HOLOPLOT, a science-based immersive audio company, has announced that its X1 Matrix Array sound system is being used to deliver an upgraded audio experience at The Portal at AREA15, an immersive entertainment district in Las Vegas, US.
The Portal is a multi-use venue and a significant component of AREA15’s unique entertainment offer. It provides experiences for the whole family such as rides and VR, live performances, DJs, and dining.
Mark Stutzman, CTO at AREA15, says: “Our motto is ‘AREA15 does not exist’ because you can make your own story. It can be anything you want it to be.”
Versatile event space
The Portal is AREA15’s flagship venue and is available for a wide range of uses from exclusive dining to all-night DJ sets, fine art exhibitions and corporate events. For instance, at Halloween the Rocky Horror Picture Show is projection-mapped across all four walls, accompanied by live performers.
The venue’s new HOLOPLOT X1 system features two arrays of two MD96 Audio Modules, with two MD80-S set 25 feet high on either side at one end of the room. Its versatility ensures that the space meets the needs of the AREA15 team’s creative vision. The joy of working in this area, according to JD Bouck, director of production, is that it poses no technical limitations.
The Portal is a large, grey concrete, cuboid-shaped space. It can be used as a sandbox for any type of experience with a 360-degree projection map across the walls and floor. While the space offers consistently outstanding visuals, Bouck found that the original sound system was challenged by its acoustics – comparable to a gigantic fish tank with extremely reflective smooth walls.
Bouck says: “The Portal was one of the biggest concerns we had. It is a 7,000 square foot, completely blank canvas. Thanks to our Panasonic projectors, we can make visual landscapes and have great storytelling for the eyes, but the audio picture was never able to complement these.
“The Portal is not built like any other real venue that I’ve ever been to. There is nothing to soften it, no balcony or mezzanine, just hard surfaces. So there was never a product that checked all the boxes.
“It was the reflective surfaces that we were really trying to tackle with the HOLOPLOT system. The 3D Audio-Beamforming technology allowed us to focus so that we could cut the reflections off the walls and make sure the people at the back of the room were getting the same audio picture as the people at the front of the room. All without having to run a ton of delays or having a bunch of loudspeakers in front of the projection surfaces.”
The HOLOPLOT team assisted Bouck throughout the entire process, from system design and room calculations to final commissioning and tuning.
“We finally got X1 into the venue and on the first night we just wanted to fire it up and see what happened, even before we had fine-tuned it. Straight away, it was like the weight had just been lifted off our shoulders. The Matrix Arrays sounded like a huge distributed system, like everyone had their own little PA, whether they were standing against the wall, or in the middle of the room. It didn’t matter where they were, their audio experience was not diminished in any position,” Bouck explains.
High-quality audio
Feedback on the new system has been outstanding. Audiences are enjoying an enhanced experience with regular visitors noticing an improvement, and the upgrade has also benefitted the team.
Stutzman says: “Loud isn’t always good. Good is good! We now have great audio quality without it having to scream in your face.
“The HOLOPLOT team really worked with us, listening to our ideas and taking it all into consideration. Our DJ shows can be up to five or six hours long. The guests can come and go, but the staff – our technicians, security, and bartenders – are here all night, and we have a duty of care to them, to ensure they’re comfortable. We didn’t want the ear fatigue you usually get from really loud festivals.
“So now we have a system that is really super versatile, allowing us to adapt the audio for any event without the need to reconfigure the hardware, but always provides that top audio experience to match the visuals in the space.”
HOLOPLOT recently exhibited at ISE 2024 in Barcelona. The firm demonstrated its acclaimed X1 product series and debuted its new compact Matrix Array X2. This innovation brings the firm’s technology to even more applications.
