AUSTRALIA: Frankston Arts Centre, one of Australia’s largest outer metropolitan arts venues, has stepped boldly into a new era of lighting sophistication with a significant upgrade to its rig with Ayrton — adding 12 units of the Ayrton Levante S Washes and an additional 6 units of the Ayrton Diablo Profile S fixtures. The investment follows the Centre’s earlier acquisition of 6 units of the Diablos in the first phase of its modernisation programme, a move that left the technical team thoroughly impressed and eager for more.

Supervising Technician Glenn Parry, who had initially considered the Ayrton Eurus but found it beyond the venue’s needs, was quick to embrace the Diablo once introduced. “The initial six Diablos transformed our capabilities, prompting the technical team to move toward a more intelligent, efficient lighting rig,” Glenn explained. “So, we added another six Diablos and then the Levantes to replace our Fresnel washes.” The results were immediately apparent — and highly praised. “He said of the 64 venues that they’d been to, our lighting was the best!” Glenn recalled of a visiting Tubular Bells show musician. “Having the six Diablos to highlight the parts of the music — when they’re narrating, solos, and things like that — just made a massive difference.”

Beyond the aesthetic leap, sustainability was central to the upgrade. “Sustainability was a major focus for the technical team, who were keen to reduce both power consumption and the Centre’s carbon footprint,” Glenn added. The move to Ayrton has streamlined workflows too: “Previously, every time we did a big show where we had to move a lot of our lights, we then had to go and focus them back to our standard, often re-gel and sometimes re-lamp. With the Ayrton lights, you just hang them back in their positions with the focus positions being saved in the grandMA console, and you’re ready to go.”

For the Centre, convenience, time-saving, and modernity go hand in hand. Touring productions now frequently choose to use the house rig rather than replace it with their own, a testament to the quality of the Ayrton fixtures. Weight was also a key factor in the selection process, given the venue’s single-purchase flying system. “It’s a lot of bang for your buck in such a small package, and the output from them is really good,” said Glenn. The Levante’s framing shutters further sealed the deal. “Having a wash light that’s got framing shutters when you’re used to having a Fresnel wash with barn doors and being able to limit areas, is great. The brightness and capabilities of them pretty much far outshone anything else we looked at, except other Ayrton products.”

Schools and dance competitions form a large part of the Centre’s annual programme, and the new fixtures have already proven their worth. “Some of the schools that utilise the venue have 600 students they want on stage at the same time,” Glenn said. “We don’t really want to light up our cyclorama, and we want to be able to control the light spillage, so that was part of the reason why we wanted the framing shutters. The capabilities of replacing a four-colour wash with essentially thousands of colours, shade variations and the like, that they do with the CMY will make a massive difference.”

The Ayrton fixtures were supplied through ASL Systems via a tendering process, facilitated by Show Technology Australia & New Zealand Ayrton’s official distribution partner for the region. Glenn praised the distributor’s service: “They’re very knowledgeable about the products that they sell, and they were happy to entertain us with any of our questions, anything we wanted to see working, whether it was once or over a couple of times. They’ll bring what you asked for, but they’ll also give you options on whether an alternative is more expensive, cheaper, less capable, or more capable because the range is so diverse.”

Rounding out the upgrade, the venue also invested in twelve ShowPRO R3 Wash lights, chosen for their zoom range, colour capabilities, and versatility. These have been installed in the Function Centre and Cube, providing lightweight, multipurpose solutions suitable for stage wash, specials, and dance floor lighting.

With its latest round of upgrades, Frankston Arts Centre continues to set a high bar for technical excellence and environmental responsibility — lighting the way forward for regional arts venues across Australia.