Beverley Knight is music royalty and has sung for royalty. She has performed with the likes of Prince and Take That. Now, she’s championing Auracast, and it’s all inspired by one of her most important audience members: her mum.
Her Born to Perform tour sees the star share some of her biggest hits, musical theatre favourites, and the cherished songs that have inspired her journey. The show currently criss-crossing the UK sees Beverley share her story; six of the dates feature the new Bluetooth LE Audio technology. If theatregoers in Bath, Bristol, London, Southend, Cardiff, and Wolverhampton don’t have their own Auracast-enabled listening devices, they can borrow the Auri receivers and plug in wired headphones or, for Telecoils, a personal loopset and hear the Auracast.
The seeds for this project came from a team meal on Beverley’s previous tour. Her sound engineer Adam Waller was chewing the fat with a colleague over whether the star’s mum, cochlear-implant-wearing Dolores, was able to fully enjoy watching her daughter on stage – after all, nobody cheers louder for you than your own mum. When Adam learnt that she couldn’t hear as much as she wanted, he lent her a pair of headphones linked to the sound output. It worked, but Adam wanted to do more to help others in the audience.
“I went home and said to my wife Dee, there must be hundreds and hundreds of people who cannot cope in these situations; they don’t have a good gig,” he says. “The more research we did, the more we found out that was the case and people stop going to them.”
This led to the launch of Open Door Audio, a sister company of Big Door Broadcast. Its aim is to deliver accessible audio solutions that make great sound simple.
“I said let’s get this out there,” he explains. “We had a couple of events with Beverley where Dolores came. We tried an Auri receiver with headphones, and she had a great, great gig. We then found she has a Telecoil in her cochlear, so we gave her a neckloop.”
The result was transformative, helping Beverley and Adam realise the potential of Auracast. Beverley was sent a video showing her mum singing along: an emotional experience for everyone as it had been a long time since this had last happened.
“To see her doing that again, not just years later but decades later, was almost too much as I knew what that meant to her – she couldn’t hear her daughter’s music the way she should have been able to,” the singer says.
The emotion was shared among Beverley’s group: her best friend was crying, her sister was “in bits”, and her mum’s sisters also had the pleasure of seeing the results of the Auracast firsthand. “This is a woman who used to sing and hadn’t sung in public because she couldn’t hear any pitch or key. Now she was singing along; Auracast gave her that joy again. It was so fundamentally profound. Iit’s like stepping into a light-filled room after having been in the dark forever.
“If Auracast can do that for my mum, whose hearing loss is pretty profound, then I want that experience for everybody who has hearing issues.”
Bringing Auracast to theatres and the world it opens up
For the six venues where Adam is masterminding the Auracast setup, he knows he can call on Ampetronic if he needs help. This ensures the Auri system can cover the whole auditorium, and people can sit anywhere and still hear perfectly.
At the time of writing, it has been successfully used in one venue, with five more to go. Beverley says she appreciated the certainty that audience members could use Auracast at the first show, held at The Forum in Bath on Tuesday, 9 June. She is optimistic that it will lead to a ripple effect.
“Going on stage, it was wonderful to know that it was an audience who could hear clearly,” she says. “Hopefully the people who accessed the Auracast have told their friends, who are telling their friends, and so it spreads.”
One of the advantages of Auracast is that it’s not just for the hearing impaired. People with additional needs can bring their own devices that are familiar and safe to them, and they don’t have to identify to staff that they need additional support. Adam explains: “They haven’t got to find anyone for help. Having something that’s super accessible is a game-changer. They can literally sit down, switch on and crack on.”
Beverley says that most theatre companies are already working to be inclusive, providing British Sign Language, audio descriptions, and shows with the lighting left low.
“Theatres are trying their best, but my goodness, Auracast could be a complete and utter game-changer, as Adam keeps saying. It gives people back their dignity. I think that word is really important because you don’t always want to feel a problem,” she continues.
“You walk into a theatre and have to go and find someone because you have a hearing issue, a sensitivity issue, or whatever. Now, you can walk in like anybody else and just enjoy the show in the way that it is designed for you.”
Adam is also hoping the technology can be used to help with hearing protection at festivals and concerts, particularly for families. As an example, they cite The Bodyguard – a West End musical Beverley starred in 10 years ago.
It opens with the sudden sound of a gunshot.
“I’d hear all the audience jump. How traumatising must that be?” Beverley adds. “The idea is it comes out of nowhere, it signals the start of the show and gets your attention, but for someone who is on the spectrum and struggles with that overload of aural sensitivity, it’s awesome to know there are fixes for that, and to know that the technology exists where people can still have a wonderful, comfortable experience in the theatre and not have to compromise anything.”
The Born To Perform tour and Adam’s Open Door Audio will help raise this awareness. Away from the show, Adam says: “The heart of what we are doing is in making a difference with Auracast. We are going to start to push across theatres, concert halls, town halls, churches, places of worship – anywhere where there’s amplified sound because then it becomes the standard.
“That’s what we’ve got to do. And Auracast is becoming the standard, which is super exciting.”
Beverley adds: “It is so important. Theatres need to get on board right now. The importance of pushing venues to install Auracast … it needs to happen like yesterday. People need to yell about it a bit more; you can install these systems but people need to know they exist.”
The singer hopes that Auracast goes beyond the theatres, sharing her frustration at struggling to hear announcements in railway stations and airports: “Navigating a train station is a nightmare; my mum just can’t hear the announcements. If she is aware that one is being made, it’s hard to get the clarity of it. I’ve got really good hearing and I can’t understand some of them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could just access Auracast in places where we know announcements are always horrible?”
Yes, it’s about Beverley’s mum, but Auracast is bigger than that
While Beverley’s mum was the catalyst for making Auracast a key part of the Born To Perform tour, it’s not the be-all and end-all for the star.
“Initially, my motivation was that I want my mum to be able to hear me sing and when we go to the theatre have her follow along with the story instead of saying, ‘Well, I got the gist of it’,” she explains. “But that’s not good enough for me. How many more Dolores are out there? We know Auracast exists for them.
“If speaking up for adopting Auracast in a very public way means we become something of a beacon, and through Adam’s company Open Door, then brilliant, I will shine the biggest 10k spotlight on Open Door so I can say this exists, people – come and be a part of it.”
For more on Beverley Knight’s Born To Perform tour, visit: https://beverleyknight.komi.io/
Open Door Audio’s website contains more information about Auracast and how it can be used in a public venue. For more details, log on to: https://www.opendooraudio.co.uk/
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