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Chichester Festival Theatre re-opens with an EM Acoustics sound system

After many months of forced closure due to COVID restrictions, the Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) has burst back onto the scene with Daniel Evans’s revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific”.

CFT is one of the UK’s leading producing theatres, regularly selling out the 1300-seat auditorium and transferring plays and musicals into London’s West End. The Grade II listed venue recently underwent an extensive renovation project followed by by an audio upgrade to an EM Acoustics sound system in 2019. This has since been upgraded again to feature EM Acoustics’ R10 loudspeaker and the medium format Halo-B line array system.

“It was all a bit piecemeal following the renovation, but having replaced our existing outer delay line with EM Acoustics EMS-61s and added EMS-51 front fills, we wanted to update the rest of the house to EM to create a more cohesive system”, explains CFT Head of Sound, Mike Keniger. “This is always a challenge in a venue with a thrust stage but in 2019 we were able to replace the larger existing boxes for EMS-129s.”

“When we were looking at the Halo-B system, we had the opportunity to trade up to R10 as well, so we jumped at the chance”, he continues. “We’ve now replaced our EMS-129s with R10s, and although I was sad to see the EMS-129s leave the building, I am more than happy with R10 as the replacement.”

As for the Halo-B system, it replaces the Halo-C system which the theatre had on trial for two musical productions in 2019. “We really liked Halo-C, but we wanted the additional horizontal coverage and power handling of Halo-B. The full system was finally installed earlier this year in time for our grand reopening with ‘South Pacific’”, says Keniger.

The CFT system comprises a main L/R system for music and FX of eight Halo-B cabinets per side, two S-215 subs, two S-218 subs and a pair of EMS-81 proscenium sidefills. The flown vocal system is distributed around the auditorium in three distinct delay lines: speaker ring one over the stage comprises six R10s; further back speaker ring two - the first delay line - comprises a further five R10s; and further back again speaker ring three - the second delay line - is comprised of 14 EMS-61s. Eight EMS-51s provide under-balcony delay and a further 14 EMS-51s are on front-fill duty.

(Photos: Matthew Trubow)

www.emacoustics.co.uk

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