Opened in 1956 as the UK’s first purpose-built TV centre, the Old Granada Studios is a landmark of central Manchester. Once home to Coronation Street, the studios are now at the centre of a major redevelopment featuring event spaces and hospitality venues including Manchester’s first Soho House and Mollie’s Motel & Diner. London-based system integration specialists, Tateside, led the vast AV installation across both the Soho House & Mollie’s sites.
“As part of our continued relationship with Soho House, we were pleased to be involved as technical partner for the first Soho House in the North of England,” explained Jack Cornish, Technical Director at Tateside. The two standalone projects called for Tateside to manage dozens of stakeholders, juggle timelines and remain flexible across very wide scopes of work.
The brief for Mollie’s was driven by the brand’s ambition to fuse quality hospitality with exciting and surprising customer experiences. The Manchester site encompasses guest rooms, a diner, reception, co-working areas and a purpose-built basement cocktail bar and performance space, with Studio IV at the creative heart of the integration project.
“Our remit was to deliver a range of AV systems, consistent with previous Mollie’s installs, and lead in shaping Studio IV into a fully-fledged live performance, broadcast and playback environment,” explained Cornish. “This included a Boiler Room–style set-up where live performances can be streamed to TVs across the premises, including for in-room entertainment.”
Studio IV is a basement cocktail bar and club space built around a vintage-style wraparound bar and a 3-metre-wide on-stage LED wall to support live performances or play pre-rendered content. Audio is delivered via a Martin Audio system built around FlexPoint FP15 loudspeakers and SXCF118 cardioid 18-inch subwoofers, with distributed CDD10 loudspeakers and dedicated stage monitors. Elipson XLS11 loudspeakers are integrated above the bar, while weatherised CDD loudspeakers extend coverage outdoors.
The DJ setup comprises Pioneer CDJs, an A9 Mixer, Technics turntables, Martin Audio CDD-LIVE-8 monitors, Shure microphones and an Allen & Heath digital mixing console.
Broadcast and streaming capability is central to the Studio IV concept. A multi-camera BirdDog PTZ system captures performances for live or recorded output. This feed can be distributed throughout the building via an IP video distribution system, allowing guests to watch Studio IV sessions live from other public areas and in-room TVs. A dedicated green room provides performers and production staff with live camera monitoring and return feeds.
“For Studio IV, we designed and fabricated retro video screens to form part of the distributed video-over-IP system. These sit flush within custom joinery above the bar,” explained Cornish. “Signage and live sports can be streamed on these screens.”
A stone’s throw away, Soho House’s first northern club is set across three floors, including club spaces, a lounge, a Club Bar, and soon-to-be-completed wellness and Health Club zones. For Tateside, the project focused on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors, including an impressive performance space on the 9th floor with a glass stage boasting views across the Manchester skyline.
The AV system designed by Tateside was conceived as an integrated, architecture-led solution, delivering high-quality AV systems and discreet and thoughtful detailing throughout. Q-SYS Core processing provides full integrated control of audio and video elements across the premises.
Beginning in the club reception, Tateside introduced a throughline of the concept established at Mollie’s with a further bespoke retro video wall, complete with vintage content from Granada. The seventh-floor club functions as a flexible events space, built around scalable kit that adapts to the many different types of functions hosted there.
A Martin Audio sound system in a white finish supports everything from spoken-word brand presentations to parties and drinks receptions with DJs. The space incorporates projection, wireless presentation capability via AirTame devices and a professional Sennheiser SL series wireless microphone system.
The mix of kit allows for easy reconfiguration between corporate events, private functions or even live performances. An Epson projector, concealed in a Future Automation projector lift, plus a 124-inch Screenline screen provides big-impact visuals.
The eighth floor, the heart of the house, transitions into a more relaxed club lounge environment with spectacular city views and an indoor/outdoor covered terrace. Here, the system is built around a further Martin Audio background audio solution, based on CDD6B units and SX210 and SX110 subwoofers.
A significant amount of Tateside’s integration efforts focused on clever concealment of tech in close coordination with the interior design team: loudspeakers, cabling and control infrastructure are fully integrated within custom joinery.
A motorised TV lift rises directly from bespoke millwork, maintaining clean sightlines in keeping with the Soho House aesthetic. Tateside supplied a Pioneer DJ kit including CDJ3000s and A9 Mixers to support in-house DJ sessions. The indoor–outdoor boundary is subtle, with weatherised audio solutions extending into the covered terrace area.
Outside, in the sunbed-lined pool and bar area, Origin Acoustics bollard-style loudspeakers and Martin Audio CCD6 marine-grade loudspeakers provide consistent coverage outdoors whilst still respecting the visual language of the space. Tateside equipped the club’s large wellness floor with a background audio system, also consisting of a Martin Audio solution paired with Powersoft Unica amplifiers and Q-SYS processing.
Moving up to the ninth floor, members find the club’s flagship performance level. It includes a large club space and a dedicated live performance area with a full stage, wrapped on three sides by glass walls overlooking the pool. “For the performance area, we went for a top-of-the-line performance system from d&b audiotechnik, based on 44S loudspeakers clustered in a stacked left-right arrangement,” explained Cornish. “The system can operate as a traditional stage performance L/R configuration or switch to a dedicated L/R system specifically for screen playback.”
Extensive custom woodworking throughout the venue ensures that every technical element is either architecturally incorporated or completely hidden, achieving a balance between performance capability and the refined members’ club aesthetics that Soho House is known for.
“Working on two separate projects in parallel presents obvious challenges, as does coordination with the various other contractors working on the Granada Studios sites,” continued Cornish. “What really shone during this project was our ability to project manage effectively and work flexibly around client needs and challenging deadlines. The scale of the two projects was vast, with us also responsible for implementing the entire network infrastructure at Soho House. It was a lot to manage, but we’re proud to have played a role in this celebration of Manchester’s broadcast heritage.”
