The World Conference Centre in Bonn, Germany was originally the Parliament House of West Germany back in the Cold War days. It actually has a pretty interesting history, in that it was the location for the first session of the West Germany parliament after Bonn was selected to be the host city. However, at the time, the only building that was large and undamaged enough was the local Academy, and the only room that was large enough was the gymnasium of the Academy!
So, from humble beginnings, this area become the location for the West German seat of government! These days, after the Germany reunification relocated the seat of governance back to Berlin, the building has been refurbished to serve as a multi-functional conference hall, hosting conferences, talks, and even concerts!
Well, it is the last use case that has most relevance to me as a musician, as it now becomes a place where I have done a few concerts.
Like most multi-functional venues, the entire building is designed to be quite modular and adaptable for each particular use case. On one particular day, it might be a dining conference with lots of tables and buffets, on another it might a dance floor... and then later it is a concert hall!
Sadly, the down side of that sort of modular design is the fact that these venues tend to be jack-of-all trades and master of none. This is evidenced by the quite uncomfortable seating for the audience.... which are just regular seating chairs that have been laid out in barely tiered rows. This makes for a pretty bad experience for those who are sitting further back, but at least there aren't any columns in the viewing lines!
The worst part about the multi-functional venues from a musician's point of view is the relatively terrible acoustics. In a large venue, speakers and conferences require a quite dead acoustic. You don't want lots of excess noise to muffle the clarity of speakers... however, for music, it is a different matter, you need a wetter acoustic to aid in the transmission and blending of the sounds from stage, and that is especially true when you have acoustic instruments that are not being aided by digital amplification. With amplification, you can pretty much ignore any acoustic limitations by adding acoustic or just turning the volume up!
There are little tricks that a venue can employ (besides an artificial acoustic), and these sound panels are part of the solution to help reflect sound through the stage and out towards the audience. However, these solutions can only take the edge off of what is fundamentally a speaking acoustic!
From the stage, it was difficult to hear, and it often felt like you were playing by yourself. From the audience, it felt like the orchestra was a long long way in the distance...
Well... what can I say, the conference centre is gigantic! We had our green rooms up in the upper levels... and for each instrument section, there was a HUGE room! Somehow... we didn't manage to fill it all out!
