Home The Venue is the ultimate party playground in Sydney, right on the water at Darling Harbour, with incredible skyline views and three levels of pure energy.
This nightlife institution has made DJ Mag’s coveted Top 100 World Clubs list multiple times and is Australia’s highest-rated nightclub. To help keep its top ranking, the venue has recently upgraded its lighting rig with support from Show Technology.
Not only has this flexible and jaw-dropping lighting setup injected new life into the main room, but it has also allowed the venue to meet the growing requirements of its events.
Susanah Page, Home The Venue’s owner, Ash Kollmorgen, General Manager and Josh Spehar, Production Manager, visited Show Technology’s showroom to source the best solutions. It was essential to keep in mind the wide diversity of events, from their weekly party, Homemade Saturdays, to serving as a venue-for-hire hosting large-scale international acts, high-level VIP events, and genres ranging from techno to EDM, Latin to commercial, with the added ability to host live bands.
“I knew what I needed for certain events, and the old gear wasn’t keeping up with that,” explained Josh Spehar, Production Manager at Home The Venue. “We also didn’t have much variety within the old rig, so my idea with the new gear was to have a mix of gear that allowed me to have very different looks, so not every event looked the same.”
As the installation is mostly permanent, Josh was careful to design it so the room can look very different between events without moving fixtures around. Fixture choice was key to this, starting with fourteen Ayrton Stradale Profiles, small in size but immense in power.
The Stradales line the length of the dance floor, seven per side, and are flanked by ShowPRO Pulze Bar linear strobes. The compact form and light weight of the Stradales were very attractive to Josh, as the room has weight restrictions.
“The Stradale has a very punchy output and can go from a tight beam right up to a wide beam, which allows us to have quite a variety of looks,” he said. “They’re an IP-rated fixture, which makes the maintenance much easier because the environment can be quite tricky and dusty. Having the infinite pan and tilt allows us to create quite cool effects with the narrow beam that it produces.”
When Josh first saw the Ayrton Stradales at Show Technology, he was immediately impressed by the built-in gobo wheels, which he knew would look super cool in the venue.
The ShowPRO Pulze Bar linear strobes, 23 in total, have certainly made their mark, with Josh particularly liking the fixture’s electronic frost.
“It allows the fixture to have a much cleaner eye-candy look, which is what I was going for,” he remarked. “Having a bright RGB LED Bar and Strobe all in one is very handy. It’s a very punchy and impressive fixture for the low price point.”
More eye-candy looks are provided by six ShowPRO DiamondBacks, capable of stunning strobe and beam effects.
“DiamondBacks are a great fixture and very popular across the whole industry,” said Josh. “We’ve got them in pairs down the centre of the dancefloor and, again, they are a very strong product for such a reasonable price. They also have quite a large zoom range, from tight to very wide, and very impressive colour mixing.”
Josh was very excited to add eight Roxx Cluster B2 FC LED Blinders to the rig, saying they did not disappoint. Four are located by the screen, with four more in the roof.
“They’re a great product, very impressive,” he noted. “They are an extremely, extremely bright RGB fixture. You don’t see many blinders bright when coloured these days. They have a very punchy output and a very nice, warm-to-cool white range.”
An army of 30 ShowPRO/EK Lights was purchased, with ten in the main room and the rest scattered throughout the side rooms, to complement the extra Pulze Bars.
“They are extremely great for what they are,” commented Josh. “For a fixture that small and for the price point, I didn’t think they would compare to the Stradales. I thought they would wash out with them, but they absolutely do not. They give the Stradales a run for their money for sure! They are a fantastic fixture, and we’re very impressed with the price point, which is why we bought so many. We thought for the price we’d buy a bunch of them and scatter them throughout the venue.”
For control, the venue is using its existing MA Lighting International MA2 light console with an NPU.
Ayrton Stradale Profile IP65
ROXX Cluster B2 FC
ShowPRO DiamondBack
ShowPRO Pulze Bar IP65
ShowPRO Cyber Beam
