Fairgame City Outfitted With 100 Martin Audio Speakers

Fairgame has opened its second site, Fairgame City, at One New Change with views over St Paul's Cathedral, three years after debuting the concept in Canary Wharf.

Marketed as a giant playground for adults featuring classic fairground games, the new venue has been equipped with a comprehensive AV package by Middlesex Sound & Lighting (MSL), who also delivered the original site.

MSL specified around 100 Martin Audio loudspeakers for sound reinforcement, led by the CDD6, reflecting the integrator's long-standing preference for the CDD series. With the concept evolving, the team designed a scalable system to suit a 24,500 sq ft basement footprint that houses 12 games, street food, multiple bars and private event spaces. The predominantly CDD6 loudspeakers are partnered with SX110 subwoofers and divided across eight audio zones.

Higher-energy areas use BlacklineX systems — in the Main Bar, where the DJ operates with a pair of XP12 monitors, and in the Private Function Area — coupled with SX210 and SX212 subs. Ancillary spaces, including toilets, are covered by Martin Audio’s ADORN series.

The venue runs on a Dante network with BSS wall panels and Netgear switching, while effects and house lighting are tied into a roaming master iPad for unified control. The project was led by Toby Jones, who designed and commissioned the system alongside Fairgame co-founder Richard Hilton and COO Toby Cowan, with Steve Billington assisting on commissioning and iPad control integration.

To prevent sound leakage to the retail and dining spaces above, MSL adopted a distributed, under-driven approach using numerous loudspeakers mounted at precise heights on Powerdrive acoustic mounts or pole mounts. "It was really important to have lots of compact little boxes everywhere at the right height, with the correct orientation," he rationalised. "The ceilings were quite high, so these custom built, acoustic mount solutions kept the speakers at the correct height. The CDD6s provide a lovely distribution in combination with the compact SX110 subwoofers, mounted on the ceiling."

A walk-through of the eight zones starts with CDD6 units at the ground-floor entrance and reception, guiding guests towards the basement action. "In the main bar area, we deployed four Blackline X10 pole mounted from the ceiling on acoustic brackets, with two SX212 subwoofers with acoustic yokes firing down," Jones explained. "In the Private Function Area, we used eight Blackline X8, wall mounted, with three SX210 subs mounted to the ceiling to provide a nice low energy."

On the mezzanine level, toilet areas are served by ADORN ACS-40TS ceiling speakers and A40T models, with a pair of ADORN A55T along the customer routes to maintain even coverage. Remote oversight is built in: "Being able to monitor the system remotely over a Cloud is invaluable," he said.

MSL has also provided generous connectivity, including numerous Dante wall input points for iPods and two DJ positions to complement the existing Pioneer DJ set-up. Redundant Cat6 cabling allows further expansion and additional inputs as needed.

Commenting on the result, Toby Cowan, Fairgame's COO, said: "We couldn't be happier with the end result. MSL and Toby were great to work with, and the quality of the AV infrastructure is exceptional."

In a separate development, Ten Entertainment Group, operator of the Tenpin brand and backed by Trive Capital, has acquired Fairgame from founder Richard Hilton in a transaction understood to value the business at around £40m.

martinaudio.com