The hard work carried out by volunteers and members over many years has converted what was once the United Reform Church into the modern performance venue that is the Playhouse Theatre Whitstable today. The conversion work has involved building a stage, removing the balcony from the side walls, installing a stepped auditorium floor, building a sound and lighting control room in the balcony and installing additional seating. The lower floor has been converted into a bar, club room and dressing rooms.
The theatre provides 180+ seats in an authentic theatre environment, equipped with state of the art technical equipment.
Staying true to their desire to remain cutting edge, the theatre has recently undergone a sound system upgrade, investing in a Nexo Geo M6 loudspeaker system comprising of three M620 cabinets, two PS10 cabinets, two LS600 sub bass cabinets and two NXAmp 4x1 amplifiers, supplied by LMC Audio.
Nick Farrow, technical manager at Playhouse Theatre Whitstable chose the Nexo system following a demonstration carried out by the LMC London team at the Playhouse. "I contacted LMC's London branch who organised for Joe Jackson (technical sales) and Will Hinkly (technical field sales) to visit us for the day to demo the Nexo system. Following a comparison with other offerings we chose the Nexo system on the strength of its performance."
Hinkly adds: "The configurable wide dispersion of the Geo M620 centre array adds a nice consistency throughout the space which seamlessly blends the sound image from the stalls above to the seats below. Couple that centre hang with the L/R PS10R2 loudspeakers and it gives a sweet sounding well balanced LCR system catering for a range of work from film screenings to live theatre and comedy shows. The system is all powered off Nexo's proprietary NXAMP amplifiers."
The system is being used for front of house PA for live theatre productions, National Theatre broadcast screenings and feature film screenings.
Discussing the service and support provided by LMC, Farrow says: "Both Joe and Will have been brilliant. They've been very helpful in arranging for demonstrations of the systems they were short listing, and very flexible and responsive in achieving our timescales to get the system in live operation. I really couldn't have asked for better service."
(Jim Evans)
