Fantech’s TD Silent fans are helping to breathe life into Madame Tussaud’s in
Sydney.
The permanent exhibition of over 70 wax figures is the 14th of its kind, and is
an extension of the famous Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in London. Each of the
figures takes in excess of 800 hours to produce, with careful measurements,
moulding and sculpting to ensure an incredible likeness to the real life model.
Audiovisual experts, The Shirley Spectra, were contracted to bring the wax
models to life with special effects and audiovisual integration. Electronics
Design Engineer Brian Shirley said Madame Tussaud’s owners, Merlin
Entertainment, were always looking at ways to enhance the experience for
visitors.
“One of the more unusual requests for the Sydney Exhibition was to recreate the
scene from The Seven Year Itch where Marilyn Monroe’s character steps onto a
subway grate as a train passes underneath. The scene has become a cinema classic
as a rush of air sends her skirt billowing above her waist,” Brian said.
“By stepping onto the platform to get a closer view of Marilyn, visitors trigger
a sensor to produce a blast of air. This was a challenging request as the
platform was only 100mm high and to get the dress to fly up we needed a compact
fan which was capable of moving a large volume of air quickly and quietly.”
Another request was for visitors to feel the sea breeze blowing through their
hair as they stood on the surfboard of World Champion surfer Layne Beachley.
Brian contacted Fantech and they suggested the TD Silent, a compact low noise
fan. The high performance mixed-flow impeller of the TD Silent produces 250 L/s
in high speed, but only 42dB(A) of noise, which made it ideal for an exhibition.
The Creative director for Merlin Entertainment commented that because of the
unique fan approach, this particular Marilyn Monroe figure gave visitors the
most unique experience of all Marilyn Monroe exhibits.
Brian said the intimate encounters with some of the most influential
personalities meant the attraction was performing well above expectations.
