GOLDEN GIRL

QSC WideLines provide soundtrack for Ellen DeGeneres' 50th birthday bash


BURBANK, CA--Giving place to more than 300 guests roaming among the 10-foot elephant topiaries, a three-story Ferris wheel, carousel, house of mirrors, bumper cars, whack-a-mole game, poker tables, and fireworks lighting up the night sky, New York Street on the Warner Brothers back lot was more than ideally suited for hosting Ellen DeGeneres' 50th birthday party.


Telepictures Productions (a division of the Warner Brothers Television Group) put the carnival-and-casino themed bash together, calling upon Pink to headline the evening's talent showcase, and Samantha Ronson to spin tunes on the dance floor. In keeping with professional decorum, the crew from Santa Fe Springs, CA-based Goodman Audio Services cast a distinctly low-profile shadow over the event in comparison to the stiltwalkers working the crowd in vintage carnival attire, but their work nonetheless bathed those assembled in the main performance area with a sonic shower of clean, articulate, high-horsepower sound emanating from QSC WideLine-10 enclosures flown 10 per side on the main stage.


"I guess you could say that on a certain level it was sort of like a birthday party you'd have for the kids at your own house on the weekend," Goodman Audio Sr. Account Manager Rob Smoot said after the stiltwalkers had come down from on high and everyone had gone home. "It was just on a much, much, larger and grand scale."


Faced with the prospect of bringing sound to the Warner back lot literally from the wrong side of the street, Goodman Audio's area of coverage was barely 90 feet deep at the point of the longest throw, but was extremely wide.


"When you think of bringing audio to a street party, ideally you would setup at one end and aim down its length," Smoot says, describing the dilemma he and the Goodman crew faced. "For Ellen's party, we had to do the exact opposite: Setup on one side of the street, project a short span across to the other, and then still cover both ends of the street lengthwise in both directions. As soon as we saw the space during the design phase of the project, we all knew the WideLines were the only thing that would do the job properly."


Capable of delivering a full 140 degrees of horizontal coverage--the widest of any loudspeaker in its class--the WideLine-10s were indeed up to the task, taming the extremely wide environment with uniform coverage heard clearly and with more than ample SPLs in all quarters.


"There are a lot of other boxes out there that are polarizing," Smoot adds, lending more support to his choice to go with QSC in this application. "You either love them or you don't. The great thing about WideLines is everyone can get exactly what they want out of them. They are truly versatile in a lot of situations."


Beyond partaking of Goodman Audio's excellent sound, revelers at the DeGeneres bash gorged on sushi from Sushi Roku, slurped on rum-tinged snow cones, and were properly blinded and dazzled by the pyro. Hillary Harris of Warner Brothers Special Events produced the party, with Virginia Fout coordinating. Portions of the event captured on tape were also aired on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.


QSC Audio Products, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of power amplifiers, loudspeakers, signal processing, digital signal transport, and computer control systems for professional audio markets worldwide. For more information, contact QSC Audio Products, Inc., 1675 MacArthur Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626 USA. Phone: 800-854-4079 (USA only) or 714-754-6175. Fax: 714-754-6174. E-mail: [email protected], or visit www.qscaudio.com.


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Gregory A. DeTogne

Gregory A. DeTogne Public Relations

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