Wells-next-the-Sea sits on the North Norfolk coast and, like many small coastal communities, its population grows from just a few thousand to many times that number every summer. After years of planning, fundraising and community support, in 2016 a major extension and rebuilding programme began to transform the Grade II listed building into a state-of-the-art cultural hub for the whole area.

Drama by Design worked on the design of the building as well as design of all the specialist systems. The new lighting system is all LED with a range of Chauvet fixtures: spot, fresnels alongside some ETC Cyc Floods flown from a combination of bars suspended from the wooden beams of the maltings roof, all restored during the refurbishment, via custom made clamps that fit around the beams to mount the lighting bars, without any fixings into the listed beams.

There are two distinct audio systems installed in the theatre: a QSC speaker system for the cinema presentations and separate LD System Stinger system for live performance and an Allen & Heath QU24 console connected via category cable to remote I/O boxes enabling the console to be used anywhere in the space.

The theatre is equipped with a full DCI compliant cinema system with Barco Alchemy projection system fed from a Lansat satelllite delivery system which can be used for theatre performances and presentations via HDMI inputs around the space. An electric roller projection screen is provided at the back of the stage mounted on winch enabling projection height to be adjusted.

The theatre and cinema audio and video systems (as well as the houselights which were provided as part of the specialist systems) are all controlled via an Extron touch panel enabling quick and easy reconfiguration and operation of all the systems.