USA - The Snohomish people have inhabited the Port Gardner Peninsula for thousands of years, but the city of Everett, Wash., was not founded on it until 1893. While many of its 110,000 residents commute daily 25 miles south to Seattle, Everett itself is a burgeoning community that opened a small airport in 2019 and is home to a large Boeing manufacturing facility, as well as the 10,000-seat Angel of the Winds Arena.
Opened in 2003, Angel of the Winds Arena houses three venues that host sporting events (especially hockey games), trade shows, music concerts, school functions, and a variety of other programs. From its opening, the audio system in Angel of the Winds Arena has been built around JBL Professional loudspeakers, but after 20 years the original system was aging and dirty and no longer met the needs of the venue’s event schedule.
“We just didn't have enough,” states Curtis Giboney, technical services & special projects manager at Angel of the Winds Arena. “It wasn't enough coverage and the hockey team had to push the levels so much to fill the dead zones that it was ear-piercingly loud all the time.” It was time for an upgrade, and solving these issues was the top goal for the new system.
Morgan Sound, headquartered only 13 miles south in Lynnwood, was selected to do the job. As well as the arena having sported JBL loudspeakers for 20 years, Morgan Sound has relied on JBL for 54 years, so upgrading to JBL’s latest VTX Series loudspeakers was an easy decision.
At the heart of the coverage issue was the design of the roof, which is higher along the venue’s spine than towards its sides, with the scoreboard hanging just near the lower roof level. “The arena doesn't come down evenly, so not only is there a sight-line issue, but you just can't get energy from the scoreboard to the entire top of the arena,” reveals Morgan Sound senior AV consultant Stephen Weeks.
“It’s a typical arena, with a big scoreboard in the centre, but the scoreboard is in the upper area and the arena is down below it. We modelled a system with VTX A8s (Dual 8-inch Compact Line Array Loudspeaker with 110º Dispersion) but couldn’t get the needed coverage. We went through a few different revisions and ended up with the VTX A6 (Sub-compact Dual 6.5-Inch Line Array Element) because we needed a more distributed approach to coverage,” Weeks continues.
The resulting design used more arrays than would normally be deployed in an arena context, with the arrays hung in a sharply curved configuration. “Instead of hanging four arrays in the centre of the room, or six arrays in the centre of the room in stereo, we ended up with 14 arrays ringing the entire arena. If we had done that with A8s, the number of amplifiers would be double because the A8 is bi-amped, plus with A6s we could hit the 105 dB SPL the client needed for large events, while keeping the footprint, and therefore, the visual distraction, smaller,” explains Weeks.
“Ten of the arrays have 12 boxes, and it's a pretty steep banana (curvature) at the bottom of the array. The bottom box of the array points at the lowest seat, which sits right up by the dasher, and then the array curve ramps straight up and shoots all the way to the top of the arena. There's a smaller seating section at the east end where they don't have nearly as many bleachers, and we do two smaller seven-box arrays there.”
Weeks ended up with the system modelled in JBL’s Venue Synthesis software, which brought multiple benefits. “We were able to take the model and manipulate it as we needed, but we also used an export from Venue Synthesis to do virtual 3D walkthroughs with the client so they could see what the coverage was going to be. More importantly, leadership at the arena wanted to see what the sight line issues would be, especially with the LED scoreboard and all that happens there.”
“Then our production team went out and flew an A6 array on a motor, as it would be installed, so that we could demonstrate proof of concept and the entire leadership team of the arena could come out and approve it before we proceeded with the project.”
Two more arrays of seven VTX A6 cabinets each were hung a quarter of the way into the arena, pointing straight down at the floor to make sure the players in hockey games could hear announcements and, of course, the music to pump them up. Other events, like trade shows, also use those arrays to cover the arena floor with announcements and music.
Ticketing areas and entrances are covered by six AWC82 All-Weather Compact 2-Way Coaxial Loudspeakers that can play pre-recorded music to attendees who might be waiting in cold, rainy weather before doors open. Concourses use previously installed JBL Control Series components, which Morgan Sound reorganized for cleaner networked operation.
Morgan Sound owner Charlie Morgan reflects, "I'm pleased we had an opportunity to reap the fruits of our labours while utilizing our industry relationships built over the past five decades. This project allowed us to shine a light on the depth of our capabilities."
