The Hong Kong Cultural Centre, located on the waterfront of Victoria Harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui, is the prime venue for a variety of cultural activities including world-class concerts, operas, dance, drama, theatre and musical productions, film screenings, conventions, conferences and exhibitions.
To cater for performing arts of all variety, the Centre is designed to house 3 major performing halls, namely the Concert Hall, the Grand Theatre and the Studio Theatre. There is also an Exhibition Gallery and 4 foyer exhibition areas. Other ancillary facilities include 11 rehearsal and practice rooms and 2 conference rooms.
The Centre is well-known for being one of the busiest performing venues in Hong Kong with a wide range of performances packed all year round. The 2,019-seat oval-shape Concert Hall is designed for any kind of music performances. The hall is finished in high quality oak and fitted with adjustable acoustic canopy to ensure quality acoustics effect. Due to a very tight booking schedule, the new reflector canopy had to be ready in just 52 days.
Macostar was responsible for the supply and installation of stage and house lighting system, motorized rigging system and complete truss frame with reflector canopy at the Concert Hall. Macostar is
a premium stage lighting and machinery system specialist in Hong Kong, and has been involved in a number of stage-related projects, but the Concert Hall’s new mock-up reflector canopy is a different challenge.
The new canopy would replace the existing downstage single bar lighting truss as well as its motorized hoisting system, which only had 4 rigging points to support its linear bar construction, to provide better illumination and sound reflection for concert performances. Allowable load of the new canopy (8,000kg) would be 4 times that of the old system.
Macostar worked with LITEC to make a 15m-long QX30SA square-type truss system for the canopy’s upper layer: the metallic space frame structure, and the lower layer: black trusses for performance lightings. QX30SA was chosen for its compact size, light weight, and excellent performance with high-load bearing and twisting strength.
As the LITEC team could also offer tailor-made trusses and cross fittings to give the structure strength and offer versatility in the assembly of corners and joints, therefore fewer truss components were required for the intended architecture. The metallic space frame became less cluttered, and aesthetically looked even more elegant and refined. The metallic space frame was then fitted with 16 flat wood panels and 10 15°-curved acrylic panels.