The £18m Cultural Quarter project for Stoke-on-Trent includes the renovation of the Victoria Concert Hall and the reconstruction of the Edwardian Regent Theatre as a major touring venue for opera, ballet and musicals. The project received funding from England’s Arts Lottery in May 1995 and was completed in 1999.

The previously neglected Regent Theatre was given a new stage house, orchestra pit, control rooms and backstage facilities. AD designed adjustable acoustics by providing doors which open to sound-absorbent recesses within the existing wall thickness.

The theatre was shortened by one structural bay to make space for the new stage house. To retain the sightlines and sound lines, the balcony and stalls were re-raked. Decorative acoustically transparent plaster panels rescued from the original theatre were reinstated as acoustically reflective panels adjacent to the proscenium. These help singers to project their voices over the sound of the orchestra.

As a further part of the reconstruction, new control rooms were installed at the rear of the stalls in an area that was once under a deep balcony overhang.

The concave surfaces of the dome can cause "hot spots" in the audience area. These will vary with the location of a performer and the direction in which a performer is facing. Such sound focussing will create image shifts, false localization of sound and other undesirable acoustical characteristics. Our studies showed that it was the areas at the rear of the dome that gave rise to the most serious sound focusing effects. We were able to employ the acoustical shaping of the lighting slots to break up the sound focussing and provide even sound coverage to the audience seating area.

Our acoustical studies also showed the important role that the side walls columns play in moderating the potential echoes that are characteristic of so many other fan-shaped auditoria.