05/01/2026
The Cost of Cutting Corners: Fire Safety and Acoustic Materials
My thoughts are with everyone affected by this horrific tragedy. The more that emerges, the more distressing it becomes. 😢
As a director of a specialist soundproofing installation company, with 26 years’ experience in acoustic construction, I feel compelled to comment. What occurred here was not bad luck, it was the result of a fundamentally incorrect approach to soundproofing in construction.
From the photograph alone, it is immediately clear why the fire spread so rapidly. The ceiling was clad throughout with cheap lightweight acoustic foam, a material that is not approved, specified, or acceptable for use in public venues at scale.
We have designed and built numerous Studios, production rooms, practice rooms, domestic noisy neighbour applications (constructing new Acoustic walls, ceilings, and floors), home garage studios, attic studios, numerous echo reduction projects in community spaces, bespoke soundproofing applications in factory environments, etc, etc…and we have only ever come across these foam panels AFTER our installation - when the client purchases and retrofits them independently!?
These products are designed solely to reduce reverberation within small, controlled environments such as home or select recording studios. They offer no meaningful sound insulation, no fire resistance suitable for public assembly spaces, and should never be installed en masse in a nightclub, basement venue or public space.
It is now apparent the property was renovated by the club owners themselves, therefore these panels were likely used as a cost-saving attempt to reduce noise transfer between floors - which reflects a serious misunderstanding and neglect of acoustic engineering principles.
Sound insulation and acoustic treatment are entirely different disciplines. One requires structural rebuilding using certified systems and materials, the other simply manages echo within a room. Confusing the two is not a minor error - it is a dangerous one.
The decision to clad an entire ceiling with inappropriate, combustible material was a catastrophic failure in judgement, and the consequences sadly speak for themselves.
Accountability
While there were clearly multiple contributing factors to nightclub tragedy in Switzerland: a culture promoting indoor fireworks to a young alcohol driven crowd, a low-ceiling basement with highly flammable materials installed by owners, potential negligence by staff - we also have to look further upstream, at the materials themselves and those who manufacture them.
As soundproofing and building contractors in the UK, we work with materials from every major supplier. We don’t manufacture products, and we don’t have the ability to independently test them. We rely on certifications and declared performance…just as we do with staple products like plasterboard, cements, fixings, membranes, insulations, adhesives and sealants.
However, something I’ve particularly noticed in the acoustic sector especially, is that we are seeing an increasing number of new online retailers offering new ‘combo-sheet materials’ marketed with impressive claims, but with questionable or unclear testing. Many are devised from imported sheet rubber materials glued to plasterboard or OSB flooring , advertised as compliant, yet it is impossible for us contractors to verify how, where, or even if those tests were carried out.
This isn’t about blaming every retailer or contractor. The system is profit-driven, and information provided by manufacturers is largely taken at face value.
Contractor responsibility alone is not enough to guarantee material safety. Ultimately, this failure sits with regulation and enforcement. Government standards must require independent verification of new construction products before they reach the market. Right now, this remains a dangerous grey area, in my opinion.
Indoor sparklers or not, as seen in Hong Kong and at Grenfell, the reality is unavoidable: had non-flammable building materials been used instead of highly combustible products installed en masse, resulting in the crazy rapid spread of fire, lives would have been saved.
