Yamaha Reigns At The Regent

With the huge technical advances made in home and cinema entertainment, there is a real danger that traditional regional venues - which often have a multifunctional role as theatres, cinemas and community centres - could fall short of contemporary audience expectations. But a recent installation has again proved that Yamaha technology helps ensure such venues keep up with the times.

The UK media regularly reports on the negative social side of traditional churches and pubs closing, but the challenges faced by regional entertainment venues are just as great. By nature they are expensive to maintain, with competition from home entertainment and multiplex cinemas ever-more fierce. But the flexibility, reliability, future-proofing and cost-effectiveness of Yamaha digital audio equipment means that it can help regional venues continue to compete.

The Regent Centre in Christchurch, Dorset, is the epitome of a local venue at the centre of the community. Hosting everything from films, live relays of major shows and exhibitions to plays (by both local and professional casts), pantomimes, tribute bands, stars of the past, comedians, gang shows and psychics, 50p of every ticket sold goes into a development fund.

The purpose of the fund is to maintain a rolling programme of improvements, of which the latest is the installation of a Yamaha M7CL48-ES digital console. Supplied and installed by CPS Group, the M7CL was chosen after the venue’s technical team looked at all the alternatives.

“None of the others we looked at came up to the specifications offered by the M7CL,” says the Regent’s Venue Manager Eliot Walker. “Over the years we have also found that most professional companies have brought Yamaha consoles with them. There was no higher recommendation than that.”

The venue has a successful record in training technical volunteers, with a number going on to enjoy professional careers in the industry. Another advantage of the M7CL was that it is the ideal console for this purpose - its intuitive user interface and faders for each channel making it very quick to learn what is an industry-standard mixer.

Put straight to work on the venue’s busy festive programme, the M7CL has made an immediate impression on the venue’s staff.

“We have been extremely pleased with the performance of the console and the service provided by CPS, who have provided training and ongoing support,” says Eliot. “With their hire inventory of M7CLs, LS9s and CL5s, there is also plenty of back up available if additional equipment is required to expand the system for larger productions.”