Dockside & L'Aqua
Cockle Bay Wharf
Darling Park
NSW 2000
1300 117 118
www.docksidegroup.com.au

The massive multi-million refurbishment of Dockside Group’s two key venues, Dockside and L’Aqua is now complete with the observation by many "the new Dockside must be Sydney’s best ballroom."

Situated on Cockle Bay Wharf with outstanding views over Darling Harbour, the renovation of both Dockside and L’Aqua offers guests a level of refinement in versatile conference and function rooms not seen in Sydney for quite some time. Inspired by the waterfront location, both venues boast adaptable meetings space that stand apart due to size, flexibility and comfort, catering from intimate board meetings through to gala functions of over 800 guests in the latest generation Grand Ballroom of Dockside.

Dockside & L’Aqua have undergone a complete transformation, with exquisitely decorated interiors designed by award-winning and renowned interior designer Michael McCann of Dreamtime Australia Design. In the absence of a stark, clinical feel often achieved by some large venues, McCann has created three highly desirable stylish, world-class venues, creating an atmosphere with a competitive edge.

Dockside’s design features an exciting yet warm and inviting mixture of rough hewn stone and light grey driftwood coloured timber walls, timber beam and silver leaf coffered ceilings with signature “fishing net” custom designed pendant lights and a luxurious Tai Ping carpet. To compliment the uniqueness of Dockside’s design, custom grey leather chairs offer a degree of comfort unseen in Sydney event venues.

Three bars with Shagreen sharkskin bar fronts with hand applied silver leaf finish, driftwood timber bar tops and surrounding stainless steel mesh curtains along with equally exciting glass mosaic walled toilets with equally dramatic lighting add a truly unique ambience to one of Sydney’s finest events venues.

L’Aqua has been designed to celebrate the light and stunning views that are those of Cockle Bay. Primarily white with Cockle Bay’s unique blend of rustic yet exciting timber framing, L’Aqua features an unique, private timber external deck overlooking Cockle Bay, framed by surrounding gardens that add a measure of quiet elegance to the excitement of the precinct. Cool white terrazzo, custom Tai Ping carpeting, stunning aqua-toned hand painted wall mural and warm timber panelling combine to create a
venue unrivalled in Sydney.

Set within the L’Aqua Funciton Centre and featuring its’ own entrance and equally unique style, the Gold Room has been designed to indeed celebrate all things glamorous, with gold rubbed leather and timber walls, a gilded up-lit feature wall, an antique golden octagonal ceiling to crown the similarly shaped, cozy yet exclusive private room and featuring a stunning Swarovski crystal cherry blossom chandelier with
a luxurious Tai Ping carpet under in a similar custom pattern, these features add up to make the Gold Room Australia’s most exclusive private function venue. Ass with other Dockside venues, similarly dramatic toilets features the cherry blossoms in glass mosaic tiled walls highlighted by equally dramatic lighting.

Martin smartMAC

The smartMAC is a 150 W moving head profile that outperforms many of its 250 W rivals and offers unprecedented reliability, longer service intervals, total silence and smaller power bills.

The smartMAC is an extremely bright profile light and image projector, the most efficient profile luminaire available in its class.

Show Technology

A beautiful venue needs atmosphere and that can be achieved with clever use of intelligent lighting but no one wants to see big, black fixtures hanging from the ceiling. Fortunately Silas Creel, managing director of the Dockside’s in-house audio visual company Impact AV, knew just the solution: the white Martin smartMAC that blends into it’s setting with ease.

The smartMAC is a 150 watt moving head profile that outperforms many of its 250 watt rivals and offers unprecedented reliability, longer service intervals, total silence and smaller power bills. The smartMAC is an extremely bright profile light and image projector, the most efficient profile luminaire available in its class.

”Another important reason why we chose the smartMAC is because of the low three-metre high ceiling,” remarked Silas. “As the smartMAC comes with a 25 degree lens, you get a nice wide spread despite the short throw.”

Silas was also impressed by the smartMAC’s ability to perform silently without fan noise.

“They are super quiet and as we have forty smartMAC’s - often all on at the same time – just above people’s heads that’s important!” he said. “They are a pricey light but they are well worth the money.

”I also like the gobo set up – the ability to pull a card in and out is quite a handy piece of technology.”

With the smartMAC you change colour filters and gobos easily without tools simply by lifting the dedicated cover – this is a unique, patent pending Martin solution that lets you customize gobos for events, create your own unique mood, or throw your logo or name on any surface.

Silas favours the smartMACs ability to conduct heat away from the head, keeping the front of the luminaire cool and also the fact that it comes with a long-life lamp.

”The smartMAC offers a lot of flexibility from projecting corporate logos around the room to table washes and also it is very effective for doing show performances.”

As the large Dockside Grand Ballroom can be a single venue, half of a venue or even six separate venues, Silas needed to make each of those six areas into separate AV systems or one system or however the room configuration is set up.

Silas decided to install twelve JBL AE28/26 speakers, which he describes as a nice, little box, sprayed white to blend into the interior and these are powered by six Crown XTi2000 amplifiers. Each of the possible six rooms has two line inputs, arriving in the BSS BLU signal processor, then providing six stereo outputs to drive the speakers. A BSS BLU 10 is used to reroute the systems to suit the room configuration. A control page was placed within the BSS BLU so that the AV techs just have to confirm a wall being in or out, which then sets the system for use.

“Jands were really helpful with setting up this system,” remarked Silas. “We also have twelve JBL Control24CT ceiling speakers which are situated at the back of the room and are used for sound reinforcement. That way you don’t have to punch them so hard in the face with the JBL AE28/26 box speakers at the front so everyone in the back can hear!”

For lighting control a Jands Vista set up comprising of two Vista PC’s, two Vista M1’s and a Vista I3 was chosen.

“At first we were a bit wary of the new technology and using a laptop to control the intelligent lighting but we’ve been using it for a few weeks now and we’ve found it to be very intuitive,” said Silas. “Once you get your head around it, it’s a really good product.”

With the Jands Vista working side by side with six Pathport Uno nodes, much the same way as the audio rerouting, Impact AV have been saved many long man hours for the future. With every room configuration the DMX channels to the intelligent lights and the dimmer channels for the ETC profiles which reside in each space, have to be reset. Fortunately this is done automatically within the re-addressing of DMX to Pathport.