Boasting 284 guest rooms and five restaurants, the Four Seasons Hotel Kuwait at Burj Alshaya boasts one of the most prestigious brands in international travel. Opens its doors after more than a year of eager anticipation, it is located in the heart of the Kuwait’s government and business district, and is part of the Burj Alshaya mixed-use development –two glass skyscrapers, with the Four Seasons located in the 22-storey Eastern Tower. The complex is also home to two ballrooms equipped with digitally steered sound courtesy of Renkus-Heinz.
On the ground and first floors respectively, the Al Mirqab Ballroom and Al Bidaa Ballroom are already booked months in advance for a number of society weddings and special corporate events. Each has its own character – though slightly smaller, the Al Mirqab Ballroom allows direct access to Al Soor Street, while the Al Bidaa Ballroom is larger, with natural daylight. Both represent multi-purpose spaces that can be adapted to suit the requirements of users. Either room can be divided to form two smaller, distinct spaces.
Unsurprisingly, the rooms both also represented challenging acoustic environments. ‘On the first floor, the Al Bidaa, has a ceiling height of around 27ft, and a length of around 150ft – it’s a long space,’ explains aDawliah Electronics Integrated Solutions Division Technical Manager, Joseph Neeruda, who managed its installation. ‘The room also has an abundance of glass, and reflections were a problem.’ On the ground floor, the smaller Al Mirqab Ballroom proved itself a slightly friendlier environment, with a depth of around 115ft and a ceiling height of approximately 22ft. Nevertheless, both spaces presented longer than ideal reverberation times.
To address these problems, aDawaliah Electronics chose Renkus-Heinz IC Live digitally steered column array loudspeakers. Both ballrooms are equipped with the same configuration of six wall-mounted ICL-FR columns, facilitating different modes of operation. Two of the columns serve as a LR pair, firing down the ballroom to provide coverage for events that use the space in its entirety. The remaining four columns are mounted along the sidewall, firing across the room so that when each ballroom is split, they become separate left-right systems for the two resulting smaller spaces.
‘The system is well designed and works particularly well with the option to split the ballrooms into smaller spaces,’ says Renkus-Heinz Middle East Sales Representative, Norbert Bau. ‘When we participated in the final tuning and commissioning, the client told us how happy they are very happy with the final result.’
‘The ballrooms are large, impressive spaces and they required powerful speakers with excellent directivity,’ Neeruda adds. ‘That’s why we chose Renkus-Heinz – for power and high technology at the same time.’
