Providing a new home for indoor sporting events at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the US$85m UMBC Event Center also serves as a venue for concerts, trade shows and other events.
The venue accommodates 4,700 fans for UMBC Retrievers basketball and volleyball games, with audio delivered by Meyer Sound’s Lina very compact line arrays as the centrepiece of an A/V package designed and installed by Design & Integration.
‘The audiovisual consultant based a performance specification on an alternative, externally powered system but listed Meyer Sound as an approved option,’ says Project Engineer Kevin Barrett. ‘We decided to pursue the Meyer Sound solution and discovered it offered a number of advantages. We came up with a design that not only would meet or exceed all the performance numbers, but also would fit into a smaller footprint, reduce installation costs, and provide configuration flexibility along with system confidence monitoring.’
The system selection process also factored in the university’s prior experience with Meyer Sound Leo systems.
‘We have a portable system based around 24 Leopard line array loudspeakers and it has served us very well in the old Retrievers Activities Center and for many outdoor events,’ says Sam Zuckerman, Head Audio Technician and sound engineer for university events. ‘We were very happy with the Leopards and wanted to continue working with Meyer. And the new Lina system has delivered as promised – the coverage is very even, and the clarity is outstanding for spoken word events such as commencements. And at the games I’ve attended it really gets the crowd pumped up. It definitely has plenty of punch.’
The system uses five arrays of eight each Lina loudspeakers for coverage of the U-shaped main bowl. Three 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements supply convincing impact for deep bass effects, while two UPQ-1P loudspeakers are flown as court fills. Two Galaxy 816 networked processors handle overall system drive and optimisation.
Although owned by the university, the UMBC Event Center contracts with the Oak View Group to handle venue operations and outside concert and event bookings.
‘The major touring acts that play concerts here will carry their own production, but we’re delighted with the way our house system is taking care of everything else,’ says Frantzer LeBlanc, Oak View Group’s Director of Events and Operations at UMBC. ‘In addition to UMBC Retrievers games we’ve hosted community church services, well-known speakers, martial arts competitions and trade show events. The performance has been really, really good for all of them. The sound conforms to the bowl in a way that gives a sense of intimacy despite the size. We also really appreciate how easily and effectively we can zone the system to cover only designated seating areas when we’re using part of the arena.’
Although specifying a highly compact line array system for a mid-sized auditorium may seem somewhat audacious, Design & Integration’s Kevin Barrett was confident of the outcome: ‘Although Lina was not even shipping when we did our initial design, we were confident based on Meyer Sound’s reputation and on what we had heard from its predecessor, Mina, at another installation we’d done recently,’ he remarks. ‘I knew that with the power inside the box, and with the precise tuning options available in Galaxy to deal with the reverberant space, we could make Lina work. I knew it would sound great, and it does.’
The full A/V installation also includes an Allen & Heath digital mixer with D-Live control surface and MixRack engine. A QSC Q-Sys network backbone ties together the arena bowl system with all back-of-house systems. Design & Integration also supplied a comprehensive broadcast cabling system, distributed CATV video systems, and both wired and wireless production intercom systems.
More: www.meyersound.com
