BY ANDREW KING
PRO SOUND MAGAZINE - AUGUST 2009
Perhaps a few
too many live sound project profiles (not to mention my musical
preferences) have rendered me a bit jaded, but when someone
mentions a “PA,” I conjure mental images of line arrays flying
on both sides of a stage pushing out at least 120dB of volume.
Add to that with “…at a convention centre,” and then it shifts
to a slew of smaller fixtures spread evenly across a hall,
sharing the afternoon programming of the local easy rock
station. In either case, I wouldn’t likely think of a PA system
as a life-saving safety tool, but when it came to mapping out a
system for a major addition to the Northlands Convention Centre
in Edmonton, that’s exactly what Dragan Jargic was thinking, and
the project certainly benefited from it.
DRAGAN JARGIC
System Designer & Commercial Sales
Axe Integrated Solutions Edmonton
Email Dragan Jargic (DJargic@axemusic.com)
Jargic and Axe
Music Edmonton’s Commercial Sales and Installations department
were brought into the Northlands project to mainly layout and
put in the hall audio package, though when it came time to take
on the second part of the task – the life-safety and evacuation
paging system – Jargic was able to get a bit creative. Thanks to
some technological innovation and forward thinking, Northlands
now features a unique audio system that can both sooth expo
exhibitors and attendees and, should the situation ever arise,
keep them safe from harm.
Basic
Rundown
Northlands is comprised of a convention centre, racetrack, and
Rexall Place – home of the Edmonton Oilers and host to several
large-scale touring productions on a year-round basis. Project
Evolution.09, as it’s dubbed, is a major site renewal that’s
well underway and, when completed, will boost the Convention
Centre’s available space to 500,000 sq. ft. of trade and
consumer show floor room and conference and catering facilities.
“When it’s all said and done, it’s almost a kilometer in size,
and is touted as the largest convention centre west of Toronto,”
offers Jargic as a verbal snapshot. With Project Evolution.09
comes an additional four halls to the existing four within the
Centre, along with a food court area, banquet facility, and
salons that overlook the commercial portion of the venue.
Axe Commercial’s crew worked in tandem with reputable
architectural firm Cohos Evamy, which, along with its Edmonton
location, also has offices in Calgary and Toronto, all of which
boast impressive portfolios. The firm was enlisted to spearhead
the building design for Northlands. When it came time to discuss
the extensive audio package that would be incorporated into its
design, the firm approached the team at Northlands for a
recommendation on a local installation outfit suited for the
outing. When Axe was suggested, the project was underway in no
time. “We’ve done projects directly with Cohos Evamy prior to
this one, including the Shaw Convention Centre expansion,” says
Jargic, and so it would seem this familiarity would bring a
level of comfort to the collaboration. “We sat down with the
architects, got our set of the plans, and started designing the
hall audio system – a typical PA,” Jargic explains. Of course,
his downplaying of the delivery of “a typical PA” leads me to
believe that what originated as a “typical” system would turn
into something that’s anything but.
Two To
One
Because the project finds an all-new addition being added to an
already buzzing building, the construction is phased. After a
year’s worth of planning, the ground was broken for the first
phase of the expansion. Audio components began going in back in
October 2008, with the first portion of the project recently
being completed. Hall E – that aforementioned first portion and
the largest single hall within the facility – is loaded with 58
Electro-Voice SX100+ speakers
itself. What those speakers would be assigned to deliver,
though, was decided during the process.
“Basically, we started with the hall audio,” says Jargic of the
initial stages of the install. “With typical hall audio, you
want to put a speaker every 30 ft. centre, have various mic
inputs, and what have you. You also want some creative control
over the zoning of the audio in different areas – pretty
straight forward.” As the team bit deeper into the project, the
collaborators began to discuss the possibility of putting in the
usual round 8" hubcaptype speakers for life safety evacuation
paging. With the facility basically expanding exponentially, it
was decided a staged evacuation set-up would be necessary, so
that if there were ever a safety concern or emergency in one
area of the centre, someone could get on the mic to communicate
with and, if need be, evacuate specific areas. “From what I
understood, I questioned why we’d need two separate audio
systems, right?” he asks, knowing it’d be difficult to argue
with his logic. Fair enough. This question led Jargic to
incorporate the evacuation system into the new PA system. What
had originated as a basic PA installation of (pretty near
exclusively)
EV gear was now growing a new
set of teeth.
EV being a member of the
Bosch Communications family,
though, was a saving grace for the streamlining Jargic had in
his head. “Bosch
actually has a system called Praesideo, which is often used on
cruise ships,” says Jargic, “and so my system design tied this
high-end voice evacuation and life safety system into the PA,
and that started coming about.” Though this amalgamation would
require a bit of extra time at the drawing board (Jargic claims
some engineers at
EV were initially in disbelief
when approached with the idea), an immediate benefit was the
extra millions that Northlands would save without having to put
in a separate evacuation system – and I’d guess a few million
would go a long way towards keeping a client content.
The
“Typical” PA
Ambitious amalgamation aside, the main
EV PA going into the Northlands
expansion is impressive in its own right. “We’re talking four
new halls,” offers Jargic as a reminder. “There are 172 SX100+
speakers in there, and then we’re using TG amplifiers to power
them. It really is a good PA system.” The system was, for the
most part, originally intended for speech and paging.
With the initial system design, Axe recommended the SX300E
fixtures from
EV. “They’re robust in the
bottom end, so it’s great as a foreground music system,” says
Jargic with practicality in mind. Thinking economically, though,
the SX100+s were chosen as the main workers. “We still have
perfect intelligibility and the fidelity that was required, but
just without that bottom end.”
While it was initially thought that the system would only be for
paging and simple speech, it seems that now, in an effort to cut
back on costs, the venue is interested in using it for music and
other media to avoid having to rent out a system from a third
party. “Now, we’re talking about adding some flown Xsubs in the
near future for a bit more bottom-end reinforcement.”
Safety
First
The integration of a main PA and traditional evacuation system
is a new concept for a venue of this size. The idea really came
into fruition after Fred Leber of Toronto-based fire protection
engineering firm Leber/Rubes Inc. (LRI) offered his input. Being
given a list of requirements from Leber with which the system
would need to comply, Jargic and Co. were able to meet them with
a unique arrangement. “I’ve done work in similar large spaces
like the Rogers Centre and Air Canada Centre,” says Leber,
“where we’ve been putting in voice communications systems as
part of fire systems for some time, even though the code doesn’t
require it.”
The voice communication system Leber proposed is meant to
facilitate evacuation in an emergency, even though this kind of
system isn’t required in a venue like Northlands. Once it was
decided that this measure would be taken, though, Jargic’s
system went above the call of duty. “Fire alarm systems that are
designed to have voice communication included as part of them
typically don’t do voice communication very well,” continues
Leber. “I was happy to find that the more sophisticated sound
systems have all kinds of protections built into them that
emulate the things required for fire alarm systems.” The
Bosch system’s detailed
supervision and monitoring offers a solution that’s actually
better than what’s required by law in facilities where voice
communication is mandatory – usually highrise buildings. “It’s a
great system,” says Leber in summation. “It’s all
internally-supervised and, in this case, everything down to the
voice coils is supervised.”
Tying It
Together
The original four halls of the Centre – A, B, C, and D
(conventional titles for a convention centre, I suppose) – have
a pre-standing system. “There’s a legacy system comprised of old
Soundsphere speakers and Crown Macro-Tech amps – a very simple
system that’s relay-controlled with a fire and evacuation panel
in two locations.” With the venue seeking something more
monitorable and flexible in terms of voice communication, the
new package was presented. Jargic admits that the amalgamation
of both systems has been done in an on-the-fly troubleshooting
manner – quite akin to how the idea came about in the first
place. As previously mentioned, though, the extra head
scratching here and there would pay off in dividends with the
eventual outcome.
“The
EV NetMax system allows you to
have relay control or inputs in the physical world, and does
line monitoring and component monitoring right down to the
driver if needed,” says Jargic in reference to what Leber
previously mentioned as a major benefit of the system. “The
Bosch system works the same
way, but on a 70-volt principle.” The 70-volt amps are used in
the new offices, some of the mall areas, lavatories, Ticket
Master office, and spaces like that. For the halls, though, the
package includes
EV TG 5s, which are actually on
tour with AC/DC right now (now there’s my initial idea of a PA).
“They’re big rock ‘n roll amps, but they have built-in DSP
processing, so we can monitor an 8-ohm speaker over a distance,
and we can monitor a 70-volt system over a distance,” explains
Jargic, “but the two aren’t usually interfaced together.” As far
as basic system operation, every hall has a show office loaded
with an 8" touch panel, so users
can control which audio source is being played in that specific
area, or audio can be matrixed from the old section of the
facility. Getting the new and old systems linked together was
another challenge that came with the expansion. One of the old
halls, for example, has 50 mic inputs, and the legacy system has
a Yamaha O1V for hall matrixing with 1/4" patch bays stacked
like an old telephone switchboard unit, where one input can be
plugged into another zone. There was also a concern with getting
a signal back and forth to the amp rooms from the old and new
sections of the facility, which are 1,600 ft. apart. “We ended
up putting
EV processing into that room,
and now with CobraNet, we can take 32 channels of audio and send
it down a dedicated fibre network between the two areas.”
Problem solved.
In Case
Of Emergency…
The basic rundown of the life safety and evacuation system is as
follows: if the alarm is sounded, a relay from the master panel
triggers the
Bosch system, which cuts off
all audio to the halls by sending a relay signal to the
EV system. The
EV system detects the issue,
mutes all audio, and passes an alert tone through all of the
halls. Someone at the fire panel or security desk will then get
on the system for an all-call to report the issue, or use a
pre-recorded message. The option is also there to manually
choose a zone into which the page can be delivered.
“On the flipside,” offers Jargic of the self monitoring
capabilities, “if there was an issue with one of the horns on a
speaker in the hall, the impedance curve will change and the
system will detect a curve change on that line, then send a
message back to the
Bosch system.” The system can
then send out a pre-made e-mail message to the staff at Axe
Commercial or Northlands indicating which zone, line, and even
component has an issue. “The old system actually had two Sony
cassette decks integrated in using relay. If there was an issue,
you’d hit a button on the panel and the relays would turn on the
tape players for a message,” explains Jargic of the legacy
system. “I actually lifted those messages, cleaned them up, and
they can now be played from the
Bosch Praesideo unit.” The
Bosch system comes with a 1 GB
card, which can hold hundreds of messages or tones. “All the
call stations or panels are programmable, so on button action,
it’ll play a tone, play a message, and pause, or we can go live
on a mic.”
Shaping
Up Nicely
Also down the road is a revamping of the audio system in Hall D,
which Northlands is hoping to turn into a performance space of
sorts. “It’s an old hockey arena, so now they’re taking down an
old Delta Max PA cluster, as they want to start doing concerts
in there.” Axe has proposed a package of SX300Es for the lower
and upper levels, “and we’re adding more amps so we can monitor
that area, so it can be used as a PA system or life evacuation
system.” I guess when you find a solution that addresses your
needs to a tee, you milk it for all its worth. “It just keeps
getting bigger,” says Jargic of the project. “The beauty of it
is, as we meet challenges, it’s not, “I need another part.” It’s
just a matter of changing some programming.” The Northlands
project is still ongoing, though to date, Jargic reports that
the project has been running rather smoothly. “We’re both
on-time and on budget, and things are going quite well.” The
next phase, which is now underway in terms of planning, is Hall
F along with some more office space. Halls F, G, and H are
actually split combined, so they can be turned into a massive
hall or three separate, smaller halls. “They’re gearing towards
December for getting everything completed, though Hall F needed
to be ready for Capital Ex,” explains Jargic, referring to
Edmonton’s annual summer exhibition, held within the Northlands
facilities.
If the past is any indication of the future, there may just be a
few more creative concoctions to come out of this project.
Considering it’s mid-way through and already boasts an
impressive amount of engineering, this is probably a project
worth following. Even at this early stage, it’s safe to assert
that future clients and visitors to the Northlands Convention
Centre can rest easy thanks to the extensive safety system being
installed. Let’s just hope they never need to see it in action.
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PRO SOUND AUGUST 2009
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