Set in the East End of London, Shoreditch Town Hall has emerged from being an elegant but under-exploited function space to a fully-fledged performing arts venue following to a major upgrade.
Two of the most significant investments in the Grade II listed building have been the reinstallation of the balcony seating in the main Assembly Hall, transforming the space into a 750-plus capacity venue, and the installation of a high-quality audio system from EM Acoustics.
When it came to specifying an audio system, the venue’s Head of Production, Ian Moore, called on Stage Electrics who were tasked with putting in a full sound and lighting system. Stage Electric’s Paul Roughton managed the project, and was quick to use an EM Acoustics loudspeaker system: ‘We were essentially starting with a blank piece of paper, as there was nothing in the room at all,’ he recalls..
‘I recommended EM Acoustics immediately, as I know the products to be of extremely high quality and very good value for money. We organised a demo for Ian and his team, who were delighted with what they saw and heard, so [EM’s] Ed Kinsella and I set about specifying the system.’
The installed system comprises 18 Halo-C compact line array elements split into LCR clusters. The centre cluster of six Halo-C boxes is flown with the left and right sides each groundstacked on top of an EMS-118 subwoofer. Three EMS-61s act as front fills across the front of the stage, while the balcony is covered by eight EMS-81X cabinets. The installation is completed by four of the recently launched M-C12 stage monitors, and the whole system is driven by four, also newly-launched, EM Acoustics DQ20 amplifiers fitted with Dante networking cards – making Shoreditch Town Hall the first customer to use the new networked amplifiers.
‘It’s an excellent system that has already proved itself on our first shows,’ Moore says. ‘It ticks all the boxes for us. Acoustically, the Assembly Hall used to be a tricky space because there is a lot of beautiful, but highly reflective marble. However, we have received excellent feedback from our first few shows and I am very happy with the sound quality we achieved.
‘As well as the obvious criteria concerning sound quality, the system also needed to be flexible,’ he adds. ‘In other words, it had to be able to handle anything from music to theatre to comedy and more besides. The beauty of this system is its small profile and that it is very simple to put together, which means we can have it broken down and set up again in a different configuration in a different part of the building, or even several parts of the building in no time. It has opened up the possibilities of what we are able to offer to the public enormously. We’re delighted, and many thanks to Stage Electric and EM Acoustics for a tremendous job.’
More: www.emacoustics.co.uk
