Cultural Centre installs Nexo STM array
- Details
With more than 200 events a year, including folk and world music, dance and new circus, pop and rock, jazz, chamber and orchestral performances, drama and comedy, the Västerås Konserthus is a buzzing cultural centre for its community. Its principal venue is The Great Hall, with its capacity for 900, and two wraparound balconies seating 215 and 125 people respectively.
The team at the theatre, led by stage technical manager Per Andersson, conducted an exhaustive tender process involving nine well-known suppliers and manufacturers, and including live auditions of the proposed system solutions in the theatre.
“We had a ‘jury’ of five people,” explains Andersson, “two in-house sound techs, Emil Hedin and Lars Alehag, and three freelance sound techs, Mathias Andersson, Johan Hellgren and Thomas Malbeck, all of whom gave the Nexo STM Series the highest scores for coverage and evenness of distribution. It also got great praise for its true-to-source reproduction.”
Using a system design from the Bright Group, the theatre staff installed the equipment themselves. Bright Installation’s project manager Drew Black was there to oversee the process, with input from Fredrik Arwidsson (Bright Rental division) on final tuning, as well as Emil Hedin (Konserthus) and Ola Fransson (Intersonic, NEXO’s Swedish distributor).
“The system has been designed to provide clear coverage throughout the whole venue, meeting all the needs of a concert hall,” says Drew Black. “It has the superb clarity needed for classical music, and the power to cover the heaviest of rock bands.”
The most visible part of the system are the L/R arrays of the STM Series main PA, comprising 14x M28 modules with 90 degree dispersion, and a single M28/120 degrees. “The arrays are throwing approximately 22m to the back of the hall, as well as covering the two balconies which wrap around the hall. Although there are no boxes, even the abilities of the STM M28 couldn’t quite cover the front seats of the balcony, nearest the stage, so we’ve deployed Nexo ID24 compact speakers in strategic positions for fill here.”
The system uses Nexo’s new MSUB18 cabinet for subbass, flying three a side, and ground-stacking another three a side. The versatile design enables the theatre to fly all six subs a side if required.
Everything is powered by eight NXAMP4x4 controller/amplifiers, plus two NXAMP4x1Mk2s, all of which are fitted with NXDT104 Dante cards for network management.
The Bright design for the Konserthus draws in other models from the Nexo portfolio such as the compact Geo M6 line array, six modules of which are used for side-fill, and the super-compact ID24 point-source cabinets which are used for front-fill as well as balcony-fill.
“The system is not permanently fixed,” continues Drew Black. “Although the theatre has no plans to move it for in-house productions, it does give them the flexibility to take it down temporarily if a guest act insists on hanging their own PA.”
(Jim Evans)
