Tempe Center for the Arts chooses Clearwing to upgrade power and control systems

Tempe Center for the Arts (TCA) is a performing and visual arts center in Tempe, AZ which opened in 2007.  TCA is a center piece of the arts in Tempe, presenting and producing a myriad of events in the Theater, Studio, Galley, Lakeside Meeting Room, Lobby and outdoor spaces.  The active facility requires stable lighting systems which had become an issue.

Clearwing reviewed the existing ETC theatrical systems which needed an upgrade, but more pressing was the failing architectural system.  PCI relay panels were scattered throughout the building powering and controlling all the non-performance lighting for the interior and exterior of the facility.  After diving through the electrical systems, Clearwing decided to convert all the equipment to ETC to provide consistent control and programming.

Due to the heavy event schedules, the project needed to be done in two phases – the two main performance spaces, the Theater and Studio, were tackled first including the PCI panels that were controlling loads separate from the theatrical architectural system.  Those were quickly combined with ETC Echo relay panels being controlled by the updated Paradigm system along with the new CEM3 processors in the Sensor racks.  The lighting network was upgraded to Net3 with updated switches and programming reestablished in a short time frame.

The next phase was to tackle the rest of the building with a combination of dimmer rack upgrades, Unison rack replacements, PCI panel replacements and over sixty control stations.  Due to the pandemic, Clearwing had more time for this portion of the work which involved shutting down parts of the building at different times to work on the electrical system.  

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