This beautiful Grade II listed Art Deco venue received a £1 million refurbishment.  The main feature being new state-of-the-art stage lighting, sound and AV systems designed by Drama by Design..

The venue is renowned for its acoustics and a proud history of hosting music events and recordings.  Decca produced some of the first stereo recordings here and world-famous artists such as Leonard Bernstein and Julie Andrews recorded here.

Drama by Design were engaged by London Borough of Waltham Forest to carry out the detailed design, co-ordination project management, testing and commissioning of the new technical systems.

A complete new LED stage lighting system was installed including a complete re-wire. The stage lighting bars were replaced and a new winch installed for the advance bar, with power controlled via LSC APS power distribution units. These ensure that when the control systems are shut down, the power to the luminaires is also turned off. A range of fixed and moving lights were provided from the Chauvet professional range, all controlled from a Zero 88 FLX control desk over ethernet utilising Zero’s EtherN.8 units on stage.

The sound system consisted of Martin Audio Blackline X loudspeakers, with 15” units providing the main left/right centre coverage and 10” units for the balcony and under balcony. These were complemented by 12” stage monitors and 18” subs.

The sound system is controlled from a Yamaha TF3 digital audio mixer connected other ethernet to a Yamaha MTX5-D digital signal processor, allowing the conference AV and film systems to be controlled from touch panels without affecting the main theatre sound system.

An 8m wide tensioned electric roller projection screen has been installed on stage with a Panasonic PT-RZ31 30000 lumens laser projector installed in the original projection room at the rear of the hall. Originally only accessible from the roof to reduce the risk of fire spreading from the original carbon arc projectors, a new entrance was created from the roof space into the projection room.

The AV system is controlled via two Extron touch screens, one on a lectern on the stage and the second in the control room. The venue is used for a wide range of functions and events and as such the systems had to be simple to use and flexible. The touch screens enable simple operation by the in house staff while the stand alone lighting and sound control systems allow for control for fully professional productions.

A new motorised front curtain track and curtains have been installed at the front of the stage and new masking curtains on stage.