The MCEC Plenary

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The MCEC Plenary
The crown jewel of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is the
plenary hall… worthy of a story in itself. So here it is:
Text:/ Andy Ciddor
The Plenary in its full 5553 seat mode with all stage lifts at the their one metre stage level and the Gala Venue seating in its tiered mode. Although all eight Nexo Geo arrays are rigged for
the purpose of taking this photo, the four side arrays are not required in this mode and actually block stage sightlines for audience members in the upper levels of the side galleries.
Image courtesy of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

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Image courtesy of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Plenary Hall 2, the largest of the three halls formed by deploying the dividing walls. The entire stage is contained within this central space, although only the two central speaker arrays are used.
Every self respecting conference centre has a
plenary hall: a place where all of the delegates from
a conference can gather together for important
plenary sessions such as openings, closings and
keynote addresses. Indeed, the word ‘plenary’
means composed of all the members. It also has
another, less frequently used meaning: full and
complete, not limited in any respect. The Plenary
at the recently opened Melbourne Convention
and Exhibition Centre takes that second meaning
to new heights, depths, and widths.
From its inception, the specifications for the
plenary hall have included an extraordinarily
diverse range of capabilities and operating modes.
Not only is the hall capable of seating 5553
delegates for the plenary sessions of conferences
held in the centre, it includes the capability of
being divided to become three fully-functional,
acoustically-isolated theatres, two of which seat
1507 and the third 2569.
While using operable walls to divide a room
is not exactly a ground-breaking innovation, the
capability of converting a 1525-seat lower level of
the venue from tiered theatrical seating, to flat floor
seating, or cleared flat floor, or tiered conference
seating, or tiered cabaret floor, or dozens of other
possible floor configurations – each in under 10
minutes – is more than a little in advance of what
most other plenary halls can do.
The capabilities of the theatre include
everything from being a three-tiered theatrical
and concert space with full production facilities,
to being a two-tiered sports arena with direct
access to the loading dock at arena level, or being
a flat-floor exhibition or banquet space with
direct vehicle access and the capacity to support
forklifts and 40-tonne trucks, or being a cabaret
venue, or being up to three fully AV-equipped
conference rooms. All venue facilities, from air
conditioning to communications, can operate
either as a single, seamlessly-integrated system,
or three autonomous rooms. When divided, the
larger central room retains the entire main stage.
WALKING THE MAIN STAGE
The main Plenary stage is 38m wide from
wall to wall and 12m from setting line to back
wall, with a distance between tormentors of 18m.
Supplied by Jands, who designed, installed and
commissioned all Plenary staging and lighting
systems, the stage has four independent lifts, each
a steel platform 18m wide by 3m deep and each
carried on six, 18-inch (457mm) diameter Spiralift
actuators. The forestage, which can be lowered to
form an orchestra pit, consists of a 22m-wide by
2.7m-deep steel platform carried on 10 Spiralifts,
and a curved steel platform 19m wide and 2.8m
deep, carried on eight more 18-inch Spiralifts. All
lifts are designed for a rather hefty 20kPa load
(approximately 2000kg/sqm) to carry the fullyladen
trucks that can be driven into the venue
from the loading dock, when the stage is lowered
to auditorium floor level.
Over the stage there are 30 Jands motorised
flying battens. Each 24m-wide batten has a load
capacity of 500kg and is suspended from a 750kg
AC electric winch to provide 9.5m of flying height,
which is plenty if you want to hang scenery, but
not enough for flown scene changes. The winch
system is driven from a Jands-designed Stage
Technologies controller.
SIDE STAGES
If required, the two side rooms can be provided
with 10m-wide, demountable ProStage decks at
one metre height and up to eight metres deep.
Above both stage areas there are five Jandssupplied
flying battens of varying widths, each
suspended from a 350kg capacity AC electric
winch system and driven by a basic Stage
Technologies controller.
IN NEED OF A LIFT
The rear 14 rows of the theatre’s ground level
seating comprise a series of independent lifts that
can vary in height, and more unusually, deploy or
store their seats on demand. Developed by Gala,
the Venue seating system stores the seats inside
the lift and rotates them up out of the lift and
onto the platform when required. Each platform
is actuated by a pair of six-inch (152mm) Spiralifts
that allow for the adjustment of height from flatfloor
to balcony level.
The Venue lift mechanisms were built by
Melbourne engineering company Metaltec to
Gala Systems design, using Spiralift actuators
shipped out from Canada. The multicoloured
Camatic Evoke seats (with fold-out A3 writing
tablets for conference sessions) are mounted on
a beam located underneath the platform deck,
hanging like rows of sleeping bats when stored.
The mounting beam is mechanically rotated
to swing the seats up and over the edge of the
platform when they are required. As rotation
necessitates a substantial clearance, the control
system is programmed to raise alternate lifts to
a sufficient height when rotating the seats. Thus
1525 seats can be deployed or removed, and floor
levels reconfigured in just 10 minutes, at the click
of a mouse or a tap on a touchscreen (once the
area has been cleared and secured of course).
While more than capable of supporting the
weight of seats and audiences, the Spiralifts in the
Venue system are not up to the task of supporting
Image courtesy of Gala Systems
Photograher: John Buckley Image courtesy of Gala Systems
The Bat Cave. A view of the Venue seating when stored beneath the floor platforms. The
large metal elephant's feet reinforce the platforms to carry the weight of the trucks that
may be driven on the platforms in their flat floor position.
Mechanically linked pairs of Spiralifts raise and lower the Venue seat platforms, while the
Cyberman-like knees guide the paths of the platforms.
The main stage lifts under construction. Two of the heavily-reinforced stage lift platforms
have already been installed. The Spiralifts for the two forestage platforms are also in place.
IN THE BOX SEAT
The technology underlying the reconfigurable floor levels and the stage is
the Spiralift from Gala Systems in Canada. Based on the brilliantly simple
idea of interlocking two flat metal spirals to form a rigid cylinder, the
Spiralift has been used in stage and auditorium applications around the
world for over two decades. Its minimal under-stage depth requirements,
mechanical simplicity, and the ease of interlocking multiple actuators,
make it ideal for use in situations like MCEC on the edge of the Yarra River,
where the water table prevents deep excavations for machinery rooms.

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Image courtesy of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Plenary 1 in banquet mode. The Gala Venue seats are in storage under the decks and all lifts are in their flat floor position.
the specified 20kPa loads that could be placed
on the lifts by heavy vehicles, so Metaltec
developed additional support structures to
reinforce the platforms when they are lowered
into flat-floor mode.
All audio, video, AV, data and communications
systems for the Plenary were designed, supplied,
installed and commissioned by Rutledge
Engineering with engineering reviews from
Marshall Day Acoustics and Lincolne Scott.
HALL THE SOUND YOU COULD WANT
The PA speakers throughout all venues and
conference rooms are Nexo. In the Plenary the
FOH systems combine Geo-D line arrays with
Geo sub cabinets, while PS8s are used as front
fills and under balcony fills on the second tier,
and PS10s are used for upper balcony fills. Due
the vast width of the theatre, four Geo arrays
configured as a broad L/R system are required
to cover the entire audience. Nexo PS15U and
PS15UM wedge monitors are used on stage.
All cabinets are driven by Camco Vortex-6
(2 x 3300W) and Tecton 38.4 (2 x 1900W)
amplifiers.
When the room is divided into three separate
spaces the centre room (Plenary 2) uses only
the two middle line arrays. Due to the shape of
the two side rooms, additional L/R FOH Nexo
Geo arrays must be flown for front coverage.
Due to an architectural decision not to break
the ceiling line to enable the side room line
arrays to be retracted clear of sight lines, these
cabinets must be lowered and stowed on dollies
when the venue is in full plenary mode. The side
room line arrays are also Nexo Geo D and Geo
subs, but with a Geo S1230 cabinet slung on
the bottom of the array as a front fill. Balcony
fills are divided between the rooms, reverting to
local control for signal routing and delays.
Each of the three rooms is equipped with a
Digico D1 Live digital mixing console linked to
three DigiRack and six MiniRacks terminating
all inputs and outputs for that room. Of course,
all racks are fully networked on a fibre ring for
redundancy and interconnectivity, so that any
one mixer can handle all routing, mixing and
processing. The consoles can be configured as
three individual systems or one large threeconsole
system for monitors, recording, and
front of house.
The pool of microphones available for use
in the Plenary includes Shure UHF-R series
wireless handhelds, and lavaliers with wireless
bodypacks.
Hearing assistance is provided in each
section of the Plenary and both sections of the
Grand Banquet room by Chiayo CT800 FM
transmitters. Suitably-tuned FM receivers are
available on loan from the technical office for
the hearing impaired.
COMMUNICATION IS CLEAR
The production communications system is
based around a 36-port Clear-Com Eclipse
digital matrix with full digital talkback stations
on the stage manager’s panel and in the control
room for each hall. There are a dozen twochannel
wired beltpack units and 10 wireless
beltpacks shared between the rooms. There are
also facilities to interface the system with other
communications systems both within the MCEC
and those used by clients such as broadcasters
and conferencing facilities.
PLENARY LIGHTS UP
The Plenary’s ability to take on multiple
personalities at the drop of a hat necessitates
a lighting system with a somewhat confused
identity. A big stage with three front of house
bridges and excellent site lines, just cries out for
big complex productions. It would be great to
see thousands of dimmer-per-circuit outlets and
vast numbers of power circuits for the hundreds
of movers that could so easily be accommodated
in the venue.
However, its pretty difficult to justify a rig big
enough for grand opera or a U2 concert, when
the majority of productions will consist of half a
dozen people on the forestage in front of a big
video screen showing a company logo or a very
big Powerpoint presentation, or perhaps a couple
of dozen gowned academics sitting on the stage
while a house full of proud mums and dads wait
patiently for their kid’s turn to shake hands with
the chancellor and receive their parchment.

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Image courtesy of Rutlege Engineering
The view from the central mixing position at the rear of the first seating level. There are control/mixing positions available in similar positions in each section of the venue – at the flip of a seating
row. The two iLite LED side screens are in position as are the two side rolldown screens that would nomally only be deployed if the venue has been divided into three smaller rooms.
With the staging and audio and power
infrastructure already in place, it will be
relatively easy to mount a major production in
the Plenary when the occasion arises, but the
lighting system in place will probably handle the
bulk of productions that will be booked into the
venue.
The pool of luminaires for use in all
incarnations of the Plenary includes two dozen
1200W (80V) narrow Selecon Pacific zoom
profiles, two dozen 750W medium ETC Source
Four zoom profiles and two dozen 575W ETC
Source Four Junior zoom profiles. There are
also two dozen each of Selecon’s 2kW, 1kW and
650W fresnel spots and 20 ETC Source Four
Pars. Throw in a Selecon four-colour cyclorama
wash system and four of Selecon’s rather useful
Rua followspots and you have a modest, but
capable rig that will cover plenty of speech
nights, AGMs and conference sessions. The
dozen Varilite VL500 wash lights and the dozen
VL 2500 spot fixtures will add a touch of colour
and movement and the sheen of modernity
when required.
In an effort to minimise the amount of costly
and energy-intensive copper used in cabling
the venue, Jands devised a ‘slightly-distributed’
dimming strategy where there are two dimmer
rooms, one on either side of the venue. All
lighting circuits on the prompt or stage left side
of the venue’s mid line go to the prompt side
patch panels and dimmer room, while all circuits
on the OP or stage right side of the mid line go
to the OP patch panels and dimmer room. Each
dimmer room terminates 220 circuits of wallmounted
patch panels feeding to five racks of
Jands 12 x 2.4kW and 10 racks of Jands 6 x 5kW
dimmers. All dimmers receive their DMX512
control feeds via opto-isolated splitters.
In keeping with the philosophy of providing
good infrastructure to support future needs,
the DMX512 control network is very extensive
and capable of extreme flexibility. Built by
Jands using Pathway Connectivity’s Pathport
Ethernet-based system, the 51 dual-output
nodes and the 21 dual-input nodes allow DMX
signals to be routed, patched and merged from
any point to any point in the network. This
will allow any device on the network to be
controlled by any of the three ETC Smartfade
2496 consoles or the Jands Vista I3. The house
lights are controlled by a Dynalite system.
AUDIOVISUAL ROUNDUP
The AV facilities in the Plenary are part of the
totally integrated system distributed throughout
the convention centre. Of course there is the
standard PTZ camera to monitor or record
the activity in the room. Of course, there is a
standard all-singing, all-dancing, MCEC lectern
for each of the rooms; complete with on-board
touchscreen, reading light, keyboard, AMX
touch panel to control the room’s facilities, and
(where would we be without it) the pop-out cup
holder which isn’t the DVD drive draw. However,
being larger than the other conference rooms,
some of the video facilities in the Plenary are a
little larger too. Instead of the more usual Barco
CLMHD8+ projector used in the large meeting
rooms, the projector for the main screen is an
18k ANSI lumen Barco FLMHD18, while the
two side rooms each get a 14k FLMHD14, all of
them being native HD resolution (as with every
other projector in the MCEC). In fact, there are
two Stewart projection screens in the central
section of the Plenary Hall: a framed 12.2m
(diagonal) screen hung from a flying batten
upstage of the proscenium, and a motorised
rollup 9.6m (diagonal) screen, suspended over
the forestage, for use when the stage space is not
accessible. Similar rollup screens are used in the
two side rooms.
To provide quality video images to audience
members at oblique angles to the main
projection screen, there are two additional
demountable screens of Barco iLite 6mm-pitch
LED tiles that can be positioned on either side
of the stage opening.
In addition to all of the usual scalers and
format converters feeding the projectors, each
of the Plenary control rooms has a DVCAM
video recorder, a Digital Betacam player and a
Panasonic AV-HS400AE multi-format vision
switcher to give presenters an opportunity to
produce professional-style presentations.
FULL & COMPLETE
Years of design and planning have gone into
making the Plenary full and complete, not
limited in any respect and now as its operational
staff set about the task of making this come true
for hirers on a daily basis, it will be interesting to
see how producers, event directors and designers
can make use of its unique capabilities.