Swinging From The Chandelier

Adelaide Casino

North Terrace, Adelaide SA
(08) 8212 2811 or www.adelaidecasino.com.au

The Adelaide Casino was wasting good gaming space on an entrance corridor when it could have been packed full of punters trying their luck at roulette and blackjack. This epiphany set off a $5m revamp of said entrance, Marble Hall, and the addition of the luxuriously striking Chandelier Bar onto the gaming floor. Webb+ headed up the redesign, incorporating more gaming tables into the heritage- listed design of Marble

Hall which has an 18m high dome and plenty of marble. The Chandelier Bar’s ‘big light’ — a collaborative effort between Webb+, Custom Lighting and NDY Light — was hand-blown in Italy, spans 7.2m in diameter and weighs almost a tonne.

The casino is touting it as the largest chandelier in Australia. Bar and Entertainment Operations Manager Patrick Allen helped design the back bar with Webb+. Squeezing a fully functioning bar that would serve many of the 5000 punters into a small space was right up Allen’s alley. Having worked for a couple of years as the bar manager at the pint-sized Red Hummingbird in Melbourne and the Hilton International for five years before that was good preparation for getting the ‘1-percenters’ right in the casino. And although the Chandelier Bar does service the gaming floor, it’s intended to be an attraction in its own right says Allen. “Our general manager is really supportive of using the bars and restaurants to bring people into the casino, not just service them while they are here. It was a bit of a culture shock, coming from small business to walking into a large place with lots of staff and wondering what the standard would be. But in the last 18 months we’ve put a lot of effort into our frontline staff to bring them up to a standard that’s not just good for us but good for the industry.”