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Historic Morecambe Winter Gardens reborn with audio from KV2

The Winter Gardens - located in Morecambe, Lancashire, England - was once the centrepiece of Morecambe’s illustrious entertainment scene. Opened in 1897 as a landmark of British architecture, it welcomed performances from The Who, Vera Lynn and many more, but was partly demolished in the early 1980s, leaving only the Victoria Pavillion Theatre standing.

Since 2006, the “Friends of the Winter Gardens” trust has worked to revive this Grade II listed building. In 2024, a £2.7 million restoration project was launched, funded by a grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A critical part of the restoration involved installing a sound system that could support the current events programme and expand as the venue grows. For this, KV2 Audio was chosen to play a key role in the theatre’s future.

“We needed to provide a good starting system for the trust, which could scale with the changing needs and capacity of the building”, says Rob Crossland, engineering manager at Adlib, the project’s integrator. “Despite being a 2500-capacity room, the current capacity is restricted to 400 by local authorities. The trust wanted a system that could cater to their present needs but also evolve with the theatre. Our goal was to cover the entire stalls area with as few loudspeakers as possible.”

Adlib specified two of KV2’s ESR215MkII full-range loudspeakers and an ESR3000 amplifier, ground-stacked on one-metre risers to provide front-of-house sound in a dual mono configuration. Control is managed by an Allen & Heath SQ5 console. “Despite the large space, just two ESR215MkII enclosures deliver excellent coverage, and the system’s smooth frequency response is ideal for theatre applications”, adds Crossland. “Plus, it’s future-proof - eventually, we can fly the system and add more components like subwoofers or delay speakers.”

Folk quartet Wayward Jane will be the first to test the new KV2 sound system at the Winter Gardens in November. It’s hoped that other acts will soon follow.

(Photos: KV2 Audio/Morecambe Winter Gardens)

www.kv2audio.com

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