SCARBOROUGH, U.K. – Europe's largest open-air theatre – opened in the 1930s and set on an island in the middle of a lake near the British seacoast – has been restored more than 40 years after the last staged musical production was performed.
Originally built in Northstead Manor Gardens and opened by the Lord Mayor of London, Scarborough's open-air theatre drew thousands to see musical productions starting with Edward German's English comic opera, Merrie England.
The theatre's construction took advantage of sloping ground contours, which created a natural amphitheatre and provides acoustic conditions well-suited for a variety of musical entertainment.
The venue had fixed seating for more than 6,000, filling them for popular productions such as the It's a Knockout series, with an unbroken run for 11 years. But musical productions ceased in 1968, and the dressing rooms and stage building were demolished in 1977.
This May, however, the restored outdoor venue had an official opening by Queen Elizabeth II and was recently used for performances by José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, after the Scarborough Borough Council came up with most of the $5.5 million in funding for the restoration project.
London-based Subfrantic Production Services, headed up by Stephen Davies and Sean Murphy, designed, supplied and installed a semi-permanent Turbosound audio system at the venue. Their Turbosound rig will be used throughout the summer season, rain or shine.
"We have been involved with the project from the outset, and with the management company having a long-term lease on the site, we also took a long-term view on the PA architecture, right down to the speaker hangs being specifically designed around Aspect," said Murphy, Subfrantic's operations manager.
"With Turbosound's help we configured the system to be as versatile as possible, knowing the huge variety of entertainment scheduled in for the 2010 season – from the grand opening by the Queen in May, through to the World Cup events and on to the end of September with a mix of comedy, opera and popular music."
The Aspect system wraps around the minimalist Total Fabrications custom PA towers, and consists of 12 TA-890H mid-highs each side, flown four-wide and three-deep.
Just inside of the PA hangs, and ground stacked at stage level, six TA-890L double 15-inch low frequency cabinets sit on top of four TSW-218 double 18-inch subwoofers ground stacked each side.
MC2 T-series amplifiers power the rig, with system control provided by Turbosound's LMS-D26 processors. The FOH system is complemented by a TFM-450 monitor rig and Floodlight TFL-760H sidefills, again all powered by MC2 T-series amplifiers and LMS-D24 processors.
The original stage design placed the PA hangs behind the video screens, and did not allow for adequate coverage of the extremely wide audience area. But once the PA positions were moved outwards and away from the screens, Aspect's predictable dispersion patterns allowed Murphy and Davies to accurately model the system's coverage in both the horizontal and vertical planes.
Once on site, flying the PA proved to be a challenge. "The flypoints are actually directly over the lake," said Murphy, "making it a little more difficult to get the boxes in the air."
The solution was to build each stack off to one side, and then carefully swing it out and up into position. "The intuitive nature of the Aspect's rigging hardware made it very easy for us to build the stack by locking in the integrated flyware, and then simply take it up in one go," he added.
Scarborough's entertainment program hit full stride in mid-summer with a gala opening performance by Jose Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa on July 23, supported by the Orchestra of Opera North and Huddersfield Choral Society with actor Brian Blessed serving as emcee.
FOH mixer Simon Honywill engineered for Carreras at Scarborough. No stranger to the Turbosound brand, this was only Honywill's second time in front of an Aspect system – and he had good things to say about the experience.
"Despite a pre-rig day from hell in near-horizontal rain, and although I'm not completely familiar with Aspect having used it only once before, I did get a good chance to get amongst it. I think the horn design is excellent, and I really like the labyrinth phase plug concept."
The addition of four TA-890H mid/highs placed behind the scrims at ground level as in-fills, together with some concentrated listening, a little time spent tuning with a SMAART analyser, and some system tweaking resulted in a good image and an improved low end, Honywill added.
"It sounded really good once I had tamed a few low frequency areas, and I thought the system itself covered well apart from an area at the very top of the bleachers," Honywill added, also complimenting the crew from Subfrantic as "really helpful."
"Simon asked us to reduce the level of the inside stacks slightly, and this highlighted the system's versatility," noted Murphy, calling it "a 30-second job because we had configured the amps to be able to trim each column."
Scarborough's opening operatic show was followed a week later, on July 31, by a 1980s Revival Weekend starring Boy George, Rick Astley, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw, Paul Young, Hazel O'Connor, Heaven 17, T'pau and Toyah Wilcox.
The Aspect system was similarly configured as the previous week, with left and right clusters flown four-wide and three-deep, despite the change in musical style.
"With a capacity crowd of 6,500 in the arena, the system was certainly loud enough, with unparalleled clarity," said Subfrantic's Murphy. "It's quite an experience to be able to hear that many people singing along to ‘Never Gonna Give You Up' and yet still be able to hear the PA system clearly over the top of that many voices," he added.
Stage monitoring consisted of 10 TFM-450 neodymium bi-amped two-way floor wedges, two Floodlight TFL-760H side-fills and a TQ-425 double 15-inch sub on the drums, as well as eight sets of in-ear monitors.
"On stage, the TFM-450s created an environment which the artists were more than happy with, even though we had to keep to relatively low levels," said Murphy. "In fact, after the event we had comments from the band about just how good the sound on stage was. In my opinion the 450s are still the best wedges on the market."
Other acts performing this summer include a blend of comedy and music ranging from Jack Whitehall and Stuart Lee, The Doves, The Futureheads, Madness and Justin Fletcher.
For more information, please visit www.turbosound.com.
