One of the first such centres for mixed media studies, the building provides accommodation for all Newcastle College's music, performing arts and mixed media courses. It contains a 250-seat flexible theatre, a music venue for an audience of 500, a 60-seat studio theatre, 10 recording studios, rehearsal rooms, television studio, drama and dance studios, and a radio station.
New Box and Northern Light were involved in different areas of the Performance Academy's construction. However, both turned to Kelsey Acoustics for high-quality cabling infrastructure products. Northern Light was contracted for the performance space and studio theatre, as well as the music venue, and the TV studio. Kelsey universal patches and patch panels, breakout multicables and a comprehensive selection of installation cables were used, says Stuart Archibald,project manager from Northern Light. "Kelsey reliably delivers us high-quality manufacturing, coupled with excellent service, at a competitive price."
New Box was responsible for cabling all 10 recording studios in the Academy, using Kelsey products for all of the cable, panel and interconnection build. Using Kelsey cables and Neutrik patchbays, the New Box team devised a custom 24 x 6 matrix, enabling any one of six studios to record from any one of six recording areas. As per The Performance Academy's brief, the switching routing system is perfectly transparent, with no signal degradation at all, according to New Box boss Tom Scott, an ex-Kelsey man himself.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
