Situated in prime commuter belt west of Edinburgh, Livingston is a classic New Town. A myriad of housing cul-de-sacs, roundabouts by the dozen and cut-through footpaths arranged around a central retail/leisure hub, its acres of concrete and tarmac sit between literally thousands of semi-mature trees, giving it that unique, slightly surreal New Town atmosphere of 'greenhouse' artificiality.
However, at the heart of this one is a very successful football team, based at an impressively modern stadium, providing a focus for the sprawling community. These days sitting pretty in the Scottish Premier league, the club was formerly Meadowbank Thistle, based in Edinburgh itself. Inevitably it sat in a shadow of the capital's higher-profile clubs, Hearts and Hibernian, so in 1995 it was relocated to the purpose-built Almondvale Stadium in Livingston by then-chairman Bill Hunter, being renamed after its new home town in the process.
Like most football clubs, Livingston FC is well aware that non-football activities are an essential source of revenue and so in May this year it opened the Power Station nightclub, situated under one of the ground's stands and featuring the very first permanent installation of an audio system by KV2 Audio, the new international sound reinforcement manufacturer profiled by L&SI in January 2003.
The Power Station's audio, DJ equipment and lighting was installed by London-based Scan Warehouse. Interestingly, the underlying reason why the company became the first to do a permanent install of KV2 equipment was a simple, old-fashioned one - trust. Having enjoyed a business relationship with KV2 Audio Europe's Phil Price and Andy Austin-Brown for more than 15 years via RCF UK, the trust shown by Scan's John Bowman Daniels was so complete that he specified KV2 without even hearing it: "I spec'd it because Andy said I'd like it," he says. "That's the truth of the matter. It was like your best friend coming to you and saying 'Look, trust me, you'll like it.' I have total respect for Andy as a sound engineer and a person, so although I was going out on a limb, it didn't feel like I was doing so. Before I took delivery, they took me out to the Czech Republic to hear the system and it surpassed my expectations."
Being housed underneath a football ground stand, the Power Station's acoustic space is basically rectangular, but with a long, sloping ceiling meaning a headroom of just over two metres along one of the 'long' sides, rising to four metres at the other.
"I usually have a fairly good idea of how a space will sound, but with this one I didn't have a clue," says Bowman Daniels. "It's like a cupboard under the stairs on a much bigger scale and the acoustics really concerned me."The difference in ceiling height on each side meant that the speaker placement options were relatively limited. The DJ booth is positioned mid-way along the side with the lowest headroom, so a stack went in each corner of that wall, comprising two ES1 mid/high cabinets, two ES2.5 (2 x 15") and four ES1.8 (1 x 18") bass bins.
Because of the limited two metre headroom, the mid and high cabinets couldn't be positioned as high as Bowman Daniels would have liked. So to compensate, two more ES1 mid/highs were positioned in the opposite corners, placed higher and angled down because of the increased headroom on that side. Two Logic System IS8 full-range drivers and eight PL81 ceiling speakers were also added to provide a subtle peripheral reinforcement."We positioned the stacks very carefully to ensure the sound was focused on to the dancefloor, protecting the bars and entrance from some of the volume," says Bowman Daniels. "I'm very concerned about that because I think nightclubs are meeting places and people want to communicate. Because of that, you should
