Hard to leave at the best of times, The Brighton Dome’s management recognised the value of the audience in its foyer bar and made the area an integral part of the entertainment complex by installing a PA system.
‘We have three venues here – the Pavilion Theatre, Corn Exchange and the Dome concert hall,’ says Production Manager, Kevin ‘Kenny’ Taylor. ‘Effectively we’re a d&b audiotechnik house having our own selection of C4s, C7s and some Max cabinets. For the Foyer the d&b E-Series looked ideal and so it has proved.’
Used for events during the Brighton Festival, the new system serves a wide but shallow room, 15m across, 10m deep with a 12m ceiling height. ‘The roof is glass, hence the light airy feel, and has quite a bouncy feel audio wise’ says Taylor, ‘My house sound engineers Jeremy Noble and Nick Pitcher wanted the system to keep as close as possible to the natural sound of the room. Between the three of us we came up with a pair of E12s flown above the stage, a small platform two metres by six at one end, with E6s paired along the walls at six metre intervals for delay. That enables us to keep the levels down yet having the system clearly audible at all points in the room. Since the festival opened we’ve received nothing but praise for the sound.’
The system was supplied by Entec Sound and Light, with Audio Sales Manager Peter Codron handling the project: ‘The Dome team installed the system themselves, so the job was straightforward for us, except for one important criterion – they wanted all the loudspeakers to be colour matched to the white interior of the room, and the cabling and fixings.’
Needless to say the time from placement of order to delivery was short, ‘not quite three weeks,’ says Taylor. ‘Entec and d&b did a great job and the service has been impeccable. We’ve already used the room for acoustic acts, DJ performances by elements of the Asian Dub Foundation and a choir. There’s no limitation on what we can do – for a room that can comfortably hold 400 people, it’s a delight.’
More: www.entec-soundandlight.com
More: www.dbaudio.com
