Blending Future With History: The Technology Inside The Hall

The Royal Albert Hall has welcomed many of the world’s most famous artists, sports personalities and political figures across its 150-year history. Until recently, tours visiting the Hall brought in their own PAs, which resulted in new sound systems being set up almost every night. These tight turnaround times, combined with the Hall’s challenging geometry, meant sound quality depended on the system brought in and the engineer operating it. Since 2019 that’s changed. The Royal Albert Hall invested $2.8 million in a fixed and bespoke audio installation consisting of 465 permanent loudspeakers installed during 693 workdays, including six months of overnight installation works in order to leave the Hall’s schedule unaffected – a particularly impressive feat considering that 2018 was the Hall’s busiest year yet. Of the 401 shows hosted in the main auditorium that year, 327 took place during the installation. The reason this was even possible is the fact that the Hall had also upgraded its main rigging with over 170 motors permanently installed in the roof, operated via a bespoke control software. It completely revolutionized the way that shows are loaded in and out at the Hall.

Those involved in the install say it was worth it. “It shouldn’t be underestimated what a difference it makes to walk into the auditorium, knowing that there is a system installed and a wonderful in-house team there to support you, that couldn’t be replicated by bringing a touring sound system in and facing a typical two-to-three-hour load in,” explained Steve Jones of d&b audiotechnik, who designed the main PA system. DiGiCo provided the consoles and racks, which got delivered by UK audio experts Autograph, while Sandy Brown came on board as acoustic consultants and SFL took care of everything on site. They planned and executed this significant project together with the Hall’s in-house team, led by head of production and technical Ollie Jeffery.

“This whole project was such a team effort, we’ve become friends as a result,” Jeffery said.

According to Jones, audio systems had to be designed to blend with the building’s architectural intentions and aesthetics out of respect.

“For the Royal Albert Hall, as with all iconic buildings of historic importance, a sound system’s life might be 10 to 15 years,” he said. “If you’re renewing that system every 15 years that creates the risk of new holes being drilled into plaster every time. How much of the building is left after multiple renewal cycles?! Each decision made during a project such as ours had to be made with a firm eye on the future.”

The team at the Royal Albert Hall had many years to analyze which systems bands and tour managers preferred and made the decision to go with DiGiCo’s digital desks. This ensured that touring engineers coming through are greeted with “an industry standard they could walk up to and use instantly,” according to DiGiCo’s technical sales manager Tim Shaxson.

“For the small percentage of engineers who don’t know our desks, it needs to be a relatively straightforward console to use, and our desktops are,” Shaxson added. “Our touchscreen technology, in a live environment, is very easy to use, lots of information, visual feedback.” 

Implementing the audio system on site was SFL’s job. Company director Craig Lawrence said navigating the Royal Albert Hall’s insides can be quite a challenge, at least at first.

“It’s round, people get lost,” he said. “SFL works there are a lot, and I’d say it probably takes a good six months for an engineer working there fairly regularly to really work the route out and understand how to navigate from space to space.

“Generally, when you’re working in the Albert Hall, you’re doing a lot of technical production beyond the stage and the auditorium,” Lawrence continued. “Especially in video, you’ll have feeds that go up to the gallery, you’ll need to run things to boxes, you’ll need to run video feeds to dressing rooms and different remote spaces.”

Managing cable routes across multiple levels and the round while protecting a Grade I listed building might seem daunting, but the SFL team had years to familiarize itself with the layout.

It’s not just the new audio system and rigging that have turned this historic venue into a state-of-the-art entertainment temple. As Jeffery explained, the Hall’s entire lighting got upgraded as well with the help of lighting experts ROBE and longtime service partner Whitelight Limited UK. Like with the audio system, shows coming in can rent the new lighting rig and work with the Hall’s award-winning in-house lighting designer Richard Rhys Thomas.

“We’re really proud of our technical facilities, lighting, sound, man rigging, which have enabled us to take us into our 150 year as one of the most technologically advanced venues in the world,” Jeffery said, adding that the new systems “changed everything. To the day I die, I’ll be so proud of that project.”

Lawrence was last on site at the Hall to oversee the technical production of ILMC’s Arthur Awards ceremony, which streamed from an empty Royal Albert Hall earlier this month. And even though the audience was missing, being back in the auditorium “genuinely brings a smile to my face,” he said. “What I’m about to say sounds cheesy, but it’s from the heart. It’s such a privilege and an honor to work in that venue. Every time we go to work there, still, the first thing I’ll do is go and stand on the stage in the empty building, when it’s quiet, and just look out at the seating. It gives me goosebumps, being able to do that. I don’t ever want to take that for granted.”

Said Jones, “the Royal Albert Hall is more than a venue, it’s an iconic meeting place for the arts, with a stage that has been graced by renowned global names. You know that the work you are doing is not just about the loudspeakers, but about helping to prepare this iconic venue for the generations of audiences still to fill its seats. The Hall retains a place of great significance internationally and demands our attention for major annual events such as the remembrance services.

Working, creating and expressing yourself in a building that is so fundamental to the fabric of the nation is a real privilege.”

One of Lawrence’s all-time favorite moments at the Hall was the first screening of Gladiator Live In Concert in 2014. Composer Hans Zimmer was on site and co-composer Lisa Gerrard, who’s also responsible for the score’s iconic vocals, sang live on stage. SFL had done the load in and the team had been given tickets for a box as a thank you.

“It was the scene at the end when he’s been hit,” Lawrence said. “The choir and music are building, and as it panned out on the screen, the columns of the Colosseum lined up with the columns of the Albert Hall. It was fluke. In that moment, the audience all stood up and you felt like you were in the Colosseum where the action was happening. Live. One of my colleagues literally sat there crying because it was just so powerful.”

Jones cited Spanish rock band Fito & Fitipaldis – the first band to perform with the new in-house system – as the most memorable show he’s seen at the Hall.

“I’ve never been to a show with such an energetic crowd that wanted to party so much in my whole life!” he said. “Another show that will live with me for a long time was Nitin Sawhney’s Beyond Skin 20th anniversary concert. Hearing tracks from an album that I grew up with inside a venue that I’d spent so much time working in was a real career highlight.”

Shaxson points to “Dave Gilmour with Colin Northfield on front of house. Unbelievable. That was recently actually, after the system’s been updated. It was one of the one of those very special gigs.”

SFL also handled the production of Katherine Jenkins’ closed-door performance commemorating V-E Day in May 2020. By then, the team had been stuck at home for two months.

“Then, suddenly, we’re going back to the venue we used to work in. It was weird. I didn’t get the high I would usually get from being there, because it almost felt like I shouldn’t be there,” Lawrence recalled. “This is probably how TV works all the time, but I work in live events with audiences. As part of production, you’ve got that anticipation, you’ve got a deadline to pull the thing off by, you’ve got that pressure. And then the audience comes in, and you get that buzz and that rush and the nerves knowing, ‘we’ve got to make sure this works.’ You don’t get that with the closed-door events, they just don’t feel real. Our satisfaction comes from pulling something off for audiences.”