Santa Barbara Bowl Partners with OTOjOY to Provide a Full Concert Listening Experience

SANTA BARBARA — The Santa Barbara Bowl has partnered with OTOjOY, a hearing loop expert located in Santa Barbara, to provide concertgoers with unprecedented high-quality assistive listening services that “let people’s ears smile” via an all-seats hearing loop.

Installed in 2017, the Bowl’s entire seating area has been ‘looped’ to give customers access to high-quality assistive listening services any time during a concert. Hearing loop systems take the sound straight from the mix-board, through an amplifier and into a magnetic-field generating looped wire. Hearing aids equipped with telecoils (T-coils) pick up the signal automatically with no background or extraneous noises.

To a concertgoer, using the hearing loop sounds like a speaker is right in their head. It turns their hearing aids into wireless earphones that broadcast sound customized for their hearing loss. Hearing loops are the only assistive listening system to send clear, pure sound directly to hearing aids. They are the international standard for universal hearing access.

OTOjOY installed the hearing loop throughout the Bowl’s expansive seating area. A concert-goer can now enjoy a show from any of the 4,562-seats using the hearing loop. For Bowl patrons, there are two ways to use the Bowl’s Hearing Loop: Switch your hearing aid or cochlear implant to the “T”, telephone, or hearing loop program. Most hearing aids are supplied with a T-coil but if you are unsure, please check with your audiologist or hearing aid specialist. Request a receiver from a volunteer usher. A credit card or ID will be held and returned after the concert. For more information about using the hearing loop at the Bowl, visit sbbowl.com/about/venue/accessibility.