Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Article (trade association feature on two theatres)

How Auracast is changing access to live theatre

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/bihima-2026-auracast-live-theatre/ · record checked 9 October 2026

  • BIHIMA
  • British Irish Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association (BIHIMA)

Trade body (BIHIMA, the association of hearing instrument manufacturers in the UK and Ireland; the feature quotes staff of two theatres using Ampetronic's Auri system and credits Ampetronic with guidance during funding and installation at one of them)

Summary

A hearing-instrument makers' association reports two UK theatres' experience of replacing or supplementing older assistive listening with an Auracast system.

Key findings

  • Reports that the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham found its infrared system no longer fit for purpose: some parts were close to 20 years old, headsets regularly failed, coverage in the listed Victorian building was inconsistent, and under the dress circle the signal could drop out; a staff member says "We were turning people away because we didn’t have enough working headsets".
  • Says that with Auracast, Everyman audiences can sit anywhere and need not book equipment in advance; patrons with Auracast-enabled hearing devices or smartphones connect directly, and the theatre lends simple handheld receivers to others.
  • Says the Everyman launched the system with an accessibility open day and trained front-of-house staff to support users and troubleshoot basic problems; a charitable trust helped fund the upgrade, and Ampetronic, which makes the system, advised during funding and installation.
  • Says the broadcast can take a feed straight from the sound desk as its own mix that prioritises voices, as Contact's production manager in Manchester describes. At Contact, BSL interpreters gave feedback, and early trials showed that device settings such as ambient microphones left on could affect clarity; a direct-feed-only mode made a marked difference.
  • States that the latency is so low "that lip-readers struggle to detect any delay at all", without giving a figure, and reports an Everyman patron, deaf for many years, moved to tears by the clarity.
  • Notes that not all hearing devices are Auracast-enabled yet and that the theatres' receivers fill the gap meanwhile; other venues have visited to trial the systems.
  • The Everyman describes choosing its system after "having conversations – with our audiences, and with organisations like Gloucestershire Deaf Association", and links those conversations to problems with its old infrared system.

Limits

Promotional feature by an association of hearing-aid makers, built on staff quotations and anecdotes, with no measurements, latency figures, user counts or costs. Its statement that Auri is the only Auracast-based assistive listening system currently available in the UK is the association's own; other records in this library describe a UK arts centre and a UK church using other Auracast equipment.

Read the original

www.bihima.com/how-auracast-is-changing-access-to-live-theatre

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Cited in

Cite this source

BIHIMA. How Auracast is changing access to live theatre. British Irish Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association (BIHIMA). 2 April 2026. https://www.bihima.com/how-auracast-is-changing-access-to-live-theatre/ (accessed 9 October 2026).

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