HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s newly unveiled East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC) is positioning itself at the forefront of Arts-Tech innovation, underpinned by a HK$4.1 billion investment and a vision to function as a fully integrated ‘living laboratory’ for immersive, technology-driven performance. Designed to support the entire creative lifecycle — from conceptualisation and development through to rehearsal and live presentation — the complex has adopted a unified audio strategy built around d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape platform.

At the core of this approach is the decision to deploy d&b Soundscape across all key performance and production spaces, enabling a single, scalable system to handle diverse requirements ranging from live performance and immersive theatre to cinematic presentation and variable acoustics.

“Soundscape just plays nice with whatever you’re trying to achieve,” explains Kelvin Yuen, Education and Application Support Service Manager at d&b. “But without good guidance, a venue like EKCC might think it needs a sound system for live concerts, a separate system for cinema content, and a third system for variable acoustics. This can quickly get out of control cost-wise, installation-wise, and operator overhead, when in fact you can do it all with Soundscape.”

The audio concept was developed in collaboration with Theatreplan, with Executive Director Mathew Smethurst-Evans engaging d&b audiotechnik UK to deliver a future-ready solution aligned with both emerging technologies and long-term operational reliability.

“The EKCC, and the region’s technicians care very much about the longevity of equipment – will it stand up to daily use, will it just keep working? And d&b products do just that. Incoming engineers also know that someone at d&b will have been part of the component selection and system configuration. It’s a real testament to d&b’s outreach training and accessibility of information, and it’s put this venue at a very particular quality level,” he stated.

Four permanent d&b Soundscape systems, designed and integrated by d&b audiotechnik Greater China, have been deployed across the venue’s primary spaces. The studio environments, known as ‘Incubators’, alongside ‘The Lab’ (a dedicated work-in-progress venue) feature full 360° configurations utilising E and V-Series loudspeakers, complemented by the ultra-compact, flush-mountable 44S.

The Theatre, a 500-seat thrust-stage venue, is similarly equipped with V-Series arrays for main coverage, supported by fill and surround elements to maintain immersive consistency across the audience area.

At the top end of the scale, The Hall (a 1,200-capacity multipurpose venue with a proscenium format) deploys more than 100 loudspeakers arranged throughout the space, anchored by five full-range Y-Series arrays above the stage. In collaboration with Dolby Atmos, a d&b Custom Solutions-engineered pre-rigged dolly system comprising five ViP and Bi-SUB sets delivers cinematic playback, supported by B22-SUBs for low-frequency performance. This mobile configuration allows the system to be rapidly repositioned, enabling seamless transitions between live and film-based content.

All installed Soundscape systems are powered by next-generation amplification, including the high-density, install-specific 5D, while a fifth mobile Soundscape system provides additional flexibility for evolving production requirements.

The creative potential of the system was demonstrated during the venue’s opening production, Highlights – The Memories of Charles Kao, a musical inspired by the life of Nobel Physics Laureate Charles Kao. Multi-award-winning Sound Designer Ha Yan-pui leveraged Soundscape’s object-based and spatial processing tools to craft a highly immersive experience.

“An immersive system like Soundscape can create effects far richer than before,” says Ha Yan-pui. “We used En-Scene for many moving sound elements, and I particularly love En-Space for its ability to simulate different rooms and produce powerful envelopment.” Reflecting on a key moment in the production, he adds that En-Space was used to recreate the acoustic signature of the Stockholm Concert Hall, enveloping the audience in the atmosphere of the Nobel Prize ceremony with striking realism.

For Musical Director Johnny Yim, the transition to immersive audio represents a fundamental shift in audience experience. “I could never go back to stereo,” he says. “The difference between immersive audio and stereo or surround sound is tremendous, especially in a large venue. With an immersive system, the sound is evenly distributed across the audience rather than relying on just two arrays. Regardless of where you sit, you hear a consistent, high-quality mix. Physically, more speakers should mean more interference, attenuation, and delay — but the Soundscape processor handles all of that intelligently.”

Central to this capability are Soundscape’s En-Scene and En-Space tools. En-Scene enables engineers to position and move up to sixty-four individual sound objects within a performance space, while En-Space provides in-line acoustic emulation, allowing environments to be reshaped or entirely redefined using pre-captured room signatures.

Although still in its early operational phase, EKCC’s fully integrated Soundscape infrastructure is already redefining expectations for production workflows. The ability to emulate The Hall’s acoustic characteristics within the Incubators offers incoming productions a powerful pre-production advantage—enabling shows to be pre-mixed and refined in a realistic sonic environment before entering the main venue.

“Sound is a creative discipline,” says Adam Hockley, Global Performing Arts Manager at d&b. “But depending on a director’s priorities, and sometimes because the role isn’t always fully understood, the sound designer often isn’t brought into the creative team until much later in a show’s developmental journey. But at EKCC, with such completely integrated technical facilities, the opportunity is there for the sound designer to join the table much sooner and with the most cutting-edge technology available at every stage of the process, from rehearsals in the studio to the main auditorium. And when sound is fully integrated from the start, there’s no telling what can be achieved technically and creatively, and ultimately for the audience what that experience might be.”

With its comprehensive deployment of d&b Soundscape, EKCC is not only establishing a new benchmark for immersive performance spaces in Asia, but also redefining how technology can be embedded into the creative process itself—unlocking new possibilities for artists, engineers, and audiences alike.