Opened in 2003, Angel Of The Winds Arena houses three venues that host sporting events, trade shows, music concerts, school functions, and a variety of other programs. From its opening, the audio system in Angel Of The Winds Arena has been built around JBL Professional loudspeakers, but after 20 years the original system was aging and dirty and no longer met the needs of the venue’s event schedule. “We just didn’t have enough,” states Curtis Giboney, Technical Services & Special Projects Manager at Angel of the Winds Arena. “It wasn’t enough coverage and the hockey team had to push the levels so much to fill the dead zones that it was ear-piercingly loud all the time.” It was time for an upgrade, and solving these issues was the top goal for the new system.
Morgan Sound, headquartered only 13 miles south in Lynnwood, was selected to do the job. Morgan Sound has relied on JBL for 54 years, so upgrading to JBL’s latest VTX Series loudspeakers was an easy decision.
At the heart of the coverage issue was the design of the roof, which is higher along the venue’s spine than towards its sides, with the scoreboard hanging just near the lower roof level. “The arena doesn’t come down evenly, so not only is there a sight-line issue, but you just can’t get energy from the scoreboard to the entire top of the arena,” reveals Morgan Sound Senior AV Consultant Stephen Weeks.
The resulting design used more arrays than would normally be deployed in an arena context, with the arrays hung in a sharply curved configuration.
Weeks ended up with the system modeled in JBL’s Venue Synthesis software, which brought multiple benefits. “We were able to take the model and manipulate it as we needed, but we also used an export from Venue Synthesis to do virtual 3D walkthroughs with the client so they could see what the coverage was going to be. More importantly, leadership at the arena wanted to see what the sight line issues would be, especially with the LED scoreboard and all that happens there.”
Even with predictions from Venue Synthesis, it is impossible to know for certain how well a system meets expectations until it is actually installed and put into use, so the success of using VTX A6 as the main loudspeaker hung in the balance until that time. Then success was clear. “It sounds great!” Weeks enthuses. “The venue’s clients have nothing but good things to say. The hockey team in residence, the Everett Silvertips, is ecstatic.”
