FELONS BARREL ROOM, MANLY WHARF

A detailed gear list can be found at the bottom of this case study.

23/4/26

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A d&b audiotechnik system install is the perfect brew for a new live venue in Manly Wharf.

Felons Brewing Co is obviously doing something right when it comes to making beer. After the great success of opening a Felons brewery in Brisbane, tucked under the Story Bridge, the company could set its sights on a Sydney venue, and what better place than the Manly Wharf?

If you’re not familiar with the place, Manly Wharf has long since become much more than a creaky jetty where ferries bash alarmingly into the timbers before disgorging commuters. Over decades, the Manly Wharf has evolved into a thriving tourist destination of its own, with restaurants, shops, and all kinds of amusement features to suit everyone. There’s no need for tourists to actually leave the wharf, really – but don’t say that too loud on Manly’s main street.

The Felons Brewery there has been established for a while, but it recently had the opportunity to expand into a vacated space next door which used to be an Aldi supermarket. What made this expansion possible, in part, is how the NSW Government introduced its Vibrancy Reforms to improve the night-time economy, realigning the requirements on entertainment and live music venues, acknowledging that it’s an important industry in its own right that needs support and encouragement.

The result is the Felons Barrel Room, dedicated to live music of all sorts along with comedy shows and pretty much anything that uses a stage and microphones.

THE CHALLENGE

An ex-supermarket – not exactly the Royal Albert Hall. With real estate above and to each side of the stage coming at a premium, Felons Barrel Room needed a loudspeaker solution with as small a footprint as possible yet still packing serious punch.

Jaia Conte, the Production Manager and Audio Engineer from Felons Barrel Hall in Brisbane, contacted Bruce Johnston (Johnston Audio) to design a d&b system suitable for local and touring artists. After reviewing the requirements, Bruce thought it would be a good idea to involve his friends from Factory Sound to help with the background system, band lighting, video system, and the overall AV interface and design.

Justin Mackay, Projects Manager at Factory Sound, took charge of the bulk of the installation, working with Bruce to push through the short timeline leading up to the completion date of late December. To accommodate this the Factory Sound crew often did night shifts. At least a cold beer was never far away.

The hard part? “The low ceiling,” says Justin without hesitation. “The whole building has a low profile and it’s not like we could rip out a suspended ceiling and discover tons of space above. It made sightlines for both the PA and lighting really tricky, and we spent a lot of time coming up with a workable design.”

The plan was fairly traditional in terms of a live venue – a stage at one end of the room with PA and lighting to suit, however an added extra would be a virtual ‘backdrop’ created behind the stage using an LED display. Everything had to be installed, meaning the staging itself, new truss to mount both the lighting and loudspeakers, and despite those relaxed regulations, a lot of soundproofing.

THE FIX

Bruce reached out to NAS for assistance with a system plan and plot. With the limitations of the roof and stage heights, it was settled on that d&b KSL subs would fit perfectly under the stage (20mm clearance) to accompany d&b A-Series ALi90/ALi60 boxes for the main and outer PA, with some E8s for the centre fill.

“You need the power and clarity cutting almost flat, straight down the room with very little elevation of the PA at the stage, and the A-Series suited that perfectly,” says Justin. “Even when the place is packed you’re still getting full coverage at the back of the room. Nowhere in the space is compromised because of that limited ceiling room. The ability to precisely focus the loudspeakers helped a lot in keeping the sound exactly where we wanted it, and reduced the need for further soundproofing. In the end, we did add some E8 fill boxes as a down fill directly in front of the stage, but that’s all in what you’d call performance mode. Also, because of the small profile of the A-Series, we found plenty of room for the lighting fixtures and where they could be focused.”

“Justin and the Factory Sound team were amazing and really were the main reason we got the room ready for opening on time,” reflects Bruce. “Jono Sinclair from Factory Sound supplied some amazing drawings and cable layouts which made the job seamless with all the trades.”

The virtual backdrop behind the stage ended up being an 8×2m LED screen. In any venue, that’s a bold place to position a display, so Absen’s NX Series was the natural choice. The technology used in the NX1.8 delivers two key advantages for this kind of environment. First, its exceptionally high 7680Hz refresh rate and strong contrast ratio ensure the screen holds its own against any lighting design, maintaining clean, flicker-free visuals even under bright stage washes. Second, the panel’s excellent 16-bit colour greyscale performance brings real depth and nuance to the image, preserving detail in both dark and bright content. The NX1.8’s visual performance makes it perfectly suited to a busy stage backdrop where lighting, movement, and energy levels can all be unpredictable.

THE RESULT

Felons Barrel Room has become a premium venue in the Sydney scene. The d&b audiotechnik PA provides superb sound throughout, and the Absen displays are a stunning backdrop that’s had visiting acts rethinking just what can be done in creative and innovative ways. However, it’s not all high-profile, famous faces. The Barrel Room has its quieter times, and for these Factory Sound installed control panels that offered ‘simple’ modes for the PA that are operable by the venue staff. Also, some d&b audiotechnik 8S speakers and 12S subwoofers were mounted along the back wall to create a comfortable level of ambient of BGM instead having the FOH running loud.

From the beginning, NAS provided support and advice all the way. Justin tells us, “Product and client support from NAS is amazing. Nothing is too hard, and they always get back to you straight away for any query. You couldn’t ask for more from a distributor.”

Felons Barrel Room, Manly Wharf is going to be a live entertainment hotspot for the foreseeable future, and thanks to d&b audiotechnik, Absen screens, Johnston Audio, Factory Sound and NAS, it’s guaranteed to be a fantastic experience every night.

And your ferry trip home is just at the end of the wharf.

d&b audiotechnik

Absen

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FELONS BARREL ROOM
E Esplanade, Manly Wharf
Sydney, NSW
felonsbrewingco.com.au/felons-barrel-room

GEAR LAYOUT

L/R PA: ALi60 3× per side
Down fill: 4× E8 loudspeakers
Out fills: 4× ALi60
Subs: 4× KSLi-Subs built into the stage
BGM System: 8× 8S loudspeakers, 2× 12S subwoofers
Amps: 4× 40D amplifiers, 2× 10D amplifiers

GEAR LIST

Hover image

d&b ALi60 loudspeaker

Installation specific 2-way augmented array
Components: 2× 10-inch LF, 1× 1.4-inch compression driver with 3-inch coil
Dispersion: 60° × 30°
Max. SPL: 139dB
Weight: 22kg