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Buzz: Install of the Month

Craig Benzel, director of marketing for the Green Bay Packers, approached consultant Danny Abelson of In-Game Services (IGS) with a challenge. Benzel

Buzz: Install of the Month

Feb 1, 2004 12:00 PM

Craig Benzel, director of marketing for the Green Bay Packers, approached consultant Danny Abelson of In-Game Services (IGS) with a challenge.

Benzel and the Packers needed a special speaker system for the Miller Lite End Zone, a premium seating area underneath the top bowl at the north end of the stadium. The End Zone was part of a $300 million renovation at Lambeau Field. A terraced area beneath the main speaker cluster that affords a fabulous view of the field, the End Zone is designed for young adults between ages 21 and 28, a target market for the Miller Brewing Company. Fans get tickets to seats in this area by winning contests sponsored by Miller.

The challenge for IGS was creating a treatment for the area that would be versatile enough to alternate between handling a live radio feed from the local Packer Radio Network and reproducing the stadium P.A. without having it conflict with the radio feed or drown it out.

Abelson’s solution was to design a high-quality, specially focused loudspeaker treatment fed with program sources controlled by an automated ducking circuit. The circuit normally provides a feed from the home radio play-by-play announcers and automatically switches to time-delayed in-bowl programming whenever the main end zone P.A. system is in use. A Peavey MediaMatrix system provides the majority of the signal processing for the venue, and one function is to serve the End Zone.

The loudspeakers had to combine the clarity and power required for both tasks, so Abelson chose six Martin Audio WT2-WP weatherproofed enclosures for the job because of their vocal intelligibility and reliability. The loudspeakers are powered by QSC amplifiers, which are monitored and managed by a QSControl system. To minimize loudspeaker cable runs, amplifiers are located in three equipment rooms and are connected by T-1000 Ethernet.

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, IGS specializes in deriving high-quality audiovisual techniques from the entertainment industry and applying them to the college and professional sports markets. The company provides management expertise, owner representation, and trained game operations crews to ensure that team and facility managers are able to maximize the quality of their in-stadium audiovisual presentation. In addition to the Packers, the company’s client roster includes the Milwaukee Brewers and University of Wisconsin Badgers.

“The nature of today’s in-game sporting environment has changed,” says Abelson. “Team owners and managers realize they must entertain their fan base to maximize marketing opportunities and customer enjoyment. We always recommend the most appropriate product for an application. That is why we are so satisfied with our decision to use the Martin loudspeakers in this application. The Packers are a demanding organization, always striving for the best performance on and off the field. Lambeau Field is well known for its harsh ‘frozen tundra’ environment. The Martin enclosures look great, provide great sound for the fans in the Miller Lite End Zone, and can handle the elements.”

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