CAV'S LINE ARRAY GIVES STROUD A NEW NIGHTCLUB

Following an investment of £1.3m, Gloucestershire entrepreneur Terry Cole has given Stroud residents a highly-specified new nightclub on the site of the former Gaumont Cinema.

The three-storey venue Warehouse adopts the same name as Mr. Cole's other venture, the Warehouse Wine Bar in Dursley, and represents an industrial conversion of the Gaumont Cinema which opened in 1935, using varnished sleepers, brickwork and stone effect flooring. Above the large balcony bar on the first floor is an opulently-detailed VIP room, while the dancefloor itself incorporates a water feature.

The five-nights-per-week venue had latterly been trading as a bingo hall, but was already empty when Terry Cole purchased the building four years ago.

This year he decided to develop it, and enlisted local company, Hans Beier's CAV - who had also fitted out Dursley - to design and install a sound and lighting infrastructure in the 850-capacity venue that met the standards of the overall interior, which also includes leather soft furnishing, sprung dancefloor and arena-grade steelwork.

As the centrepiece, Beier has chosen the Martin Audio W8LM Mini Line Array system - after Martin Audio's Simon Bull successfully carried out a system demonstration.

'Terry was already familiar with the Martin Audio pedigree,' said the installer, 'as we had put an EM Series system into Dursley. But because this is a 100° dispersion box we were able to demonstrate an even coverage pattern across the dancefloor as well as avoiding reflective sound down the walls.'

This is achievable from a system - optimised using Martin's ViewPoint™ predictive software - in which two hangs of seven W8LM's are suspended from the roof structure on either side of the stage via steel-wire ropes (above three groundstacked Martin Audio horn-loaded 1000W WLX subs). Power is provided by Martin Audio MA2.8S and MA4.2S amplifiers.

Under Allen & Heath processor control, Beier has found he has been able to tame the natural reverberance of the room acoustics. Meanwhile, local control and source selection (to toilets, VIP room etc) is provided via a wall panel in the manager's office.

Peripheral areas are served by a pair of Martin Audio EM26's, in both the foyer and VIP Room, with a Martin C115 architectural speaker in each of the Male and Female toilets. A pair of Blackline F8's have been provided for DJ reference monitoring up in the control booth.

'Once Terry had made up his mind to develop the site, he wanted the best of everything - including the sound reinforcement,' remarked Hans Beier. 'The point about Martin Audio is that you can always trust the product, and the calibre of Bill Webb's design engineering.'

Terry Cole is indeed delighted with the new infrastructure, remarking on the enormous headroom that resides in the W8LM system. As for the choice of installation company, he says, 'We had other options but I am pleased we went with CAV. I am impressed with Hans' enthusiasm - he remained on site throughout the entire weekend we opened.'

Further information from:

Maureen Hayes, Martin Audio
Tel: +44 (0)1494 535312
Fax: +44 (0)1494 438669

Jerry Gilbert, JGP Public Relations
Tel: +44 (0)1707 258525
Fax: +44 (0)1707 267140