World Audio & Lights, one of the premier south Texas rental and event production service companies in San Antonio, recently teamed up with “Dinosaur George”, George Blasing to create a traveling dinosaur exhibit. Stepping outside the typical rental and event production role, World Audio & Lights provided sound and lights, visual setting, operations, ticketing, marketing and sponsorships for the tour. Doiron with assistance from World Audio & Lights Marketing and Sales Director Xavier Villalon, worked closely with Blasing and team to create Dinosaur George’s Ultimate Paleo-Adventure.
The traveling dinosaur exhibit features 25 full size dinosaurs and a T-Rex surround theater. World Audio & Lights immediately began converting a 15 year old abandoned warehouse in downtown San Antonio for its debut location. “Our main goal was to create an educational yet very entertaining event that could be taken anywhere in the country,” explains Villalon. Working in a renovated warehouse has its acoustic challenges. The exhibit features more than 25 individual skeletons displayed in unique settings, highlighted with educational video clips playing on 42”-50” plasma screens along with exhibit specific lighting and sound effects. Doiron knew that for the exhibit to be a success it was imperative that the loudspeakers used for the individual dinosaur exhibits be accurate, controllable and discreet.
After evaluating a number of options, Doiron determined that Tannoy Di5A loudspeakers would be ideal. Designed to deliver high sound pressure levels with extremely low distortion along with a small, discrete footprint would allow them to be heard more than seen in each of the dinosaur displays. “The Di5As keep the audio precisely focused on the audience area for each exhibit. The volume can be low, minimizing overlap with other displays,” explains Doiron. “Because they are self-powered, it eliminates the need for additional wiring. It was a perfect fit.” Each of the 18 exhibits feature plasma screens displaying educational video clips about that specific dinosaur era. A single Di5A is mounted directly below each plasma screen or is mounted discretely within the exhibit itself.
In addition to the individual exhibit sound tracks, Doiron hung eight Di5As from the lighting truss throughout the museum to provide ambient background prehistoric sounds from the era. Two more Di5As mounted outside of the warehouse fill the same purpose. “Dinosaur George wanted every visitor to feel like they were in the prehistoric era at all times,” notes Doiron. “The subtle background system keeps visitors engaged in the time period even if they are not viewing a specific exhibit.” Keeping things simple, Doiron utilizes an iPod to provide the background track, which is located in a small equipment closet along with a small mixer and microphone for museum-wide announcements. The Ultimate Paleo-Adventure also features a T-Rex theater with 180 degree screens that envelope the attendees in the video action. Doiron put together a 5.1 surround sound system utilizing Tannoy and Lab.gruppen components for the theater.
“Dinosaur George is well known as the creator of the television series “Jurrasic Fight Club”, which aired on the History Channel,” adds Doiron. “The T-Rex theater plays 4-8 minute video clips from the television show. The surround sound system adds to the impact of the video immensely.” The 5.1 surround system consists of five Tannoy V12 loudspeakers and two VS18DR subwoofers, all Lab.gruppen powered. Three of the V12 loudspeakers and both VS18DR subwoofers are located behind three 20’ wide projector screens which provide 180 degrees of projection. The V12s are mounted from ceiling trusses in a left-center-right configuration. The remaining two V12s are mounted in the rear corners of the theater. The theater system is powered by 2-channel and 4-channel Lab.gruppen amplifiers located in a PA rack in the rear of the theater. A Denon DN A7100 pre-amplifier provides surround processing and is also in the rack. Three ceiling mounted Panasonic DLP projectors serve the “Jurrasic Fight Club” footage.
The San Antonio exhibit closes at the end of 2009 with plans to tour across the United States throughout 2010. “I typically work on the premise of the less equipment the better,” Doiron concludes. “In this particular situation we needed to put together a sound system that would provide a realistic, high quality dinosaur experience for attendees while also being easy to pack up and move to another location. The Tannoy loudspeakers with Lab.gruppen amps were ideal on all counts.”