You wouldn’t think of a building as having a central nervous system - but deep in the interior of the new Waikato Regional Theatre there is a special room that will be exactly that.
It’s a hub where the theatre’s peripheral nerves - the 30 kilometres of glass fibre optic cables that flow throughout the entire structure - meet and connect, carrying audio, video, paging, and other forms of raw data from the main auditorium to all other parts of building.
The $80 million theatre is undoubtedly the most advanced such building to be constructed in New Zealand for decades and the sound system, once completed, will be the equal of any such facility anywhere in the world.
“For a building built around sound and vision, this is the heart of it,” said Mike Orum, one of the eight data technicians who are charged with the task of ensuring that every last strand of cable is correctly connected to each of about 600 termination points in 205 different locations.
Right now, it looks like a spaghetti factory.
And unravelling the strands are two local firms - Structured Technologies and Feisst Electrical.
“It’s cool it’s being done by all Hamilton companies,” said Orum. “There’s not busloads of labour being brought in from somewhere else.”
Orum, an industry veteran, said he had never been involved in a project of such a grand scale, and it was sobering to think that his children and grandchildren would be attending shows there until well into the future.
“It’s going to be quite a thing for Hamilton. It will be our Aotea Centre or Wellington Town Hall - it’s going to be quite magnificent.”
If the hub room is effectively the nervous system’s main spinal cord, then the cerebellum is located a few floors above, in a control room that will overlook the main auditorium.
It’s a room that will have the proverbial best view in the house - but there’s not much to see of that view just yet. Any sight of the stage is obscured by a morass of scaffolding that completely fills the space.
In any event, the Waikato Times was requested not to take pictures of the auditorium. That treat is being saved for later, for a special “big reveal” when the time is right.
Construction is still due to be completed later this year, with the grand opening happening not long after. The actual dates are not known yet.
To describe the theatre as a hive of activity would be an understatement. Right now there are about 250 workers on site taking care of the internal fit-out - more than when the foundations and structure were being built.
Walls are being lined, ceilings are being painted, and stage engineering works are being completed in the massive fly tower that tops the building.
Earthworks in what is being described as the “public realm” outside of the theatre are also under way, in what used to be Embassy Park, and at the bottom end of Sapper Moore Jones Place.
And some of the “heritage elements” saved from the old Hamilton Hotel, such as the Queen’s Staircase, will also soon be installed in the new building.
