No control over the theatre's sound levels?
My wife and I booked tickets for the Jersey Boys musical at Hull New Theatre on Thursday, 1 October 2026. We have previously attended many shows at the theatre, generally sitting in the same row at the back of the Circle (usually, row NN).
Unfortunately, because of the consistently poor sound level of the dialogue, our enjoyment of the show was significantly affected. The following day, since we’ve never before experienced such difficulty in hearing the dialogue of the performers of a show at the venue, we raised a formal complaint with Hull City Council (who operate the theatre) to express our dissatisfaction and disappointment.
The New Theatre section of the council’s Hull Culture and Leisure website states: ‘We have adopted the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman definition of a complaint...’, and that ‘If you are not satisfied with the response or how we have chosen to handle your issues you will be directed to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman.’
The Council’s Stage 1 response to our complaint was dismissive and fell significantly short of providing a satisfactory resolution to the matter: the substance of the complaint was effectively ignored and the specific point about how this kind of situation might be avoided in future productions simply hadn’t been addressed.
We were informed that the Jersey Boys production used all their own sound equipment and that this was operated by the touring company’s own dedicated and professional sound engineers. The response went on to confirm that the theatre staff did receive a complaint during the interval that evening regarding the sound, and the theatre’s 'Duty Tech' spoke with the touring sound engineers about the issue. That was effectively the full extent of the response we received. However, my wife and I had noticed no discernible improvement after the interval.
The response letter then stated: ‘I hope that the above provides a satisfactory resolution to the matter.’ Clearly, there was no resolution, so we escalated our complain to Stage 2 of the procedure.
Stage 2 consisted of the theatre’s Technical & Productions Manager confirming that he had looked at the details provided in Stage 1 of the procedure and found it accurate and agreed with the findings. My wife and I were puzzled by this because we didn’t feel there were any findings relating to the substance of our complaint, other than to confirm there was an issue with the sound during that evening’s performance.
The Stage 2 response did however provide the following information:
The production toured a full audio package, including FOH [Front of House] console, radio mics, along with full ranging PA system to cover the venue – the sound system is the production choice and considered the best option for the show – Hull New Theatre is a receiving house and all the equipment for this production was supplied and operated by the touring technical crew as is often the case for fully staged week long shows.
It continued: ‘Daily show and interval reports are logged, and any sound complaints are passed through to the sound engineers to see if any adjustments are necessary’, and further states that the Hull New Theatre venue ‘does not have any control over toured equipment or personnel hired by the touring production company.’
This would imply that any touring show with its own ‘full audio package’ being used during a run at any ‘receiving theatre’ will necessarily completely by-pass the tried and tested in-house PA system, resulting in the receiving theatre’s Tech team having absolutely no control over the sound of the performances it is charging its patrons to see.
Surely this cannot be the case? If a touring show comes with its own ‘full audio package’, as claimed, then shouldn’t the receiving theatre insist on the output of that audio package being delivered through the theatre’s in-house system (which inevitably will have been calibrated to perform to such a level that it will be clearly heard in all seats in the venue)?
One of our primary concerns was what measures the theatre has in place (or could put in place) to reduce the likelihood of such an issue arising in the future. The answer is clear. The Stage 2 response included the following statement: ‘Daily show and interval reports are logged, and any sound complaints are passed through to the sound engineers to see if any adjustments are necessary.’, but this is rather disingenuous if, as previously stated in the response, the receiving theatre ‘‘does not have any control over toured equipment or personnel hired by the touring production company.’
This was a very dismissive and disappointing response to a genuine complaint.
Very poor show!
Perhaps this should be an issue for Trading Standards, rather than the LG & SC Ombudsman?