Chris Kmiec, project technical manager and technical director for Audiotek, which oversaw design and installation at Omnia, says the sound system for the Outdoor Terrace at the new nightclub at Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino posed an interesting challenge. "The previous incarnation had had a number of issues with noise propagation into nearby hotel towers," he says. "Even Vegas has the same issues we all have. This, added to needing a weatherproof solution for the rare occasion that it rains in Las Vegas, led me down the Renkus-Heinz route. I’ve always been very impressed with the Renkus-Heinz product, so got in touch with [VP of sales and marketing] Rik Kirby about this project, already with a good idea of what I wanted to do."
The terrace system consists of eight Renkus-Heinz IC Live steerable columns, with the IC118S-R sub, all weatherproof versions and driven via CobraNet from a central QSC Audio DSP unit. "Rik confirmed that my ideas for the space were perfect, and we mounted the IC columns on the seating structure, pointing away from the property, perhaps the opposite of what you would first think, as this allowed us to hide the units rather than built posts around the property line, and steered the beams down into the space," says Kmiec. "Although we are not able to control the low end in the same way and rely on a distributed system here, the club has been running at 105dB outside, with no noise complaints, which is perhaps unprecedented for anywhere with no complaints."
As the main room is built around an L-Acoustics speaker system, the second main space in the venue, Heart Lounge, features another L-Acoustics system: more ARCS® Wide speakers, with additional 12XTi coaxials for fill and SB18i subs. Audio distribution is via a QSC Q-Sys system, set up in a dual redundant network, with a backup for every DSP unit. Touch panels are positioned at every location, and any part of the audio system can be controlled via iPad on a dedicated SSID from anywhere in the venue. (Read more about the main room audio.)
"The time, scale, and the never-done-before part of the project caused a lot of problems, head scratching, and problem solving," says Kmiec of the experience. "The pace on site was frantic, but teamwork pulled it together. It's amazing to be able to work on a project with the budget to allow you to go really mad."
Check out our full coverage, sponsored by Robe and L-Acoustics, at our Project In Focus on Omnia here.