Arup was employed by Singapore's National Arts Council as acoustician and theatre consultants. And a team led by Electronics & Engineering PTE Ltd including Desisti Asia PTE Ltd and Stage Technologies won the contract for the specialist theatre equipment, with Stage Technologies providing the design and supply of the majority of the rigging and automation for both the Theatre and Concert Hall.
The Victoria Theatre has 69 BigTow2-300 winches for the fly bars with winches in three dedicated winch rooms. In addition 10 of Stage Technologies' exceptionally quiet TipTow Point Hoists are provided for use on the theatre's grid. These mobile units can be easily moved to any location on the grid where a point hoist is required.
Stage Technologies' sister company Delstar Engineering designed and fabricated two orchestra lifts with seating wagons. The wagons are stored below the stage: one wagon rolls upstage to be stored under the trap room, while the downstage lift is stored behind a sliding wall. Delstar Engineering also supplied the 10.8m x 7.1m safety curtain for the Victoria Theatre.
The control system for the theatre includes two Nomad desks, two handheld Solos (one wired, one wireless), and one Preset Station, all using the latest generation of Stage Technologies eChameleon application software. The motion control system is the Stage Technologies Maxis SI system using Siemens technology and variable speed drives.
For the Concert Hall, Stage Technologies provided a 10-axis system consisting of line shaft hoists for the suspension of lighting bars plus four acoustic reflectors, each consisting of six 1.9msq clear moulded polycarbonate plastic panels. The control system has a simple touch screen user interface to permit pre-recorded presets for the moving elements to be simply recalled by the venue staff when setting up for an event.
The refurbished Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall were opened on 15 July 2014 with a VIP celebration gala performance.
(Jim Evans)
