In the heart of Birmingham, Alabama, the Birmingham/Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) l boasts 220,000SQ-ft of flexible space for conferences and entertainment. Within the complex are a 3,000-seat concert hall, 1,000-seat and 274-seat theatres, with the19,000-seat Legacy Arena recently completing an audio system overhaul.
Built in 1976, the Legacy Arena is the most impressive renovation of a US$300m expansion of the complex begun in 2018. Some of music’s biggest names performed here – from Bob Dylan to Garth Brooks, Luciano Pavarotti to Prince, Led Zeppelin to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Grateful Dead to ZZ Top. It has also hosted major sporting events including basketball, hockey and tennis matches, and attractions from tractor pulls to the Barnum & Bailey Circus. It is now the chosen venue for the Birmingham Squadron, DanceSport and gymnastics events for the 2022 World Games.
When Populous, the project architects for the BJCC renovation, required audio design services they brought in Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon, Williams (WJHW) from Carrollton, Texas. Specialising in large stadia and arenas, Senior Consultant, Guillermo Wabi and his team devised a robust audio system for the installation.
‘Imagine you have a venue with six unique areas – all different sizes, elevations and acoustic signatures, while being open to each other and having to be adaptable to multi-use scenarios.’ Wabi says. ‘To design a sound system that sounds clear, intelligible and balanced to everyone, along with providing performance and flexibility, and to be configurable for multiple scenarios by the venue staff, while also having limitations in maximum weight, size and budget was quite a challenge.
‘The primary sound system needed to be compact and lightweight, with the acoustic performance and flexibility to cover not only the seating areas but also meet the various venue configurations for sports and live concerts,’ he continues. ‘The support system [outside the arena] needed to match at the delay and fill positions, the tonal and acoustic qualities of the primary system, while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing form factor. Since the arena concourse areas were redesigned to an open format, we wanted the back of house system to have a similar tonal quality as the primary and secondary systems. Often when you design a system for a project like this, there must be a minimum of three systems to choose from, especially when using government funds. RCF became one of the three systems because of the variety of products and accessories in their portfolio that matched with the project needs and budget.’
While physical and acoustic evaluations were reviewed and analysed, the contractors hired in ESB Group Inc. ‘Arenas are always a very difficult environment to achieve intelligibility,’ says Design Engineer, Drew Breland. ‘We’re always impressed with RCF performance, and it’s proven itself in this space.’
The RCF solution comprises 112 HDL 28-A full-range line array modules and 24 flyable HDL 36-A subwoofers for the centre of the arena, and a wide selection of RCF MR and C-Series speakers for 40 further zones.
‘When it came time to plan for the install of the arrays, we found we were limited with where we can put our motors to adjust the proper angle,’ Breland says. ‘We worked with outside fabricators to design custom brackets for this particular system. A spine system allows each array to hang from a horizontal top bar, while also allowing each box to be in its corresponding angle. We can rotate the array vertically, as well as offset the position horizontally with pinpoint accuracy. Installation time for the first array took about an hour-and-a-half to figure out our centre of gravity. From there, the other seven arrays took about five hours in total. All arrays were up within eight hours.’
An integrated support system covers areas throughout the arena, under balcony, luxury suites and corridors. ‘We installed various C-Series speakers, filling in all areas under balconies, supplemental to the main system. We also installed 25 MR-Series boxes for the back of house areas to provide additional coverage for the 12 suites. The arrays cover much of those areas, but it was important that every seat, in the back of the suites, had an equal listening experience,’ Breland says.
Control of zones is key: ‘RDNet was deployed with this system to control the primary bowl system. We spent a few days tuning with Oscar Mora [Senior System Engineer] from RCF. We tuned the arrays with RDNet and used Q-Sys for the auxiliary zones. All things considered, we feel the installation is very successful in space,’ Breland says.
‘We are more than satisfied with the deployment of this HDL system,’ says CF USA System Designer, Jim Reed. ‘The aesthetic blends into the structure and we’re happy to have surpassed all performance expectations.’
More: www.rcf.it
