ETC Eos Lighting Control at Sydney Opera House Working with Australian lighting and staging dealer Jands, ETC helped overhaul the lighting control at Sydney's Opera House. Following a comprehensive assessment of the venue's needs, Jands recently installed four ETC Eos and three ETC Ion systems, so there would be a console in every control room in the building. The Sydney Opera House accommodates some 7.4 million visitors each year, who take in around 1,700 performances in seven different spaces, ranging from the main concert hall, with almost 2,700 seats, to the intimate 46'-wide Utzon Room. Says Tim Kennard, lighting sales manager for Jands, "The opera house management and staff were really pleased with the way the desks worked, with a very similar usage style to their previous equipment." Toby Sewell, head of lighting at Sydney Opera House, adds: "Switching to Eos and Ion was fairly easy for our operators, as the logic and syntax are very similar to our previous control desks. When opting for the ETC control, I consulted our clients such as the [Australian] Opera Company who are very comfortable with ETC. I found a lot of the theatre designers were much more comfortable with ETC and its philosophies. Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare had purchased ETC Ions, so it made sense for us to have ETC Eos as the control-room desk." "The ETC desks are really intuitive in how they use moving lights. We've had extremely positive feedback from our operators on both Eos and Ion. The desks seem to have integrated well into the system; we've had them a few months now, and everybody is very comfortable with them." Training ran over a 12-week period and involved Jands control specialists Alex Mair, Nick Simmons and Graham Parker. ETC remote processor units and video interfaces, as well as remote focus units, were also installed as part of the system. "For complete control," says Kennard, "we provided 37 touch-screen displays." Further upgrades are planned at the Opera House, including moving lights and dimming systems. 
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