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DigiPage Wins a Gong for Relay Success at South Bank Centre
When the South Bank Centre’s head of production, Andy Scorgie, counselled in-house audio consultants, Richard Nowell Sound Services about the problems experienced with their paging system in the Queen Elizabeth Hall he knew he was delivering a tall order.
Having inherited “a very unuser-friendly system” when he took over his role at London’s South Bank Complex (which also includes the Royal Festival Hall and Hayward Gallery), Scorgie admits, “We badly needed to move with the times by finding a system sympathetic to the different requirements of the various art forms hosted at the Hall. Each event needs to have specific information relayed.”
Needing to route messages over an increasing number of zones (which also incorporates the neighbouring Purcell Room) Andy Scorgie wanted the new paging front end to be able to plug into the venue’s existing infrastructure. He was also mindful that the system needed to comply with Health & Safety audits, Lambeth Council inspections and LFB licensing requirements.
He discussed the problem with RNSS’ operations manager, Andrew Cotton, who was already aware of the Australian Monitor DigiPage system.
Distributed in the UK by Fuzion plc., the system was also recommended by suppliers, Amber Sound, who pointed out that aside from DigiPage’s clarity and flexibility, it is the only system that does not depend on its own internal infrastructure, and can thus be used with other outboard equipment.
Andrew Cotton, whose company is HQ’d in the basement of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, set about adapting the system to allow 20 zones to function off the expanded 16 x 16 switchable matrix router, connected to the existing amplifiers and loudspeakers.
The QE Hall and Purcell Room share a common foyer, presenting problems when two shows are going up simultaneously. “One simple improvement that DigiPage has made is getting customers into the theatre on time,” he observed. “We used to have a gong, but any non-classical audiences simply wondered what it meant, resulting in a late start.
“We needed something that people would react to — that was not only intelligible but could be routed and switched in a way that was both controllable backstage, and manually operable by front-of-house management.”
Each of the DigiPage zones has a dedicated local mic/line input, with six inputs routable to any of the zones (one with overall priority). Features include Alert, Evacuation, Bell and Pre Announce Chimes, and Priority Ducking Circuitry.
The Base Station is supported by the 16-zone DigiPage Microphone Station and the DigiPage Remote Wall Panel (providing up to six-user selectable programme inputs, each with local volume control).
There are two main Mic Stations (in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room foyers) and further control depending on which dressing rooms are assigned.
Andy Scorgie reports a huge increase in efficiency. “Although the spec was changing almost daily DigiPage has been able to react well to the various curved balls thrown at it. Adapted to 20-zone capability, it has given us the flexibility to be able to tailor it according to the event we have in and react either at mainframe level or locally from, say, within the dressing rooms.
“On top of that, corporate events held outside also need show relay and paging, placing further pressure on the network.”
DigiPage has come up trumps every time. “We have an all-up staff of 24 (including production), all of whom need to be able to use the system. I couldn’t understand the previous system but this couldn’t be more straightforward. In fact we get it to perform tasks that it’s not particularly designed for.”
As for evaluating its success, Andy Scorgie smiles. “Since we’ve abandoned the gong and replaced it with announcements, the incidents of shows starting on time, and intervals running to schedule, have increased substantially.”
In picture: Andy Scorgie, with the DigiPage rack; the QE Hall foyer.
4th November 2005
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