Northcott Theatre

A Brand New Fire Alarm & Voice Evacuation System has recently been installed at Exeter’s Premier Entertainment Attraction, The Northcott Theatre. The theatre is situated within the campus of the University of Exeter. Alarmtec Ltd is a university preferred supplier of fire protection, so this was a natural progression of work development. The system specification changed a number of times during the design phase, but because the equipment used is extremely flexible changes were straight forward.

The fire detection control panel is a Kentec 4 loop syncro with 72hour standby, together with 2 display only repeater panels. These are strategically placed to enable early indication of fire information. The detection equipment is university preferred Hochiki, together with Vesda air sample detection. “The air sampling did cause us some initial concerns, theatres are notorious for using pyrotechnic and smoke effects” said Peter Newman of Alarmtec. To avoid this problem Alarmtec designed and built, their own disablement time controller, indicating fire conditions, and preventing accidental switching off of disablements.

The 6 zone, DSP controlled routing matrix, VAPA rack with hot swappable amps, was built to Alarmtec’s specification. Two zonal fireman’s microphones with message control were installed at the public entrances to allow the fire services to make live direct announcements in the event of an emergency. The theatre sound engineers can access the system from their patch bay and provide zonal background music as required anywhere in the building.

For more information please call Alarmtec Ltd on 01392 881620