The 3,400-seat arena, which opened in 2013, had a basic audio system for announcements. However, the arena quickly outgrew the system's capabilities and often rented equipment to supplement its sound level and music quality for rodeos and other events with high levels of crowd excitement.
In 2014, Kansas Star turned to McClelland Sound of Wichita, KS to upgrade the arena's audio system. McClelland's Paul Colella designed a distributed loudspeaker system with eight clusters of Community Solutions Series SLS960 main loudspeakers and ILF218 subwoofers. The system covers the arena seating and floor and allows selected loudspeakers to be muted for smaller events that use half of the arena and for events that do not utilize floor seating.
The arena's upgraded loudspeakers are powered by Crown amplifiers and McClelland reconfigured the system's Q-Sys DSP which ties into the main casino's AV network so that announcements and other audio can be routed to stables and warm-up areas.
Colella said, "The upgraded system has excellent coverage and it sounds great. The level and the musical quality help build crowd excitement and the technical crew is happy that they no longer need to rent equipment."
(Jim Evans)
