You’ve Finally Arrived
Star Sydney’s Grand Foyer makes big statement.
11 September 2019
The Star Sydney has recently dropped $65m on a transformation of the property’s Pyrmont entrance, with a brand-new bar, luxury retail and, now, an arrival experience with maximum ‘wow’ factor.
You’re looking at the amazing $22m ‘Grand Foyer’ — part light, part water, part projection and part digital art attraction.
The Star Sydney Chief Operating Officer, Dino Mezzatesta, describes it thus: “The new Grand Foyer includes a 25m-long, 8K resolution crescent-shaped screen which will showcase the works of emerging and established Australian artists, university students, cinematographers and animators. The screen content reacts dynamically to the real-world environment and human movement, encouraging guest interaction.
“Alongside the digital canvas, is the first sculptural water installation of its design in the Southern Hemisphere – the ‘Aquatique’ artwork of falling water. The integration of Aquatique, LED screens, lasers, lighting and live performances is a world first for an entertainment precinct.”
CONTACTS
Ramus Illumination: (03) 9191 2544 or www.ramus.com.au
Christie Digital: (07) 3624 4888 or christiedigital.com
Audio Brands (Meyer Sound): (02) 9659 7711 or audiobrands.com.au
ULA Group (ACME): 1300 852 476 or ulagroup.com
Hills AV (MediaMatrix): 1300 445 571 or hills.com.au
LIFE AQUATIQUE
The Aquatique feature is really something. It’s based around a 12m drop of two concentric water curtains (3m and 5m in diameter). Every hour, two Christie Crimson HD25 laser phosphor projectors use the water curtains to project onto (front and rear). The show lasts 10 minutes.
Trevor Watt, The Star’s Director of Audio Visual was familiar with what the Christie projectors could do: “We use these same projectors in our Event Centre with outstanding results. This foyer show was always going to benefit from the laser phosphor technology — they’re used in regular short bursts so you wouldn’t want a lamp turning off and on all day. It’s a difficult service environment, so the laser phosphor light source means we don’t have awkward lamp changes.”
A KVANT Atom 15 laser and four ACME XA 1000 BSWF moving head lights with custom gobos round out the light show.
The audio for the hourly show is handled by very capable, ceiling-mounted Meyer Sound Cal32 column arrays, three in total. It’s a highly reverberant environment and the Cal32 speakers do their best to keep the audio component from spraying into other zones. Saying that, there’s no containing the hefty LF content reproduced by three ceiling-mounted 750-LFC subs and two ground-stacked 900-LFC subs. The audio is delivered via Dante on a MediaMatrix distribution system.
STAR TURN
The new experience has been collaboratively delivered by The Star Entertainment Group and rockstar lighting specialist Bruce Ramus (Ramus Illumination).
Bruce Ramus: “We’ve turned light into an expressive platform in the form of the digital canvas. Through this, light animates to tell the story of the local environment, it is the light, movement and artistic expression of the community that shares the wider story of The Star and Sydney.”
RESPONSES