Harvester's new conference auditorium.
Marquee Audio has masterminded a multifunctional/multimedia design and installation in the 1000-seat auditorium of a greenfield development in Tonbridge, Kent. The company was awarded the contract by Harvester Conferences, a subsidiary of Harvester Trust, to equip their new development at The River Centre.

This will enable Harvester - a community-motivated, Christian charitable organization - to operate as a conference and community facility, as well as a church centre. Harvester had already made the decision not to extend to the 9m high ceiling which would have enabled them to have presented unamplified speech projection (instead opting for a 6m floor-to-ceiling pitch). They also opted for an amplified state-of-the-art PA system with full conference facility audio-visual, and put the work out to tender.

With seven-day utilization in prospect, Marquee recommended a Nexo system as being most appropriate to service the mix of requirements, including church services on Sundays and other days, a guitar/drums worship group, conferences and various third party community interests. Marquee’s cabling infrastructure allows for projection onto screens left and right of the stage, fed by Powerpoint from a PC and run back to the sound desk.

Marquee’s Scott Wakelin, who designed the sound and supervised the install, commented. "I remembered how well the Nexo system had worked at The Watersmeet Theatre in Rickmansworth - producing a smooth sound with a lot of vocal orientation - and this was a similar-sized venue." Thus he specified a Nexo PS15/PS10 combination at front-of-house, underpinned by Nexo LS1200 subs. This is powered by Crown MA-2400 and MA-3600VZ amplification, mixed through an Allen & Heath GL-3300-832A 32-channel desk, with processing effects including BSS Opal Constant-Q graphic equalizer and Behringer Multigate Pro and Multicom Pro processing. Marquee also supplied a full JBL monitor system, powered by Crown Pulse amplification and a Sennheiser two-channel infra-red system. The video projection system, meanwhile, is based around a pair of Eiki LC XC 1100 devices.

(Ruth Rossington)


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