We played the Great Hall at Kelham with our own PA on stage next to the house system, which was carrying the DJ and the room audio - two rigs live on the same stage for the evening. Load-in is a side door straight into the room, but there are steps between the door and the floor, so it is a heavier push than it looks. The hall is Victorian, scaled for 600, and part of a 42-acre estate outside Newark.
The Great Hall at Kelham
Kelham Hall - officially The Renaissance at Kelham Hall - is a Victorian country house built in 1863 in 42 acres near Newark-on-Trent. The Great Hall seats up to 600 for a banquet or a corporate evening and reconfigures for gala dinners and conferences. The A1 and A46 are both close and London is 90 minutes away, so events here pull delegates from across the country. It is one of the rooms on our Nottinghamshire and East Midlands run.
Load-in and setup
A side door at ground level opens straight into the Great Hall, so the van parks close and the kit wheels in with no lobbies or service corridors. The steps between the door and the room floor are the catch - build them into the crew and the call time. Inside, the hall is a big open space with height above it and enough technical infrastructure to run two systems at once. We ran our own PA for the band while the house rig handled the DJ and the room audio, which keeps the live sound in our hands and the rest of the night in theirs.
Sharing the stage with a DJ
The night we played was a corporate party after a day of speeches and breakout sessions. The band and the DJ were on the stage together - the Great Hall is big enough that neither is in the other’s way - and we played our set, then handed over for the late end. The events team ran the timing: when dinner was clearing, when we went on, when the handover happened.
If you are putting a band and a DJ on one stage, settle the power, the stage footprint, the audio isolation and the transition times before the day. It works when both acts have the same brief and the venue coordinates the technical handover.
Band size for the Great Hall
The Great Hall takes an eight or eleven-piece and the scale asks for it; a smaller lineup reads thin in a room set for 600. We run in-ear monitors and never wedges, which also keeps the stage clear for the DJ rig sitting alongside.
Working with the venue
Kelham’s events team run the room, the catering, the conference flow through the day and the switch to the evening. The AV company was separate from our setup - we coordinated with them and stayed independent, which is the model that works at this size.
South Wales-based live bands for corporate events, working Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands regularly. Check our availability for your corporate evening, gala or conference event at Kelham Hall.
