When club owners Matthew Dimmack and Cleto Capetta took over the former Lola-Lo club site in Brighton they wasted little time in approaching Penguin Media Solutions as they set out to convert it to the Bau Wow Club. As company director Dylan Thompson emphasises, “We already had a good relationship with Matt after working with him on other venues over the years, and so we were invited to tender.”

The integrators went up against a handful of other companies, but their attention to detail won the owners over, as well as their ability to provide a live Martin Audio demonstration of the proposed system via sister company Penguin Media Hire, which holds extensive stock.

“Key to the system was its flexibility,” Thompson recalls, “as the venue needed to be used for live shows as well as club nights — and this had to be taken into account.”

As the 170-capacity club is situated in the basement, care had to be taken, as far as possible, not to bleed sound to the venue upstairs, and this required the main dancefloor speakers to be fitted with bespoke anti-vibration yokes, as well as plinths for the subwoofers. “We knew that by planning for this from the outset, we would reduce headaches further down the line,” considered the Penguin Media man.

His company specified a pair of XD15 high-output, wide-bandwith speakers for the main room mid-tops as well as classic WS218X subwoofers (all on the anti-vibration yokes), to give visiting engineers a rider friendly and familiar sound signature. Stage fill for DJ-led events is catered for with an XD12, which is muted when the live preset is selected on the Soundweb control panel. At the rear of the main room a Martin Audio CDD8 comes into play when the venue is in DJ mode.

“The result is an incredibly powerful and dynamic system, which works as well for a live band as it does for an underground house or techno DJ,” considers Dylan Thompson. “Also, the owners are extremely happy with the Martin Audio pedigree, as well as it not being pigeonholed as an ‘EDM / club only’ brand.

But Penguin Media Solutions were far from finished with the Martin Audio specification. In Room 2, they designated a pair of CDD12’s along with a single CSX218 sub, to provide excellent coverage, with sufficient flexibility for private hire.

DJ Booth monitoring comprises a Martin Audio Blackline X12, along with a floor mounted CSX112 for added sub-bass.

Other components in the audio infrastructure include BSS Soundweb routing matrix, Powersoft amplification, Soundcraft Performer 2 mixing desk (and Mini Stagebox) and Pioneer/Technics front end, while lighting includes custom pixel-mappable LED strips across the ceiling, along with conventional moving heads.

Said Cleto Capetta, “This state-of-the-art Martin Audio sound system delivers power and clarity that is unequalled in the South Coast for a venue of its size. This system allows Bau Wow to punch well above its weight within its category.”