Brown’s Mart Levels Up

Brown’s Mart, standing on Larrakia land in Darwin, delivers a year-round arts program with a focus on Northern Territory artists. They have championed new work and new voices through residencies, creative developments and presentations since 1972. Securing Northern Territory Government funding through the Community Benefit Fund, Brown’s Mart instigated a significant lighting upgrade to its 100-200 seater performance space to align with its strategy to support diverse communities and artforms, and to simultaneously reduce its carbon footprint.

Brown’s Mart produces several shows a year, funding the development of Top End artists and supporting the creators from inception through design and production. These are then premiered at Brown’s Mart with some successfully touring the region. One of the annual shows has an educational focus, aligning with a text on the NT syllabus, providing an opportunity for local students to see a play come to life. It also hosts smaller touring interstate productions as well as hiring out their various performance spaces to a variety of local community arts organisations.

Using the first portion of funding, Brown’s Mart upgraded the backbone. Brad Fawcett, Technical Manager recalls that it just “made sense” to go ETC, “The Darwin Entertainment Centre as well as the Araluen Art Centre at Alice Springs where our performances frequently tour are all running Eos-based systems, so we did the same and approached Jands and local company E3 Productions for assistance.”

With advice and support from Jeremy Lassemillante at E3 productions, they opted for the compact ETC Ion XE20-12k lighting control console. As full-featured as the Gio- and Apex-class consoles, the Ion Xe offered Brown’s Mart the full Eos experience at a great price point. 

Without any movers in their rig, the second stage of the upgrade saw Brown’s Mart secure moving lights to satisfy touring companies and level up opportunities for local lighting designers, “We also wanted to establish a small not-for-profit hire business to support Darwin’s diverse cultural community groups and cultural festivals, and NT artists.”

Opting for Robe, they purchased four T1 Profiles and four T1 Fresnels. Brad explains his decision, “The most attractive feature was the low noise profile. They are incredibly quiet fixtures and also have the framing shutters in both the Fresnel and the Profile.” As a small black box production space this was incredibly important, “Moving lights weren’t something that we could really facilitate before we got the Ion but occasionally we would borrow or hire a desk and moving lights for a production the fan noise was always noticeable in our very intimate space, especially during quiet moments! There is none of that with the Robe T1’s.”

The team at Brown’s Mart were also swayed by the dimming curve (an 18-bit dimming system on the Profiles and the new L3™ Low Light Linearity dimming system on the Fresnels) and of course switching to LED fixtures reduced the average energy consumption and carbon footprint, an important driver for the cost and sustainability-conscious organisation.

Having the lighting fixtures for hire has created excitement amongst the community and they have been used on a number of shows during the Darwin Festival and Darwin Fringe Festival, with bookings in place for future cultural events.

Local lighting designers have relished the variations of colour they now have at their fingertips. With CMY colour control, DataSwatch filters containing a selection of pre- programmed colours via the new generation RCC (Robe Colour Calibration) algorithm and a wide ranging 2700K to 8000K CCT control, anything is possible. The Profile’s animation wheel has also been a hit, “Darwin Based Tomm Lydiard, the lighting designer on The Hypotheticals loved how he could create a moving starscape for his night sky with the Robe T1 profiles.”

Brad himself has used them on two shows, “I absolutely love them. They are a fantastic light with so much bang for a buck in one unit.”

Brad can attest to the support and service from both Jands & E3 “Both Jeremy at E3 Productions and Eddie at Jands have been fantastic to deal with. They’ve both been incredibly supportive in the face of the current supply chain delays. When our T1 delivery from the Robe factory to Australia was delayed, Brown’s Mart was supplied with showroom models in the interim to get our shows across the line!” Jands and E3 Productions also generously provided in kind on-site training at Brown’s Mart on the ETC ION and Robe T1 lights. Brad explains; “Eddie Welsh from Jands did two days of fantastic training with a group of technicians and the word has spread about what Brown’s Mart has on offer for the community. It is exciting as more and more of the shows coming for the Festival are running Nomad and Ion software on their machines.”

Brad, himself a self-confessed “audio guy”, has found the lighting software well-resourced by ETC too, “In addition to Eddie’s sessions, the online learning series on YouTube is well structured and perfect for visual learners. I’ve also used the workbooks and found them really helpful to be able to visualise the software and interface and follow along. I’ve also picked up tips and tricks through my own research and happy accidents!”

Brown’s Mart is very happy with their purchase, “With the Ion Xe we have upgraded our capacity to have DMX channels available so we can have LED fixtures and reduce our carbon footprint. The Robe T1s have provided us with a dimming curve that works in a black box theatre space. It is the closest thing to tungsten lighting I have ever seen, and we are also saving on gels and bubbles. The built-in gobos and the animation wheel have all armed the designers with a really versatile package to work with. And they are so quiet!”

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The Specs:

ETC Ion Xe20 (12k) – Lighting Control Desk w. 20 Faders & 12,288 Outputs

The Ion Xe is available in either 2,048 or 12,288 outputs (the 12k model) and provides support for up to two external monitors. The master playback faders can be supplemented with virtual faders or a variety of other options.

Robe T1 Profile

•             Light source: MSL 550 W Multi-Spectral LED engine

•             Light output: up to 12.600 lm, CRI 95+, + – Green Correction Function, Cpulse™ special flicker free management for HD and UHD cameras

•             Zoom range: 7° – 49°

•             Effects: Rotating gobo wheel, Animation Wheel, Framing Shutters, 6-facet rotating prism

Robe T1 Fresnel

•             Light source: MSL 550 W Multi-Spectral LED engine

•             Light output: up to 12.900 lm, CRI 95+, + – Green Correction Function, Cpulse special flicker free management for HD and UHD cameras

•             Zoom range: 8° – 60°

•             Effects: Beam Shaper (internal barndoors), Scrim Module