London, U.K. (December 16, 2025)—With a capacity of only 890, North London’s Islington Assembly Hall is as likely to host an underplay show by Foo Fighters or Doechii as it is to serve up up-and-coming act like Exploring Birdsong, or vintage faves like Jeff Tweedy or Altered Images. The venue opened in March, 1930, but it has changed with the times, and recently took delivery of a complete Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system supplied by audio specialists Patchwork London.
The new system is includes an S5000 surface at front of house with an S3000 at monitors. Each surface is partnered by a 48 input / 24 output dLive DM48 MixRack equipped with Dante 64×64 audio networking card. Patchwork also provided analog splits and cases.
Patchwork London’s sales director Louis Jemmott noted, “Our Senior project manager Chris Parker visited IAH during a run of shows in December 2024 and began discussions with the venue’s technical manager, Tom Watt, about upgrading their existing mixers. While various options were discussed, we quickly felt that dLive was the best option for the venue’s requirements. We began with demos of a compact dLive C1500 and CDM32 MixRack and ultimately settled on the S-Class surfaces as being the ideal solution.”
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Watt agreed that the dLive arrangement would be a good fit for the venue: “A compact footprint is a big consideration for in-house desks these days and I’m really happy with how many channels and control features the surfaces manage to pack in without taking up unnecessary space. A large proportion of the desks that visiting engineers bring in are Allen & Heath—often dLive—so having the S5000 in particular gives them the option of working on a larger surface if they prefer.”
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Watt sums up his thoughts on the dLive system by saying, “I’m a sound engineer by background and having spent time behind the desk recently, I genuinely love it. It sounds fantastic and feels like the natural evolution of the previous generations. Everything is exactly where you want it to be, and it’s incredibly quick to troubleshoot. I’m really happy with our choice, and all of our house engineers agree it’s the best fit for our venue.”
