The Regent Theatre

RICHMOND, NSW

From Art Deco Cinema to Intimate Live Destination

The Regent Theatre in Richmond is a stone’s throw from the mighty Hawkesbury River, and has been entertaining the community since 1935. It’s one of those exuberant Art Deco cinemas of the 1930s movie boom that exist all over Australia; its sister theatre, the heritage listed Roxy in Parramatta, was designed and built by the same team of architects Moore & Dyer and builders Herbert & Wilson.

The Regent has been through several incarnations and fitouts. While primarily a cinema, it always had a stage that hosted vaudeville acts. Beneath the current stage, there’s evidence that there used to be a proper theatre organ that rose up on a lift. In the 1970s, it was divided into two separate cinemas, and was bought and renovated by TV personality Mike Walsh in 1976. After changing hands again, it was under the same ownership until as recently as five years ago, when the owner retired and two locals decided to revive their beloved childhood cinema.

The new owners experimented with screening movies and mixing it up with a few comedy gigs, including Peter Hellier, Lano and Woodley, and Arj Barker, plus small solo music gigs from the likes of The Whitlams frontman Tim Freedman. On the back of the success of these live shows, they decided to investigate what it would take to turn The Regent into a proper live venue to attract bigger acts.

As luck would have it, one of The Regent’s assistant managers had been on the tech crew at his high school years earlier when Voyager Productions’ Jim Morely updated their lighting rig to LED and installed a new lighting desk. Having been taught how to run the new console by Jim, he remembered him well, and recommended management get in touch.

Jim runs Voyager Productions out of Dundas Valley, and the company dates back to 1999 and its initial contracts with the Sydney Olympics. It’s grown steadily since then, and regularly provides live production to councils, cultural events, corporate clients, schools and small pub and club tours. Over the years, Voyager have also branched in to installs, which now makes up about 20% of the business.

“The install business grew organically,” says Jim Morely. “You know how it is; you do a job somewhere and someone says, ‘That sounded great! Can you look at our PA?’ Next thing you know, you’re installing a new system. Same with lighting.”

Jim assessed the state of the venue to determine what they needed. “The only PA system in there was a homemade left‑centre‑right‑surround movie system,” recalls Jim. “It had those huge old subwoofers with the dust caps missing off the cones, probably from the 1960s. We started talking about a bit of extra lighting and a pair of decent PA speakers. Then the project just grew.”

What was originally a small renovation over two months to ‘just tidy it up a bit’ turned into two years. Everything was replaced; new roof, new air conditioning, new plumbing, new bathrooms. “They spent huge amounts of money,” admits Jim. “But this was the cinema they used to go to when they were kids, so it was very much a passion project.”

The PA Jim chose to bring The Regent into the live music game proper is based around a Nexo line array. “It’s six Nexo GEO M10 per side,” outlines Jim. “Under the stage we’ve got six Nexo L18 subs. Beside the stage we’ve got a rack with two Nexo NXAMP 4×4 amps. In that rack we also have an Allen & Heath DX168 stage box, two Eventec four‑way DMX splits, and one Sennheiser radio mic receiver with a handheld transmitter as the house mic for MCs and announcements. At the operating position we have an Allen & Heath SQ‑6 audio desk and a ChamSys QuickQ 20 lighting console.”

The main left‑right is supplemented by a Nexo P10+ as centre fill and Nexo ID24 dual 4”s as delay speakers for the last few rows of the balcony. This project was carried out before the recent changes to Nexo distribution in Australia, while the brand was still distributed by Group Technologies. “They were fantastic,” enthuses Jim. “Group Tech’s Dan Grist provided excellent prediction modelling using Nexo’s NS‑1 software. The predictions were surprisingly accurate. Dan’s support was really appreciated.”

For the lighting rig, Voyager installed an aluminium pipe grid, nine metres by six metres, with a pipe every metre in both directions. “The grid sits five meters over the stage, as high as we could get it,” relates Jim. “There’s just a roof directly overhead. On the grid, we’ve got six LED PAR cans that are non‑zoom, plus two that are zoomable. It’s a basic lighting rig, but we can add to it later.”

Working in a heritage building to retrofit 21st century technology can be immensely difficult, but Jim and his team were in good hands. “We had a really good builder, Gary Borg, who worked closely with me and the engineer on where things could go,” conveys Jim. “I’d literally put a marker on the floor and say, ‘This is our PA hang point’ and he’d say, ‘Okay, how much weight do we need to carry?’ Then he’d work it out with the engineer and install the beams accordingly. I’d come back and my hang point would be there. It was fantastic.”

“He was also helpful with the subs,” continues Jim. “Under the front of the stage there’s a void, probably where the theatre organ used to be. The stage had been extended about 50 years ago. The subs fit there perfectly, but they needed to be raised about a foot and a half so they lined up with the floor level. Gary built platforms for them and did lots of small timber framing jobs around the venue. He also built the bio box and put a nice desk in there. At every stage he’d ask; ‘Where do you want power points for this? Where do you want switches?’ He’s actually an electrician by trade and also has builder’s license. He installed power for the stage rack and added a spare three-phase socket next to the amp rack for visiting acts. We didn’t have a formal project manager, but he basically filled that role.”

With The Regent a fair way out from what could be considered suburban Sydney, it was considered prudent to have a backup power source. “The Regent put in a backup generator for any electrical outages that might happen,” explains Jim. “It’s big enough to run all the AC, PA system, and all other venue power requirements.

This is a huge benefit for ticketed shows. We used it on a local community gig in November on a super hot day when there was a power cut; it really did save the day.”

After two years of solid work, The Regent now has a vibrant calendar of both live music and comedy, with upcoming shows including comedian Ross Noble and music from Aussie rock royalty Ian Moss.

Jim is more than happy with the result; “It’s a great little space,” he enthuses. “It has all the classic elements of a theatre, but it’s quite small. The capacity is 608 seated, and there isn’t a bad seat in the house. It’s like a pocket‑sized Enmore Theatre; not as grand, but the same kind of feel. Even the person in the very back row is only about 22 metres from the stage. It feels like you could almost lean out of your chair and shake hands with the person on stage. It’s fantastic, and I just love it”