With the 2019 opening of the Wonder Box indoor amusement park, the Paradise Fun-City complex has become the largest entertainment site in South Korea. Adjascent Incheon International Airport, the complex has been fitted with more than 200 Amadeus loudspeakers in the media infrastructure designed, built and overseen by C2 Artechnolozy.

C2 was intimately involved in the design phase of Paradise Fun-City Phase 1-2 that includes Chroma, the largest club in East Asia. This encompasses three separate nightclubs, Wonder Box and the boutique hotel Art Paradiso. The complex also features the Art Garden and Paradise Walk areas.

C2 was responsible for designing and supervising the entire resort’s audio, video, and lighting systems, as well as the design, development, and supervision of the BGM system. In addition, the company was responsible for the design and construction of both the Chroma staging system and the audio, video and lighting systems for Wonder Box. Paradise City’s plan was to build a media infrastructure that differentiated itself from existing hotels and convention areas.

‘From a media point of view, the facilities of existing hotels and convention centres lack options needed by an “art-tainment resort”, which combines art and entertainment,’ says C2 Artechnolozy CEO Dongyup Kwak, who built integrated media infrastructure with few limits for each of the venues in Paradise City.

‘C2 first wanted to upgrade the BGM, which is delivered to all facilities,’ Kwak adds. ‘However, the system for emergency broadcasting could not be changed so we focused on the main spaces of the facility and differentiated it from the existing BGM system. We named this system Enhanced BGM [EBGM], it is the first and greatest example of the world’s highest quality sound for background music. We applied the DXD sample rate to go beyond the sound quality limit of 48kHz of existing hardware-based DSP sound source transmission and control systems.’

The EBGM system is based on Merging Technologies’ Ovation Server and Horus and Hapi interfaces. It is capable of up to 384kHz or DXD at 352.8kHz audio operation via an AES67/Ravenna network. The DXD EBGM was applied to 69 zones with 145 outputs, covering four buildings and three outdoor spaces, and is the first time anywhere in the world that a background music system supports and operates at DXD/384kHz quality throughout a resort area.

Using Apple’s iPad and Ovation’s Web Server functions, C2 designed the control interface such that each space within Paradise City can has individual control over level and channel selection, as well as sound sources of various genres through channel selection. With iPad control, an operator can create a playlist to suit the location and taste, or it can be set to play back the selected music in a random order.

After extensive consultation with Amadeus, the integrator chose C Series (designed by Amadeus for the Paris-based Chaillot National Theater), PMX Series loudspeakers, and ABB 15 and ML 12 Slim bespoke subwoofers. Powersoft power amplifiers are used throughout Art Paradiso to power the speaker system. ‘Amadeus and Powersoft were the best choices to harmonise the quality of the sound source,’ Kwak notes.

The Art Gallery at Paradise City is equipped with hanging tracks, power, and network terminals, with Amadeus PMX 5 D and ML 12 D active speakers to enable installation flexibility depending on the needs of the art installation.

‘The Amadeus speaker is the only one that can satisfy both the luxury and high quality of hotels and art galleries,’ explains Kwak. ‘The system uses the AES67 DXD format for the EBGM system as well as a separate operation using a Dante Network. The art gallery is also set up to utilize projectors with an HD Base-T network to provide an optimised infrastructure for media art.’

C2 studied the interior and architectural design of Paradise City with Professor Kim Ji-kyung of Tuneworx, and determined the ideal loudspeaker arrangement for each space, including the Cimer Spa, Art Garden, Paradise Walk, the Chroma ticket booth, and the Highline Park area.

In the Cimer Spa section of Paradise City, Amadeus PMX5 and ML12 Slim subwoofers were installed along with other complementary speakers and audio equipment necessary for the indoor/outdoor environment.

There are two further buildings on either side of a wide square across from the hotel and spa buildings. One of the two buildings is the Wonder Box indoor amusement park. The C2 team managed the Wonder Box project, with John Kim as Executive Manager, Suk-Hoon Lee as Project Manager and designer of all audio, video and lighting systems including integration, Taechan Moon was in charge of A/V construction.

Joshua Jeon was in charge of 2D-3D, and designers Eunjung Kim and Yunhee Choi Jeongeun worked on the 2D-3D simulation and design of the A/V system. C2 collaborated with Canada’s Moment Factory, which is in charge of the content, it took over one year to prepare and finally open Wonder Box in March 2019.

Wonder Box is equipped with over 60 Amadeus speakers with Powersoft amplifiers and six Merging Technologies Ovation servers from for show and audio control. It also equipped the space with 14 Panasonic 21,000 ANSI laser projectors projecting two large indoor screens of curtains which are 33m in length and 9m high. The site also has two 10,000 ANSI laser projectors and two Grand MA 3 Consoles, one full size and one Compact XT for the lighting. The system can create immersive A/V using the audio, video and lighting system.

The sound, video, and lighting control systems have redundant components created by C2 design, so that if some part of a control system fails, the lights, sound or video can still continue to be controlled without downtime.

C2 Artechnolozy was involved in many aspects for Paradise Fun-City from design, through supervision, and construction, and also many of its operations. The company manages the day-to-day directing and operating of the club’s systems, under the direction of Kim Nam-hoon, C2’s staff, and several partner companies, producing a slightly different show every hour.

Dongyup Kwak, concludes: ‘The Paradise install was a huge challenge for us, no one has ever done a project this large in Korea.’