Situated right in the heart of the city, The Loft plays host to a wide international audience and regularly welcomes players from local Bundesliga football club, Werder Bremen.
The venue is owned by Canadian Steve McMinn, who had earlier developed the 450-capacity Paddy's Pit - an Irish Bar situated underneath.
"But Paddy's became so busy that we needed a new place upstairs, with a different concept," says general manager Phil Seling. Thus the Loft was born, specialising in a friendly atmosphere, relaxed lounge music and waitress service.
Opening from 4pm-2am daily, the owners realised that such a long duty cycle would require sound reinforcement components that were not only reliable, but also versatile - since the music source would vary from 'lounge-level' background music, generated from MP3's, to more strident music once the DJ's hit the decks later in the evening. Finally, they wanted to match all the products in the signal chain and thus looked for a professional, single-source supplier.
Local contractors, Fernseh Fleischer designed and installed a system based on a combination of black and white PAB-506 series trapezoidal enclosures (180W/4 ohms), specifically designed for bars, and larger PAB-410/SW DJ speakers (400W/8 ohms). To these they assigned six of IMG Stage Line's STA-302 2-channel, 260W/8 ohms amplifiers, while two 6-channel MPX-206 stereo mixers offer zonal control. Two of these zones are dedicated to a plush secondary lounge, which was annexed onto the rear at a later stage, and a smoker's lounge.
(Jim Evans)
