As the amount of glamorous and trendy venues in Sydney’s Kings Cross continues to grow, the Empire Hotel is one venue that is refreshingly normal and you don’t need to impress a door bitch to get into it. Busting with all the grit Kings Cross can muster, Empire is perfect if you want a night out but don’t really feel like trying.
But even this venue needs to keep an eye on the competition and instead of spending squillions on a fancy interior designer they turned to DJW Projects to refit their audio visual creating a different atmosphere and bringing Empire up to speed with other venues in the Cross.
DJW installed an AMX integrated control system to allow for full control of hotel functionality from one central point. This includes all TV’s, set-top boxes, plasma screens, the sound system, and also Foxtel.
On the top floor is Plantation Bar which features a grungy graffiti décor and is the Empire’s foray into the world of nightclubbing hotspots. This bar is marketed as a high end dance venue with a variety of Sydney’s top promoters passing through already. DJW installed a full EAW Avalon DC4 system, driven by Powersoft amplifiers, and fill speakers throughout the floor to create consistent coherent sound throughout the venue. This superiority of equipment and coverage was essential to provide Empire with the quality of nightclub they were looking for.
The audio system is controlled using Symetrix Symnet with audio transport between floors on Cobranet allowing for music from any floor to be pumped anywhere.
Added to the lighting system were eight iMove 250s moving head.strobes blinders and a big fog machine controlled via PC running Martin LightJockey.
To complement the new nightclub the two other levels received an upgrade to allow Empire to cater for the Kings Cross bar market in a dynamic environment. The ground floor public bar received eight plasma screens all fed by Nightlife and Foxtel through a distributed system controlled from the AMX panel.
The Level One bar features iMove-250 LED moving heads and RGB LED Par Cans to create colour changing effects on the existing
stainless pressed steel feature walls. This coupled with another EAW Avalon system provides two levels of would class audio.