The Performance Laboratory open at London’s Royal College Of Music

31 January 2024 - Press release

THE PERFORMANCE SIMULATOR COMBINES STATE-OF-THE-ART ACOUSTIC & VISUAL GRAPHICS TO REFINE PERFORMANCES IN REAL-WORLD CONDITIONS  

PLUS 

PREPARES STUDENTS FOR THE STRESS-INDUCING ENVIRONMENTS OF A REAL PERFORMANCE 

 

The Performance Laboratory - a fully immersive, pioneering performance simulation facility open at London’s Royal College of Music (RCM). Produced in partnership with global creative studioAmmonite, the Performance Laboratory combines state-of-the-art acoustics, simulation technology, and visual graphics to allow students and musicians to refine performances in real-world, dynamic conditions with reactive virtual audiences. 

The Performance Laboratory, funded by a £1.9 million grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the World Laboratories Fund, is an integral part of Royal College of Music’s Centre for Performance Science, which has been in partnership with Imperial College London since 2015.  Housing the latest acoustic and visual simulation technologies, the Performance Laboratory features massive floor-to-ceiling screens within a public concert venue. Capable of simulating real-world performance scenarios, the Performance Laboratory aids the training of RCM students to give them valuable exposure to the pressures of performing to a live audience.

Within the Performance Laboratory, Ammonite’s work places the performers at centre stage, ready to test their skills. It provides a virtual environment with avatars depicting audiences or audition panels that confronting performers with the pressures, anxieties and nerves they experience in real-life settings. Perspective scenery has been used to represent a three-dimensional space on a flat surface, creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance. The technology uses the latest visual graphics designed by Tony award-winning design studio FRAY, which drives the latest video game engine Unreal, to simulate different auditorium sizes and various audiences. Computer manufacturer G2 Digital was enlisted to design the hardware platform, and sound designer Carolyn Downing incorporated all the distracting sounds a performer may encounter onstage, from coughing to the pinging of mobile phones. Combined with the space’s ability to simulate different acoustic environments, performers are immersed in the realistic world of a performance.

The Royal College of Music has built this highly developed simulator to prepare its students for the stress-inducing environments the world of live performance often inflicts. In partnership with Imperial College, the Performance Laboratory provides researchers with invaluable insight and data to see how individuals deal with stress. The simulator also has broader applications as a training facility in other fields, notably for politicians, TV presenters, and CEOs, and the space is available to hire for bespoke training and experiential sessions

Jon Lyle, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Ammonite, said: ‘It is a great honour to work with the Royal College of Music and their Centre for Performance Science to develop this highly innovative Performance Laboratory. We believe this state-of-the-art space will best prepare RCM students to deal with the stress and challenges of live performances. We want to thank all the students and partners who helped make this happen’.

Aaron Williamon, Head of the Royal College of Music’s Centre for Performance Science, said: ‘We’re thrilled to open this world-leading Performance Laboratory at the Royal College of Music, a groundbreaking tool for the pioneering performance research at the College. Unequalled in its immersive capabilities through the unique combination of cutting-edge technologies, the spaces will create unparalleled opportunities for our students to prepare for the challenges of a modern music industry as well as propelling research in this field across multiple disciplines’.

George Waddell, Performance Research and Innovation Fellow at the Royal College of Music said: ‘Since its introduction in 2011, we’ve used the original RCM Performance Simulator to help thousands of RCM students and professionals from organisations such as the Imperial College Business School, Football Association, and Google hone their skills of live performance under pressure. The new Performance Laboratory will be transformational in the range and realism of situations for which we can help performers adapt and prepare’.

Ammonite drew on many disciplines to help create the state-of-the-art PerformanceLaboratory, including lighting control between the physical and digital realms. Psychologically, the Performance Laboratory creates the same challenging exposures of a real performance, such as impaired vision through the impact of stage lighting. Any change of colour or change in lighting effects is reflected onto the digital audience to match the environment a musician would expect in a physical space. 

Founded in 2018 by co-founders and creative directors Jon Lyle and Rob Casey, Ammonite is a leading creative studio renowned for designing experiences across theatre, live events, and installations. Merging video and lighting expertise, Ammonite has contributed towards some of the most innovative and successful productions in the arts, including the award-winning Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Les Misérables and the upcoming Oscar Wilde adaptation The Picture of Dorian Gray in London. 

To learn more about the Performance Laboratory and the Royal College of Music’s pioneering research, please visit here.