The inaugural Listen Champion Award, honoring those exemplifying leadership in assistive listening, was presented to Bill Register of the Nederlander Producing Company at a ceremony in New York City on October 14.
Leo Garrison (left) of Metro Sound Pros presents the inaugural Listen Champion Award to Bill Register (right) of the Nederlander Producing Company.
Register is the director of facilities and theater management for Nederlander, owner of nine Broadway theaters, and he has spearheaded the effort to bring the latest assistive listening technology to Broadway.
The ListenLoop technology employed brings an audio signal directly to a t-coil enabled hearing aid or cochlear implant, covering the entire seating area of a theater. As a non-segmenting means to provide assistive listening, the hearing impaired no longer need to undergo self-identifying by sitting in a special area or picking up a special device, while enjoying a huge increase in fidelity.
“Our goal at Listen Technologies is to highlight and express our gratitude to those who endlessly work to help accommodate people with hearing loss, and with that in mind, we have established the Listen Champion Award,” Cory Schaeffer, Listen Technologies co-founder and vice president of business development, stated. “Our first recipient, Bill Register, is a stellar example of what we honor. His actions to support assistive listening implementation and advocacy are making a huge difference on Broadway, and we acknowledge and appreciate the work he is doing. His efforts are to be applauded.”
Thus far, the Gershwin Theatre and the Richard Rodgers Theatre have been renovated with ListenLoop. Budgets have been approved to begin deployment of the solution at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in January. Register plans to continue implementing the solution in Nederlander’s venues, and he is also working with other Broadway theater owners in hopes of spreading the assistive listening initiative.
Metro Sound Pros of Washingtonville, NY was responsible for the AV systems design and installation of Nederlander’s theater venues. Leo Garrison of Metro Sound Pros presented the award to Register. The integrator is known for its works on assistive listening projects and is currently working on ListenLoop deployments at the Bronx Zoo, The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, as well as some retail pharmacies and banks.
