, designed by LSI Projects, comprises of a system of chain hoists and trusses from which adjustable masking and stage lights are suspended, a framed flown film screen unit, motorized house curtain, flown acoustic reflector ceiling panels and rolling acoustic towers, fixed and movable curtain tracks with stage draperies and masking. The trusses were designed to carry the lighting equipment, stage curtains and masking, together with a complex set of acoustic reflectors containing a concert lighting rig. The acoustic reflectors are suspended on three trusses and include adjustment to allow them to be angled. Ceiling panels made of fibreglass, manufactured by Wenger Corp of USA, together with the 11 free-standing stage towers provide an acoustic shell that may be deployed around musical performers. With the shell in place the performers can hear themselves and the music is reinforced and blended before it is projected into the audience. The panels are suspended from arms attached to trusses and chain hoists. When not in use the panels are lowered to the stage level and rotated manually to a vertical position before being raised and stored within the upper area of the "fly tower".
In use, the panels are lowered and rotated to an appropriate angle. Panels house orchestra lighting with mercury switches to turn off when tilted fed via a unique LSI-designed flip-flop type cable management system linked to termination boxes located on the upper steel roof beams. Panels incorporate a pipe at the rear from which masking borders may be hung. A total of 10 motorised truss sections each 22m long are provided. LSI selected Medium Duty truss from Total Fabrications, having previously worked with Total Fabs successfully on a number of large-scale projects. Three trusses house the over stage acoustic reflectors, one supports the film screen and associated masking which also acts as LX 1, 3 more LX trusses, one supports the rear curtains or cyclorama cloth and a further two form side trusses for lighting and curtaining.
Each truss is suspended from the very latest generation of Liftkit motorised chain hoists each rated to carry a working load of 1250kg. A total of three motors are provided for each truss due to the average lifting load requirement of 1000kg per 22m truss. As the system is likely to be used by a wide variety of personnel it was felt that the highest level of safety should be in built to the system. The Liftkit SB 8.2 motors feature a lifting speed of 4m per minute, two independent dc brakes, sliding clutch for over load protection, encoder for positional control together with operational and under/over load sensing. The motors are fully compliant with the new BGV-C1 that replaces the VGB70 standard. This standard, developed in G
