Avolites has supplied four consoles to the recently-opened high-profile Ocean Music Centre, an exciting new multi-purpose live music venue in Hackney, East London.
Ocean is a 23 million pound development sited on the footprints of a former Methodist Central Hall and the old Hackney Museum and Library, now relocated elsewhere in the borough. It’s intended to be a focus for the local community, offering a diverse range of live entertainment, anything from gospel choirs, string quartets and rock bands to the whole gamut of dance genres, hip hop, rap and DJ-based performance.
Ocean features state-of-the art technology, cutting edge design and a vibrant hub for Hackney’s many arts-based projects and activities. It will also provide a much needed live venue for East London.
All the technical production facilities have been exceptionally well planned, with every area covered to make the four performance spaces as flexible, versatile and multi-functional as possible.
When Ocean’s Lighting Designer and IT Manager Dan Cook prepared the lighting specification, he was looking for the best, most reliable, user-friendly equipment to fulfil a vast diversity of roles and fit within the budget.
His association with Avolites dates back to his early days in the industry when they welcomed him to their demo room, offering the time, space and a friendly environment in which to build his programming skills.
For Ocean he specified an Avolites Diamond III for the main 2100 capacity auditorium and Azure 2000 consoles for the other areas – Ocean 2 which holds 3000, the 100 capacity Ocean 3 and the Atrium Bar area, which has a DJ booth and can either run as a stand-alone area or in conjunction with the main auditorium.
Dan picked the Diamond
III because, “I needed a very flexible live console that was universally familiar, easy to programme and powerful enough to handle the assortment and numbers of fixtures here”. He adds “Avo have always been very supportive of everything I’ve done, and this project has been no exception. It’s been a totally positive experience working with them, and any additional customisations I’ve wanted have happened with no fuss”.
He also took an Avolites Stage Visualiser system which sits FOH in the main space on a dedicated lighting computer.
The Azure 2000s can either run independently or interface with, and be controlled via, Ocean’s integrated building control system - accessed by Crestron touch screen in the main auditorium.
Avolites Sales Director Steve Warren comments, “It’s hard to explain just how proud we are to have been chosen for this cutting edge venue! There’re so many unique technical facilities and ideas incorporated into Ocean, and I’ve been raving about it to all the LD’s visiting Avolites in the last few months.” Steve loves Ocean so much, he’s going back on Sunday – after Thursday’s opening - to see the Fun Lovin’ Criminals who play the main auditorium for 3 nights.
Ocean’s opening night featured a performance by the band Soft Cell for which the lights and console were in action under the operation of the redoubtable Dan Hardiman. Dan
was called in to programme the show and free up Dan Cook to deal with the myriad of other opening night technical business.
It was a roaring success and should pave the way for an innovative and energetic future at Ocean.
