About
Spatial Audio Network Europe (SANE) is an initiative connecting venues, artists, researchers and technology developers working with artistic spatial audio formats. Between 2024 and 2025 it evolved through a European cooperation project that connected various partners across multiple countries.
Building on these foundations, SANE is now developing into a long-term platform for supporting collaboration, knowledge exchange and new concert formats that allow spatial audio works to tour and be shared across venues and borders.
SANE Roadmap 2026 and Beyond
The next phase focuses on expanding SANE into a long-term European platform for immersive audio. Planned initiatives include:
- onboarding new venues and partners
- establishing a spatial audio streaming infrastructure
- a shared European event calendar
- regular meetups and workshops
- the Sound & Space Conference at ZiMMT
- continued development of touring and streaming formats
The goal is to create a sustainable network that connects venues, artists and technologies to enable immersive performances to circulate across Europe.
SANE History
The Spatial Audio Network Europe (SANE) emerged in 2024 as a European cooperation project connecting venues, researchers, technology developers and artists working with immersive and spatial audio.
The initial network brought together partners from different fields of expertise, including ZiMMT (Leipzig), Echo Factory / HELLERAU (Dresden), Effenaar and 4DSOUND (Eindhoven / Amsterdam), Music Innovation Hub (Milan), Not a Number (Leipzig), Hochschule Anhalt (Köthen), and the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) in Graz. Together they combined artistic production, venue infrastructure, research and technology development within a shared European framework.
Between 2024 and 2025 the network focused on research and development around spatial audio production and transmission, including the exploration of multichannel spatial audio streaming between venues. At the same time, SANE launched a Europe-wide open call, inviting artists working with immersive sound to participate in the project.
Selected artists took part in residencies hosted by the partner venues, where they developed and adapted spatial audio works with the support of technical experts and researchers. These artistic processes culminated in a series of concerts, presentations and touring performances across the partner locations.
Spatial audio concerts and events took place at Effenaar in Eindhoven, Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden, Music Innovation Hub / La Capsula in Milan, and ZiMMT in Leipzig, demonstrating how immersive works can be adapted to different spatial sound systems and performance environments.
Alongside these artistic activities, the project developed documentation, production workflows and a spatial audio guide, helping artists and venues understand how immersive works can travel between different systems and locations.
Following the completion of the European project phase, the participating partners remain actively involved in the network. Building on the experiences of residencies, research and performances, SANE is now opening the platform to new venues, artists and technology partners across Europe, with the goal of expanding the network and establishing a shared infrastructure for spatial audio collaboration, touring and streaming.
Experience the concerts of the SANE Resident Artists – live and across multiple venues at once!
Eight selected artists will present their newly developed 3D audio works in a hybrid concert series throughout Europe.
Thanks to SANE’s cutting-edge spati streaming technology, these immersive performances will be transmitted simultaneously
to all partner venues, offering a completely new kind of real-time listening experience.
Background
Spatial audio is not a single technique or standardised system. It emerges from the interaction between artistic intentions, technical infrastructures, and the spatial and organisational conditions of a venue. Each space develops its own way of working with immersive sound, shaped by architecture, production culture, and the roles of artists and technical teams. This guide approaches spatial audio as a situated practice, embedded in specific working environments.
Some venues operate permanently installed spatial audio systems that provide a stable and repeatable framework for artistic work. Others rely on modular or temporary setups that are assembled specifically for individual productions. In these cases, spatial audio becomes a process of translation between artistic ideas, technical possibilities, and the physical space, often requiring close collaboration between artists and technicians.
Across all venues, spatial audio extends far beyond loudspeaker configurations. It includes decisions about signal routing, bass management, networked audio, control protocols such as OSC, and the software environments used for composition and performance. These technical choices directly affect how artists access the system, how they rehearse, and how spatial sound can be shaped in real time.
Spatial audio also influences the performative and organisational structure of events. In several venues, artists perform inside the loudspeaker setup itself, sharing the same acoustic space as the audience and challenging conventional stage-based concert formats. Monitoring strategies, rehearsal time, and system access are negotiated differently than in traditional live music contexts, reshaping both performance practice and audience experience.
The integration of spatial audio with visual media further reflects the diversity of approaches. Some venues prioritise sound as the primary medium and introduce visuals only when explicitly required by a project. Others support complex audiovisual constellations involving projection, lighting, and timecode-based synchronisation. In each case, these decisions are part of a broader production workflow rather than isolated technical features.
The following venue articles outline these workflows in detail. They describe how spatial audio is implemented, who controls it, and how artists work within each environment. Together, they form a spatial audio guide that offers insight into different models of practice and provides a practical reference for artists, technicians, curators, and producers working with immersive sound.
