The Liverpool operation is a development of a former warehouse in Hotham Street. Although it had been converted into a live music venue in the 1990s, it closed again in 2002. As part of its £1m refurbishment, the Carling Academy Liverpool features state-of-the-art technology throughout and a fully flexible capacity of 1,200, enabling it to cater for live gigs, dance events and club nights. The concept emulates the success of MKG's Carling Academy Birmingham, and a secondary, 450-capacity venue - Carling Academy 2 Liverpool - is also housed within the auditorium.
The main Liverpool sound reinforcement system is based around a six-box EAW KF750 triamped three-way system, with matching SB 1000 bass bins, and four MK 2164s serving as the delay. EAW AS6601s and SB750s will provide the dancefloor fills.
Powered by a total of 19 Yamaha PC9500N amplifiers, system control is under the command of the line-configured BSS 9088ii Soundweb DSP engine, with remote access provided via a 9010 'Jellyfish' wall panel. A high-specification processing rack includes industry-standard devices from Yamaha, BSS and Behringer, while Soundcraft's new 40-channel multi-purpose MH3 provides front-of-house engineers with instantly-recognizable control architecture.
Marquee has maintained these standards at the stage end, which sees a 32-channel MH3 delivering the foldback mix to eight of Martin Audio's classic LE400C floor monitors, and its Blackline H3 providing stage fill. The system is powered by a combination of Yamaha PC4800N/PC9500N amplifiers - with industry standard processing devices, vocal and instrument mics included in the spec.
The smaller Carling Academy 2 Liverpool features a Yamaha-powered Turbosound TQ-440/THL-828 combination delivering the main house sound, with the trusty TXD-121 as the preferred enclosure, providing infill on the dancefloor, stage, bar and back of venue. The system is also under Soundweb control - but to attract leading DJs for the venue's club nights, Marquee has provided a deluxe front-end, with Technics SL1210 MkII turntables and a Denon DN-2100F dual CD player, mixed through an Allen & Heath Xone:62, with a D.A.S. Audio DS-12A providing the DJ's reference sound.
Bristol-based Utopium Lighting designed, specified, supplied and installed the complete lighting system in two rooms at the venue. The lighting for these was designed by Utopium's Angus Chinn - this being his third project for MKG. As with the Bristol and Glasgow Academy venues before it, Liverpool is a quite unique venue, and Chinn has come up with a completely different design. The issues facing Chinn and his team were those of adaptability: the design and equipment needed to suit the variety of events planned, but also preserve the all-important sightlines. A further challenge was the lack of weight loading in the roof - as a result of which everything had be ground-supported. To address this, Chinn had a solid 8ft x 12ft ground-support system custom-built by Tomcat, to suspend three main trusses running laterally above the roof rafters over the stage in the main room. For visiting productions to add in their specials quickly and painlessly, three lighting bars are suspended below the cross-stage trusses, raised and lowered on three Pilewind winches, supplied by locally-based lifting specialist PCM. The fact that the get-in is on the third floor further heightened the requirement to make it easy for touring shows to physically bring in kit.
Another major issue for Chinn and his team (which included rigger James Mallardette) was achieving the diversity of lighting needed to fulfil the client's b
