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Asia Universal Studios theme park, the world’s biggest oceanarium, Sentosa , Marina Park Life, six , a , shopping, eating and drinking /pacific/oceania outlets, meeting facilities to accommodate 12,000 delegates, and the 1,600-capacity Festive Grand Theatre, looks to be money Contrary to what appears to have been a worldwide recession over well spent. This is a long-term investment for Singapore and will recent months, there are some pockets of the world where cash encourage for years to come, especially with the project flow doesn’t seem to be such an issue. continuing to grow and expand over time. In Singapore for example, World Sentosa, located on Such as vast project spells an arms length list, and more, when Sentosa Island, opened its doors in March earlier this year after it comes to designers, contractors, installers, technicians and spending a staggering 4.32 billion US dollars building the . specialists, and for that reason, much of the AV design can However, to its merit, encompassing the first and only South East be described as turnkey solutions. With such a wide spread of

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Photos: at Sentosa Pte Ltd

applications to cater for, it is not surprising that some aspects an open slate, within the requirements of a budget and with the required individual vendors to build and manage each attraction understanding of how we needed to operate the venue, we then RESORTS WORLD separately. designed the equipment to accommodate for all that. But in all the Walking through Universal Studios feels like you’ve been sucked designs we’ve had, the biggest choice factor was reliability, and into another world. Split into seven zones - Jurassic Park The ability to re-create in high repetition, we’re doing eight and nine Lost World, Far Far Away, New York, Sci-Fi City, Hollywood, high quality shows a day, repeatibley, and that’s not an easy thing to Madagascar and Ancient Egypt - the park will be home to 24 rides achieve.” in total, although not all are fully complete yet. Besides the rides, Chippy called upon one of the resort’s major contractors Electro SENTOSA Universal Studios also includes a number of eateries, each indicative Acoustics Systems (EAS) and they were asked to design and of the area they feature in, and performance spaces ‘on the streets’, put together a package that catered for sound reinforcement, which feature daily dramatic plays or musical skits. Renkus-Heinz video projection and camera systems, production intercom, show cabinets provide the audio system for the background music as controller and stage lighting systems. The venue consists of a FOH visitors walking along the streets, through each of the zones. Each loudspeaker system using three stacks of line array arranged in left/ area of the theme park also has its own illumination, based on centre / right configuration followed by a series of effect speakers animated playful lighting effects combined with theatrical tones to at the sides. The QSC ILA line array system was chosen because create the desired ambiance, the lighting design for these areas was it is compact and lightweight, which suits the size and structure completed by Light Cibles. criteria well for Hollywood Theater. QSC AD-S52 speakers were A major attraction in the depth of Universal Studios is the 1,500- installed for the front-fills and AD-S82 speakers for side effects, capacity Pantages Hollywood Theater. Bruce Chipman (Chippy) while a Q-Sys integrated system platform provides all the audio Assistant Director for Entertainment Technical at Universal said routing, processing, control and monitoring necessary for the kit. when it came to the design process: “The Hollywood Theater was The audio set-up needed to be flexible, as even with a long running

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WaterWorld

show at the Hollywood Theater, there is still the potential to have meant we could get the fixtures quickly and we had support on our another changeable show running in the evening, so it is more than doorstep.” These were coupled with Vari-Lite fixtures, supplied by likely that at least two different shows will be running at the theatre WhiteLight Ltd, which can be controlled using the in house MA at any one time. And with such a hectic work schedule throughout Lighting grandMA console, plus dimmers from ETC, four ESR48+ the daytime performances, operators needed to be able to switch to dimmer racks for stage lighting and two Unison DRd12 dimmer the evening programme, quickly and easily. To make that possible, racks with Paradigm control for houselights circuits. digital mixing consoles were selected for their versatility, and their Chippy continued: “I had to achieve [eight or nine high quality shows ability to reduce the amount of processing equipment, as they were a day] with a minimal crew, so I had to put systems in like Medialon, constrained by the size of the sound booth. A 48-channel Yamaha to do a lot of my show control handling to reduce numbers, PM5D for the FOH and a Yamaha M7CL for the monitoring console otherwise I’d need master of lighting, master electrician, board were chosen for the installation. operators, video switchers. So I saved the wages of four of five For the lighting aspect, Lenna Minion, an independent Lighting positions by programming the show, that’s great for our built shows Consultant was on hand to liase with suppliers, access the support because it gives me that reliability and cuts down my crew numbers, on offer, and put forward suggestions for the best lighting solutions and it also gives me that ability for the second show to come in at in each key area of the resort. For the moving head fixtures, Martin night to still have all those positions because all of that infrastructure Professional was selected as the preferred choice. Chippy said: still exists and can run as Medialon or it can run as standalone. “We chose Martin Professional because they were the only moving We’ve tried to find the compromise between efficiency, repeatiblility, head manufacturer who have an office here in Singapore, which quality.” Another popular attraction amongst the Universal Studios template is WaterWorld, and having completed a very similar installation for this attraction in previous Universals in the US and , the fit out for Singapore was more of an extension of what already exists. As Chippy explained: “For WaterWorld where it was a known show, the venue itself, it is different, it’s bigger, and it’s the biggest of the three, but there are elements that have been changed because they didn’t work in the other venues, but really it’s a hybrid of the other two venues. So it was a known quantity, the controls, the drawings everything else was essentially a lift of the Japan design, and it was put in here and updated where necessary to accommodate for the new technology.” A big technical challenge at WaterWorld cames in the form of sightline issues, and the fact that conventional box speakers blocked audiences’ view at certain angles, and this was backed up by a second altercation of poor sound coverage for the audience members sitting in the first few rows, which came to light during the design and testing process. The solution was to opt for Renkus-Heinz digital steerable loudspeaker, IC-Live, as it is slim and can be mounted straight onto a structure without physical

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Pantages Hollywood Theater tilting. Using software, EAS was able to customise beams to optimise the coverage within the audience area, while minimising the sound energy from directing onto the reflective metal walls surrounding the set. The second issue was overcome using front-fill loudspeakers to supplement the mains. In addition, several enhancements were added to the system, including preview monitors behind the backstage area to enable stage hands to see what’s going on at FOH; a more powerful digital signal processor, QSC Q-Sys, to process the entire venue’s 46 inputs and 51 outputs. The Q-Sys is a unique processor unlike other, and at WaterWorld it handles BOH paging, playback of pre-recorder announcement, surround panning and all audio feeds processing with minimum latency. The show itself at WaterWorld is a spectacular display of professional stunts and pyrotechnics, and there is a lot of time and effort goes into each and every performance. The sensor system and operation is hugely complex. There are under water cameras, and all enabling buttons are pressed by people rather than automatic machinery to ensure complete safety. WaterWorld puts on up to eight performance per day, with about 90 minutes gaps in between, and that’s how long it takes to re-set the venue so it is a conveyor belt, meaning the technology is constantly being pushed its limit. Living up to the expectation of an existing success story is no easy task, and within any project there are compromises and changes to make along the way, as Chippy explained: “I’ve never had a venue built the way I wanted from day one, so we have to work within constraints and continue to work with those constraints, and as we remodel and fix things over time we engineer out the problems. We won’t be finished building for five years, we’ll always be changing, we’ll always be modifying because right now we’re trying to understand what the shows are. We’ve essentially been open three or four months. Solutions are presenting themselves, and things that have never been a problem, you’ll walk in one day and go ‘how the hell did that happen?’ So until we understand the rhythm and the life of the venue, and every venue is a living thing, until we understand what that is and know what that is we just have to deal with it everyday. I have a very good friend who says ‘we don’t have problems, we just have solutions to opportunities’ and that’s what we do, we have solutions to opportunities.” Over in Central Zone, as it is commonly known, which includes the

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Entrance to the Festive Grand Theatre

casino, the hotels, the shopping areas, the ballroom and meeting with a series of options, describing how they could be achieved, and rooms, and the Festive Grand Theatre there is also an array then the best option for the job was selected. Matthew continued: of technology waiting to greet the visitors and treat them to an “One original concept for the show was to use LED instead of incredible experience that they’ll never forget. projection but the requirement for high definition on a 20-metre The key player at the Festive Grand Theatre is Matthew Twist, who screen, was going to cost in the region of six million Singapore originally started out as Technical Producer on Voyage de la Vie, dollars. So the option of going back to edge blending projectors and the theatre’s resident show. Because the show had already been a projection screen was a no brainer. However, we have the capacity commissioned to run at the Festive Grand, the theatre was very to integrate an LED wall in the future should we need to. All of the much built around the needs of Voyage de la Vie. Matthew shed designs, including the Festive Grand Theatre and the Ballroom, are light on the initial process: “When it was originally conceived, the designed around key concepts of flexible space, so although we’re show was going to have a lot of big classic illusions and you need building this venue for this show, there are surplus tie lines, be it a rather specific environment to be able to achieve that; the right copper based, Ethernet based, fibre optics based, there are multiple lighting angles, a very dark venue as you don’t want light bleeding. redundancies to allow us to bring in other shows over the top and a So the ID is actually designed by Michael Grade Associates (a couple of years down the line when we swap out the show, there’s famous American architect) who had to bring the theatrical needs enough flexibility for us to produce the second show.” to the fore in that design: the colour of the wood, the colour of the WhiteLight Ltd were selected as the main supplier and installer of seats, and the fabric around the ceiling all changed to accommodate sound, light and video equipment at the Festive Grand, and the team the needs of the show. The sub stage that goes down to basement was headed up by MD Bryan Raven who oversaw the project from five, which I believe is the deepest part of the property, was again a the London office. He worked closely with Ptmaigan Consulting show requirement, to be able to store all the machinery. For us to be from Hong Kong, who acted as the project managers, the team able to store all the equipment, we needed high speed lifts, whilst was headed by Simon Fraser, along with Alan Chambers and still enabling us to bring things up from the sub stage level four.” Dan Harvey, and completing the line up were Bob Barbagallo and Next the Festive Grand needed to draft in some theatre specialists, Mario St Onge of Solotech Inc from Canada who were the sound and after laying out the requirements to Theatre Projects and video partners on the project. While dimming and electrical Consultants, in terms of lighting, audio and video, they came back installation was once again taken care of by local form EAS.

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The Ballroom has a 7,300-capacity and the space can be split into nine different zones if there is more than one function taking place at a given time. As the Ballroom has a 51dB maximum sound level, the dividing walls create columns so the sound cannot leak into other zones. Sound control is provided by a Yamaha LS9 for the small events, an MC7 for the mid-scale events, and a PM5D for the larger. While on the lighting side either a MA lighting Ultralite, or a grandMA is used. The AV design for the Ballroom was taken care of by Theatre Projects Consultants.

The main sound system installed at the Festive Grand Theatre is spaces around the resort. The resort wide decision was to go with Meyer Sound, which comprises 22 MICA line arrays positioned ETC as the supplier of lighting fixtures and dimmers, and the theatre on either side of the main stage, six JM-1P’s to make up the conformed to that. The production lighting equipment comprises of centre array, eight UPM-1P’s for frontfills, and a combination of 14 ETC ESR36+ dimmer racks located in two dimmer rooms provide 14 subwoofers. The speakers are processed via two Meyer Sound dimming and control of power to worklight, houselight and lighting Gallieo systems and an LCD Cue console, plus there’s a DiGiCo equipment. Over 400 of 3KW and 100 of 5KW dimmer modules SD7 console for back-up. Matthew was particularly pleased with are installed for the entire stage and house lighting systems, and a the Cue console, as he expressed: “There is nothing else like the dedicated Gigabit Lighting LAN is provided for all network enable Cue console, there is another way to run a show like that, using a production lighting equipment including wireless access points. combination of Medialon and X48’s, you can achieve pretty much In addition to this there are more fixtures from ETC in the form of the same effect. Don’t think of the LCD as a console, think of it as the Source Four profiles, Robert Juliat zoom profiles, ADB tungsten a system that plays the audio, and controls, and runs show control, frensel fixtures that make up the theatrical lighting luminaries, while and presents a series of faders which may be grouped or sub- the automated luminaires are provided by Martin Professional – 20 masters, or auxs or inputs or fader channels or whatever else you’ve Mac III’s, 10 MAC 2000E Performance II’s, 13 MAC 2000E Wash programmed to it that day, or that moment, so it’s a total audio XB’s, 15 MAC 700 Profile’s and three MAC 700 Washes, all of show control system, and there’s nobody else that makes anything which are controlled using a MA Lighting grandMA console, with else like it, and if you’ve got a need for a Cue console then the Cue a MA2 Ultralight for back-up. The visual element in the theatre is console is the only equipment that will do it.” delivered by two Barco FLM R22+ projectors and a Green Hippo The lighting at the Festive Grand followed suit with some of the other Hippotizer media server.

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Coordinating this resort has been a huge challenge, but both Chippy and Matthew are pleased with the outcome. They describe the TECHNICAL INFORMATION opening of RWS as a birthing moment, there’s been blood, sweat and tears, heart and soul gone into this project and when it all FESTIVE GRAND THEATRE comes together it’s a magical feeling. Chippy concluded by praising SOUND: 122 x Meyer Sound Mica line array speaker; 6 x Meyer Sound JM-1P line array speaker; 12 x Meyer Sound the whole of his team for their hard work and effort, but also has UPM-1P loudspeaker; 2 x Meyer Sound MSL-4 loudspeaker; a special mention for a particular person: “It has to be Skip, the 6 x Meyer Sound 700-HP subwoofer; 4 x Meyer Sound one person for me who has, to put it politically correct, kept smiling 600-HP subwoofer; 4 x Meyer Sound USW-1P subwoofer; through it all, has probably been the greatest motivator, wealth of 2 x Meyer Sound USM-100P stage monitor; 8 x Meyer Sound UPJ-1P stage monitor; 20 x Meyer Sound HMS-10 knowledge, wealth of calmness, and wealth of rationality has been cinema surround; 2 x Meyer Sound Gallieo processor; Skip Sherman. He’s a consultant working for the entertainment 1 x Meyer Sound RMS software; 1 x Meyer Sound Cue department (on the Universal side), there’s nothing on this project console; 4 x Genelec 8030A monitor; 4 x Genelec 8040A that he hasn’t been involved in and we wouldn’t have succeeded as monitor; 1 x DiGiCo SD7 mixing console; 1 x TC Electronic System 6000 processor; 2 x Tascam X-48 track digital well as we have without his help.” audio workstation

LIGHTING: 20 x Martin MAC III; 10 x Martin MAC2000E Performance II; 13 x Martin MAC 2000E Wash XB; 15 x Martin MAC 700 Profile; and 3 x Martin MAC 700 Wash; 1 x MA Lighting grandMA2 Light console; 1 x MA Lighting grandMA2 Ultralight console; 104 ETC Source Four UL version luminaire; 94 x ETC Source Four zoom 15-30 UL profile; 23 x Robert Juliat 611 SX 11/26 zoom profile; 3 x Robert Juliat 1149 Super Korrigan followspot; 10 x Selecon Aclaim Fresnel; 14 x Selecon Lui; 17 x ADB F101 Europe Fresnel; 24 x ADB C203 Europe Prism-Convex; 66 x Kupo Par 64 1kw (CP62); 31 x Kupo Par 64 1kw (CP60); 16 x Kupo Par 64 1kw (ACL); 10 x James Thomas Par 16 75W; 8 x Tourmate Split line SPL161NEBYYBLK; 2 x Reich & Vogel 1kw Beamlight followspot; 4 x Look Solutions Cryo Fog; 2 x MDG Atmosphere Touring haze machineCritter media server

VIDEO: 1 x Harkness Screens 16m x 9m rear projection screen; 2 x Barco FLM R22+ projector; 1 x Green Hippo Hippotizer media server

www.rwsentosa.com The casino

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