Diggerland USA's large 14-acre site, with varying ambient noise levels and its combination of outdoor, indoor and covered open-air areas, presented challenges to Spellcaster Productions of Hammonton, New Jersey who designed and installed the park's audio systems. Spellcaster met these challenges with a design based on Community R Series loudspeakers for the outdoor areas and D Series pendant and ceiling loudspeakers for the indoor and open-air areas.
Spellcaster's Mike Shafer says, "Looking at the vast areas I had to cover outdoors, I immediately thought of Community's R Series." He chose R.15COAX loudspeakers for the outdoor short-throw, fill and walkway areas and R.35-3896 three-way loudspeakers for the long-throw applications.
Diggerland USA's indoor spaces have dropped ceilings with very little space between the ceiling and the roof deck. Shafer used Community's D4LP four-inch, low-profile ceiling loudspeakers which fit in the restricted space and left room for wiring. For the covered open-area spaces such as the games arcade, he used DP6 pendant loudspeakers which brought the sound down below the ceiling beams and vibration isolated the loudspeakers from the metal roof. The overall park loudspeaker system is a 70-volt distributed design that used over 12,000ft of loudspeaker cable.
Spellcaster used Ashly amplifiers and an Ashly NE24.24M DSP to manage the park audio systems. They added a park-wide Wi-Fi system that allows Diggerland USA technical personnel to adjust the audio systems from any point in the park with an iPad. Spellcaster also integrated the audio system with the park's CCTV cameras and security systems.
Diggerland USA plays music and advertising messages over their audio system with a live DJ for special events. Paging is available from any park telephone and Shure wireless mics are available for parties and other special events. Spellcaster's Shafer says, "The park's audio systems are everything we expected. The music sounds great and the voice paging is loud and clear."
(Jim Evans)
