Shoreditch Town Hall, a splendid Grade II listed building in the historic East End of
London, has recently transformed its status from an elegant but under-exploited
function space to a fully-fledged, dynamic performing arts venue thanks to a major
upgrade in order to realise the building’s untapped potential. Two of the most
significant investments have been the reinstallation of the balcony seating in the
main Assembly Hall, transforming the space into a 750+ capacity venue, and the
installation of a high quality audio system from EM Acoustics.

When it came to specifying an audio system, the Town Hall’s head of production,
Ian Moore, decided straight away to call on the services of Stage Electrics who were
tasked with putting in a full sound and lighting system. Stage Electric’s Paul
Roughton who managed the project had no hesitation in recommending EM Acoustics
for the audio.

“We were essentially starting with a blank piece of paper as there was nothing in
the room at all!’ recalled Roughton. “I recommended EM Acoustics immediately as I
know their 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 system that was ultimately installed comprised 18 HALO-C compact line array
elements split into L/C/R. The centre cluster of 6 HALO-Cs was flown with the left
and right sides each ground-stacked on top of an EMS-118 subwoofer. Three EMS-
61s act as front fills across the front of the stage whilst 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. Indeed,
Shoreditch Town Hall is the first customer to benefit from the new networked
amplifiers.

“It’s an excellent system that has already proved itself on our first shows,’
remarked Moore. “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,’ continued Moore. “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.’