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January 2015 entertainment, presentation, installation

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Sydney Opera HouseThe iconic venue’s concert hall balances heritage with cutting edge LED lighting

Paloma Faith On TourLSi reports from York Barbican

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Sydney Opera House’s famous Concert Hall has invested in a major upgrade to

revolutionise the way it lights its audience and performers. Opting for a symphony

of bespoke LED fixtures in a system designed to work in harmony with the iconic

building, Sarah Rushton-Read reports . . .

Marrying heritage with cutting edge:Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall goes 100% LED . . .

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Australia - Towards the end of last year the raisedeyebrows of some of the more conservativeSydneyites quickly dropped back with a sigh of reliefwhen Sydney Opera House’s technical manager,Philby Lewis, assured them that he wasn’t turningtheir historic Concert Hall into a “disco”.

Word had got around that the famous Concert Hall withinSydney Opera House - the home of the Sydney SymphonyOrchestra - was having custom-made LED fixtures installedthat could colour change at the touch of a button, and therumour of change began to spread.

“Brave!” is one word that’s been used. A concert hall thatprimarily requires an ‘orchestra concert lighting state’installing 100% LED fixtures as its house lighting system:whatever next?

“We chose LED because we were looking for something thatwould save money, be more efficient, and reduce the amountof time we spend in a roof that, as anyone who’s familiar withthe ‘sail-like’ design of this building appreciates, is not aneasy space to navigate,” explains Lewis.

A three-part project, the lighting system in the Concert Hallcomprises the crown lighting, which is positioned directlyover the stage, the low-level house lights, and the high-levelstalls house lights.

Driven by the need to reduce power consumption, the newsystem consumes 75% less power, Watt for Watt, in openwhite. From a maintenance and health and safety perspectivethere is considerable payback as Sydney Opera House’shead of lighting Andrew Richards explains: “We were going

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up to the crown five or six times a year tochange each globe. It’s a hostileenvironment at the best of times.Theoretically, we will only need to go up thereonce every nine years now!”

In addition, the old lamps generated someconsiderable heat so a dedicated air ductsystem existed to cool them down. “In theend we pulled out four tons of air duct,” saysLewis, proudly. “And the reduced weight hasfreed up more capacity for rigging.”

“The original initiative had simply been toreplace the low-level house lights becausethe incumbent transformers were gettingincreasingly hard to find,” explains Richards.“At the same time, our former head oflighting, Toby Sewell, was looking for a creative and functional replacement for theexisting crown lighting.”

From a heritage perspective the biggestchallenge was that whatever system waschosen to replace the old would have tomimic the original tungsten sourcecharacteristics: “We had to ensure that theLED gave off the exact colour temperature ofthe original house lights,” explains Richards.“The dimming curve had to emulate thesame cool to warm, on the dim up anddown.”

Of course, achieving a smooth even fadefrom 100% to 0% and vice versa with thesame shift in colour temperature as atungsten source is every LED fixturemanufacturer’s nightmare.

“In 2011 we positioned some test fixturesabove one of the boxes in the auditoriumalongside the standard low-level houselights,” explains Barney Fitzhardinge fromState Automation. “We adjusted the firmwareuntil we could no longer detect a differencein the two light sources throughout thedimming curve. This involved measuring the

colour temperature at different voltages andthen dividing the spectral frequency of thefive different coloured LEDs to match thesepoints in DMX.”

The new fittings also had to fit the existingholes, primarily because as a heritage site,new holes could not simply be cut in theroof. After a six-month trial, the final low-levelhouse light fixtures were installed. Thisheralded the beginning of the morechallenging phase two - replacing the crownand high-level house lights.

In terms of the overall system design Lewissays it was very much a collaborative effortbetween Toby Sewell, Lumascape, whichdesigned the fixtures themselves, and StateAutomation, which designed the controlsystem, its integration and the drivers.

State Automation already manages manysystems in the opera house, so was theobvious partner, not least because of thecompany’s familiarity with the building. The

company designed a system that integratedclosely with the C-BUS automation, which isused throughout the Opera House for all itsarchitectural lighting.

In terms of system control the venue hasboth ETC and GrandMA at its disposal.“When the SSO is in we use the ETC ION,but when other shows come in we put theEOS or the GrandMA 2 in the stalls andsome companies/shows bring in their ownsystems.

“However, probably 75% of what the crownlights are used to do is light the SydneySymphony Orchestra and stage work lights,”says Lewis. “To be honest, the orchestradidn’t really want anything changed beyondperhaps achieving a more even coverage.”

“The whole installation had to be undertakenwith the venue 100% active,” adds Richards“When it came to physically installing thecrown light fixtures into their final positions,we put a temporary rig in and took the oldcrown offline. Prior to that time we pre-laidthe cable and plugged up the lights aroundthe roof. After two weeks we removed thetemporary system overnight, focused theLED fixtures and were back online with theSSO the next day.”

As Lewis recalls: “The feedback from theorchestra that day was silence. This was thebest we could have hoped for because ouraim was for them to perceive no change.”

It wasn’t long before international operahouses wanted to come and take a lookthemselves, including the London Coliseum.“One of the first things that happened, afterwe officially went live with it, was a concertwith violinist Nigel Kennedy,” recallsRichards. “We were told that he was a massive fan of a particular football club sowe lit the room in those colours. He thoughtthat was amazing.”

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Well respected lighting designer Paul Collison, who works in theHouse often, has utilised the new system several times now. “I lovethe ability to generate colour and movement around the audience.For our Christmas show in December, we pixel-mapped the roof andcreated great waves of texture to make the audience feel part of theshow. Of course, this isn’t appropriate for every show, but when it is,it’s great fun.”

“I had a great moment when I was showing lighting designer HughHamilton and his colleagues around,” laughs Richards. “We were inthe Concert Hall and I explained that the entire lighting system wasLED. They looked at me incredulously and said ‘hang on, are westanding under LED light now?’ I said ‘yes it’s all LED.’ They werelooking at their hands and saying ‘this is unbelievable’. That wasreally pleasing, seeing a bunch of experienced lighting peoplequestion whether it was actually LED.”

And it’s not just the designers who love it; the audience and thevisiting companies’ responses have been very positive.

In terms of ‘selling’ the new lighting to the audience, DavidClaringbold, Director of Theatre and Events, told Australia’s ABC:“When the artist comes out onto the stage and performs we want theaudience to feel that this is an incredibly special occasion for them.And the environment that we can create for them with the lighting is a very important part of that.”

And because Sydney Opera House doesn’t charge extra for thisfacility it means that the school or amateur production that previouslycould afford only a basic lighting package can now have a verydifferent show indeed: in fact they’re probably some of the biggestwinners.

To top it all off, the project won the NSW Government’s Green Globesustainability award for improving the efficiency of a heritage building.Success!

But where do they go from here? “What is really exciting is thatdesigners can choose to pixel-map the entire rig!” enthusesRichards. “That, combined with the ability to colour change the entire

system brings a creative flexibility that is practically limitless. Themost wonderful thing is that on a normal day the hall looks exactly thesame as it always did with the white light for the Orchestra, but at thesame time we’ve got the capability to transform the space with thetouch of a button.”

Aptly summing up the project’s value, Sydney Opera House CEOLouise Herron AM says: “Our mission says everything we do shouldengage and inspire people. That should be just as true of oursustainability initiatives as of the performances we present. TheConcert Hall lighting upgrade is an excellent example of how we canrenew the Opera House to meet the needs and expectations of 21st-century artists, audiences and the broader community.”

> www.sydneyoperahouse.com> //stateautomation.com> Video: //plasa.me/j2qa6

Facing page, clockwise from top left:

The newly-lit Concert Hall in use; The Incand-Air 200 high power LEDdownlight used in the crown lighting; The Incand-Air 30 LEDdownlight used for low level houselights.

Above, from top left: SOH technical manager Philby Lewis; AndrewRichards, SOH Head of Lighting; State Automation project engineersBarney Fitzhardinge (left) and Jonathan Boer (right).

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