BIG SCREEN BANG FOR BUCK

Geelong’s Iona College Levels Up

Iona College is a co-ed Catholic secondary college in the rapidly growing area between Geelong and the Great Ocean Road in southwest Victoria. Announced in 2018 and opened in 2020, the college was established to take in students from the Armstrong Creek growth corridor, as Geelong’s existing Catholic secondary schools had been filled to capacity.

They’ve managed to build significant facilities with a tight construction plan. Stage three of their four stage plan finished up in late 2024 and delivered, amongst other things, a duplication and expansion of the existing gym. It doubles as a performance and presentation area complete with 1000 retractable seats, a new PA, AVoIP system, and two magnificent LED screens flanking the stage.

Geelong’s MultiTek Solutions, a full-service AV integrator in the area, were the company on hand to make it all work. The firm carries out a lot of work for the construction industry, and has long-standing relationships with education, government, and health care in Geelong and across the west of the state, as far as Warrnambool and Bendigo, with the occasional foray into Melbourne itself.

“The audio-visual systems for the latest building project at Iona were designed and specified by JBA Consulting Engineers out of South Melbourne,” explains Rohan King, Business Development Manager at MultiTek Solutions. “But the video system LED screens weren’t actually in the design; they were listed as provisional, and it was only confirmed they were going ahead three quarters of the way through construction. We were working with the school’s business manager implementing the original design, and they confirmed we could source and install the screens.”

Screen Sourcing

Bang for buck was the goal for the screens – MultiTek wanted to go as large as possible for the money, while still being high enough quality to withstand life in a school gym, all while looking great. Having worked on several LED projects in the previous months, Absen was front of mind.

“We’d recently used some Absenicon all-in-one, and completed a range of LED installations from other vendors,” relates Rohan. “It’s been a mix of customers; government, utility provider, and education. We replaced a video wall with LED in another school.”

Selecting Absen’s tour-grade PL Pro panels, they went with a 3.9mm pitch. With the budget available, that meant MultiTek could install two 5.5 metre wide by 3 metre tall screens, one each side of the stage, creating a significant ‘Wow!’ factor for the college.

Installed by two MultiTek staff over just two days, the screens are both front and rear serviceable, but as they’re wall mounted, will be serviced from the front if necessary. “The final product just looks really, really good!” grins Rohan. “The biggest selling point for the client is that these are big, big screens, and they do look amazing. It is a touring-grade screen at a good price point, and the value for money rates very highly on this project.”

AVoIP

A Q-SYS AVoIP backbone is processing and handling video at Iona. “The system uses Q-SYS for both audio and video transport,” confirms Rohan. “At present, there’s one Q-SYS network camera and they can send that to the screens and to a computer for recording. The actual video switching is done by Q-SYS via an NV-32-H encoder/decoder which drives both screens.”

Like all multifunction installations, especially schools, ease of use by anyone in the school community is essential, though the system still has to support multiple use cases. “I would class some of Iona’s requirements as complex, and flexibility is the word,” observes Rohan. “The school wanted to be able to present to the screens from any location where there was a network point. They also wanted to be able to stream and capture, so we’re using Q-SYS’s AV Bridging feature to give them access to the audio system and cameras over USB. All in all, it’s not the world’s most complex AV system, but it’s a step above a simple presentation screen.”

To access the system, MultiTek installed a Q-SYS TSC-70-G3 touchscreen controller. They also implemented control via Q-SYS’s UCI Viewer on iPad.

Finishing Touches

With a Fulcrum Acoustic PA supplied by local legends Simon Stavenuiter Audio Production, the new building has been up and running since late November 2024. With a busy term 1 of 2025 about to come to a close, the systems are running flawlessly. Rohan is more than happy with the result, and with Absen distributor NAS. “MultiTek have an existing relationship with NAS, but it’s only been the last few months we’ve been using their LED product,” Rohan concludes, “and we’re more than happy with the results.”

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