We produce events with wireless headphones: concerts, dance pieces, sound itineraries, presentations and installations where the audience listens through headsets. The sound reaches each person directly, with no speakers, no cables and no noise spilling outside. Everyone has their own volume control, so each person decides how loud they want to listen. The whole set-up is portable and runs on solar power.
We work mainly in places where a conventional set-up simply isn’t viable: sites with no electricity, protected environments, heritage buildings or locations that are hard to reach.
Why headphones
In a normal set-up, sound has to travel through the air, bounce off walls and compete with the surrounding noise before it reaches the audience. That journey demands a lot: power, speakers, cabling, noise permits, mains electricity.
By transmitting straight to the ear, that journey disappears. And with it, almost all of those constraints.
What it makes possible
Everyone listens at their own volume. The headphones have individual controls, so each person adjusts the level to their own taste and hearing. At many concerts the volume is uncomfortable, even painful, and there is nothing to be done about it, because it is decided for the whole audience at once. Not here. Anyone who wants it quiet gets it quiet. Anyone who wants more presence has it. That freedom also makes the experience accessible to people with hearing sensitivity, to older audiences and to children.
Reaching where conventional technology cannot. With no need for a mains connection or generators, we can work in locations that would normally be ruled out.
Working where noise is not allowed. Since there is no open amplification, the sound level outside the headphones is zero. This makes performances possible in protected areas, sites with wildlife, places with neighbours nearby or with time restrictions.
Hearing the detail. A breath, the brush of a string, footsteps on wood. It becomes possible to work at very low volumes and with real silences, things that would be lost outdoors.
Forgetting the acoustics of the place. The reverberation of a cave or the dispersion of an open space stop being a problem. The setting still lends its presence, but no longer dictates what is heard.
Letting the audience move. The signal does not depend on where anyone stands. People can walk around, surround the performers or follow an itinerary without missing a thing. That opens up formats that do not exist on a conventional stage.
Leaving the space untouched. No cables across the floor, no anchors, no rigging. In heritage or natural settings, the installation leaves no trace.
How we work
We do not have a standard set-up that we repeat. Every space imposes its own conditions and every artistic proposal raises different needs, so the design is built from scratch for each project.
We start by visiting and studying the place: dimensions, materials, access, regulations, hours of daylight. From there we define how the signal is transmitted, how many channels are needed, how much energy is required and how the audience is distributed.
We then work with the artists on what the format allows them to do. This is usually the part that changes a project the most: once someone understands they can play or dance at the threshold of audibility, the piece transforms. Headphones are not a wrapper, they are another tool for creation.
That is why the result is never the same. One same idea in two different spaces ends up as two experiences with little in common.
This is not a silent disco
Worth clarifying: we do not rent out equipment or run parties with channels of pre-recorded music. We have spent years working at the intersection of technology, dance and audiovisual creation, with our own infrastructure and solar energy as our only sponsor. You can read more in our manifesto.
Let’s talk about your space
If you manage a natural site, a heritage location, a festival, or anywhere you have been told nothing can be done, write to us at info@silenciosonoro.es.