Roger Hopwood says that the absolute requirement to deliver a high-quality visual and aural experience to audiences means that the regular upgrading of equipment and control is vital and should be part of basic business planning.
St Davids, the National Concert Hall of Wales, delivers a full programme of high-quality classical music, including Cardiff Singer of the World, Welsh Proms, an orchestral season, plus another 40 to 50 orchestral concerts a year. However, in line with many similar venues, 65% of the 340 performances programmed in our two spaces comprise light entertainment, comedy, rock and pop, jazz, world music, television and radio broadcasting, and significant community and local input. Its a something for everyone venue, so the quality of our overall presentation must at minimum meet the modern audiences expectation.
Not to plan for continuous improvement and replacement is short-sighted and will ultimately contribute to a venue descending into not-so-gentle decline, with the overall presentation of performances becoming increasingly jaded, failing to meet public expectation, limiting your performance-delivery potential and increasingly impinging on staff time, patience and goodwill. What sort of image is presented by gaffer-taped carpets, chipped plaster walls, past-it lighting display and muddy sound? And if you dont care, why should the audience?
To ensure that St Davids Hall can continue to provide it audiences with the quality of experience they expect, Cardiff City Council has recently made an investment in excess of £250,000 to update or replace the 20-year-old technical infrastructure. The project was completed within a five-week period in the summer of 2005. This upgrade has not only allowed for state-of-the-art systems and effects but also allows for the flexibility to manage the different acoustic needs of specific performance types. Also important was the need to provide systems that are familiar to visiting engineers.
The Technical team, led by Simon Denman-Ellis, had worked hard over the previous two or three years to ensure that a suitable investment was made, and working closely with Orbital, Northern Light and Vaughan Sound, achieved a successful major upgrade and replacement of sound, light and call systems. The benefits are already being felt, with appreciation of the quality provided by the new systems being expressed by both the performers and the public which, in turn, has led to a significant decrease in audibility and legibility complaints, and their attendant costs.
Roger Hopwood is General Manager of St Davids Hall, a venue funded and managed by Cardiff City Council.
e: rhopwood@cardiff.gov.uk