The sleepy seaside town of Geelong, 75km southwest of Melbourne, is an unusual venue Australia’s clubbing set. Having established and run a succession of the town’s best-loved venues and club nights, however, Bloom owners Ayman Muhor and John Kennedy aimed to create a world-class club where music lovers could come together and lose themselves for the night – a venue that has one of the best sound systems in Australia.

‘Funktion-One is ideal for this install. Whether it be for live or for playback, the speakers sound great,’ says Full Throttle’s Adam Ward. ‘Along with the great sound, Funktion-One is a recognisable brand that is a marketable commodity to the end-user. No other brand, in my opinion, draws the attention that Funktion-One does.’

Working with Aaron Cashion, Luke Jeantou and Adam Metwally, Muhor and Kennedy had turned to Full Throttle for sound guidance: ‘Aaron was pretty specific about his requirements for the project,’ Ward recalls. ‘The venue needed to raise the bar for the local area in terms of production value with a specific focus on the quality of the audio system.’

Cashion asked that the system be able to deliver a level of audio worthy of showcasing the very best in underground music. As well as impressing a clientele long underserved by the local club scene, the team wanted to ensure the audio would satisfy the needs of visiting international DJ heavyweights. Furthermore, it needed to be able to switch gears into a live entertainment space at a moment’s notice.

With architectural drawings initially unavailable, Ward visited the site to draw up his own plans, and began designing the system. An underground space, once home to a McDonald’s restaurant, the venue comprises a myriad of hidden spaces connected to a larger area that suggested an underground bunker-style dancefloor. ‘It wasn’t hard to design the system, as the space seemed to tell you what each area needed to be,’ Ward says . ‘The client was onboard with all of our suggestions and approved the budget straight away.’

For the main dancefloor, a traditional stereo LR stack is located either side of the 8m x 3m stage. Each stack comprises one Funktion One Evolution 6 loudspeaker flown over a groundstacked BR221 double 21-inch Bass Reflex subwoofer.

The bar is served by four Funktion-One F101 loudspeakers supported by two Mini-Bass 212 subs. Each F101 is mounted in the four corners of the bar with a MB 212 in the centre at each end. The MB212s are built into custom ceiling mounted soffits that give the install a discretely stealth quality. Only the front of each subwoofer is exposed, with the majority of the enclosure integrated into the ceiling.

The VIP room has two F101s, with the option to add in an MB210 in Phase Two of the build. The side room consists of two F101 as the main space reinforcement, with four F81s over the sunken lounge – all supported by an MB212. At the click of a button, this room can operate as an additional space for overflow, a chill out area with streamed music, or a completely separate entertainment space with a DJ.

‘Every step of the way the client was happy to listen to and execute our suggestions,’ Ward notes. This included advice on acoustically optimising the space. ‘The client took on board the importance of the acoustics and was happy to come to the table with the funds to deliver the necessary treatment. The space sounds like a studio.’

This dedicated focus on creating the best possible club space has paid off – delivering the venue Geelong has long yearned for, while simultaneously astounding with the sheer scale of its ambition. ‘The space takes you by surprise in that you do not expect this level of production or quality in this location,’ says Ward. ‘Not only is it already getting strong local support, the venue really has the potential to be a destination space. The talent the operators are putting through there, coupled with the beach side town, hotels, motels, and the local restaurant scene, make this the ideal weekend away.’

The system includes BSS Blu-160, BSS Blu-Bob 2, BSS Blu-USB and Apple Mini Mac server for control. Two Funktion-One Evo 6; three MC2 S-1400; two Funktion-One BR221 and two MC2 Ti-3500s serve the dancefloor. For DJ monitors, there are two Funktion-One PSM18s, with MC2 Ti-500; MC2 Ti-2000; two Funktion-One BR118 (planned) and one C2 Ti-2000. In the bar are four Funktion-One F101; two MC2 Ti-50, two Funktion-One MB212 and an MC2 Ti-2000 with two Funktion-One F101 and an MC2 Ti4-250 in the VIP area.

More: www.funktion-one.com