Rudman's city: Rockin' and rollin' and gettin' seasick at Civic

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Whatever you might think of John Banks as a politician, he is proving to have the entrepreneurial touch. It's a long time since any mayor was able to attract sellout crowds to consecutive council meetings.

If he keeps pulling the audiences in, the Auckland City Council will have to consider moving its meetings down the street to the more spacious Civic Theatre. But first it might be as well to solve the problem of the trampoline floor.

You wouldn't want bouncing protesters vibrating the floor so much that the mayor and his fellow seated councillors became overcome with seasickness. Well you wouldn't, would you?

By this you will have gathered that the saga of the Civic's oversprung stalls floor is yet to be resolved. So is the matter of the failure of the sound-proofing between the main auditorium and the Wintergarden entertainment complex below.

First, the excessively bouncy floor. Back in August last year, some of the more sedate visitors to the Buddy Holly Show in the main theatre feared their seats were about to plummet through the floor into the Wintergarden when exuberant members of the audience leaped to their feet and started bopping along to the music.

A subsequent official report claimed the bounce was just 8mm and was quite safe. However, it did concede the rocking was "causing a discomfort perception to patrons" who remained seated.

Councillors duly agreed to spend $50,000 on installing two new, vibration-deadening pillars.

It my sad duty to report that the two pillars have been installed and have reduced the vibrating by only about 10 per cent. This, says development project manager Terry Mansfield in a report to councillors, "is not sufficient to reduce deflections such that seated patrons will not perceive any 'uncomfortable' level of vibration in audience participation shows".

To be fair to Mr Mansfield, he had predicted in August last year that two pillars would not "adequately resolve the patron discomfort issue".

To do that would need a third column and some additional connecting beams to redistribute the load. This work would cost an additional $50,000 to $75,000. The council has now agreed to install this third column.

In fact, at Mr Mansfield's behest, it has agreed to splash out on two more temporary columns as well. These "may be installed only for shows which are likely to generate significant audience response". Like the John Banks show, perhaps.

"The combined benefit of all five additional columns will allow audiences in the stalls to rhythmically dance at their seats without floor vibration alarming seated patrons," said last year's report. Just to be on the safe side, however, "audience dancing in the aisles and in the circle will not be permitted".

Installing the new columns will require closing the auditorium and the Wintergarden for six to eight weeks. For that reason, the period December 2002 to January 2003, when bookings for both venues is low, has been chosen as a time when "negligible revenue impacts are likely".

As if the vibrating floor is not problem enough, the Civic, which reopened in November 1999 after a $42 million refit, also has acoustic problems.

Theatre-goers in the main auditorium can be disturbed by loud music - particularly the unlovely thud of bass notes - from the Wintergarden underneath. Testing last year showed that the acoustic shielding between floors was up to 10 per cent below specification.

Sound-proofing was supposed to have been achieved by suspending two concrete slabs in the cavity between the two floors. When the theatre first reopened, everyone involved was busy congratulating each other about how successful they had been in sound-proofing the theatre spaces one from the other.

But as the months went by, low-frequency bass noise generated in the Wintergarden started to be heard upstairs. Things got steadily worse until it reached the stage where The Edge management had to avoid bookings where potential clashes of the bands could occur.

The hypothesis is that the heavy steel rods on which the two concrete slabs are suspended are somehow acting as conductors for the noise. This, despite more than 1000 rubber isolators put in just to stop such things happening. The problem has worsened, the theory goes, as the concrete slabs slowly settle against the rods.

Last August officials got permission to attempt possible solutions. While a little work was carried out there were worries about spending up to $750,000 on trial cures when no one was certain what was really causing the problem.

Towards the end of this month model trials will take place at Auckland University's acoustic laboratories to try to get to the bottom of the "why" problem by trying to diagnose what is causing the noise transfer, then testing to see if the proposed solution will work.

Oh yes, and while they are at it there's also a comfort problem with the theatre's seating, particularly after a long movie. Results of an independent laboratory test "are inconclusive in regards to what may be the cause of the discomfort".

Here, too, more research is seen as the answer. Patrons to the next show America will be quizzed for feedback about the seats.

"In due course," concludes Mr Mansfield, "remedial action may be identified to enhance comfort level perceptions."

In a roundabout sort of way, I guess the good news is that with underwhelming bookings for the venue, not too many are being inconvenienced.