Installation news
The Royal Albert Hall's Elgar Room
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On Wednesday 14 October the Royal Albert Hall opened the doors to a new venue, the transformed Elgar Room. Steeped in history, having seen actors such as Dame Judi Dench and Sir Laurence Olivier perform, the room has changed in both space and capacity as state of the art technical specifications and a modern redesign help make it one of London’s premier entertainment spaces.
The Elgar Room now incorporates built-in technical facilities and the flexibility to match any event requirement. From late night and intimate gigs to after show parties, comedy nights, cabaret and theatre performances, the redesign has created a versatile room in which a variety of events can be accommodated. The new room already has a host of events lined up to take place ranging from after show parties for Elton John and Monty Python’s “Not The Messiah” to a comedy night with Patrick Monahan and the next instalment of the Royal Albert Hall’s HUSH series. The £1million renovation sees the original floor to ceiling windows restored as the room’s raised flooring was removed to create one large space, increasing its maximum capacity to 350 standing and to 110 when used as a restaurant. An impressive lighting infrastructure has been installed including 4 LED colour changing ceiling panel, as well as a state of the art sound system and speakers. Having had a long standing relationship with the Hall, Sound By Design were asked to install the new sound system which had to be versatile enough to cope with the variety of events planned in the space. A Meyer Sound system was specified compromising of four UPJ-1P loudspeakers for the main area along with four in-fills of the recently developed UP-4XP for the bar areas. In addition to this, an EM Acoustics EMS-215 subwoofer and four EM Acoustics M-12 monitors can supplement the system for band events The system signal processing is achieved with a Biamp AudiaSOLO (8 input, 8 output) unit, attached to a Volume/Select 8 control unit for day-to-day operation of the system. Dave Shepherd devised a bespoke front end for the RAH wireless tablet using the Biamp “daVinci” software, which allows the hall’s technical staff finer control over the system including levels, delay and EQ. A Roland M400 mixing console has also been provided complete with two S-1608 stage boxes to service larger events in the room. This system runs completely on the CAT-5e infrastructure within the room allowing a lot of flexibility for different configurations of front-of-house and stage positions. The small size and powerful on-board DSP and effects make it an ideal choice for the smaller venue. Jasper Hope, Director of Events at the Royal Albert Hall said, "We are delighted to announce the completion of the newly refurbished Elgar Room. For the first time since the Hall's opening in 1871 we have somewhere other that the main auditorium in which to host music and other events. The 350 capacity venue will allow the Hall to bring a different type of artist and audience to the building and we look forward to having some exceptional events in the space." |
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