Wavefront Renews its Love Affair with Historic Opera House

When Solent Leisure MD John Butterworth decided to restore the grandeur of the Bournemouth Opera House the venue’s new stage manager, Nathan Owe, decided that the Martin Audio heritage should likewise be restored with the new generation of Martin Audio line arrays.

“You could say I was influential in restoring Martin Audio to the Opera House,” he admitted, at the same time recognising that the system would now need to show a new versatility. “For the live route we needed something that would cater for everything from dance events to indie rock and pure theatre, as well as corporate hire and weddings.” And so he and Production Hire’s Mark ‘Knocker’ Neal, the sound and lighting consultant, put their heads together.

The result was that when the Grade II-listed Opera House reopened at the beginning of June it revealed two hangs of five Martin Audio W8LC Compact line arrays, suspended over the ornate proscenium arch. To compliment the flown system W8LCD downfills were sited on top of the WS218X stacked on either stage wing. Unable to resist a touch of Wavefront nostalgia and because they are still eminently suitable to the task Nathan Owen deployed a pair of W8C/W8S as sidefills with ten of Production Hire’s LE12JBs for on stage monitoring.

The system was carefully optimised using DISPLAY™ predictive software so that the sound could be projected evenly to the upper tiers without falling victim to the letterbox effect. “In fact the sound in the Gods is as crisp and clear as in any part of the theatre,” acknowledges Nathan.

But the final word comes from Events Producer, James Brennan. “This venue had been badly neglected,” he said. “We needed to respect its history, sensitively restore it and give it back to the community — and that’s precisely what we have done.”

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