Says FACE MD, Karel De Piere, "Our credo to offer the best hardware, knowledge and service combination led to us recommending Martin Audio. It is about earning the customer's trust and confidence with a proven sound solution."
Founded by Gert Verhulst and Hans Bourlon Studio 100's theme parks receive more than two million visitors each year and this number is continually growing. Active in media, TV, musicals and theme parks, Studio 100's headquarters are based in Belgium, with branches in France, The Netherlands, Germany and Australia.
Since the first theme park, Plopsaland De Panne, opened in 2000, FACE has been involved in the design and installation of the sound management system. The visitors are mainly children and youths up to 14 years of age, and each park presents TV stars appealing to this age demographic. All parks offer different attractions - from rides, mills, drives, discovery walks to live theatre stages, highly decorated areas and cafeteria and merchandising areas.
Each environment requires networked multi-zone speaker systems with versatile features - preferably compact, IP-rated for outdoor use, and with wide dispersion and high SPL - as they need to perform both at low and high levels for speech intelligibility. "Alongside that," continues Karel, "we needed very slim speakers for the different live stages, where live music, theatre, presentation, film and musical performance take place for a maximum of 200 kids. This all takes place in an open, central space, surrounded by all the other exciting attractions.
"For the general speakers the stylish C115 surface mount and C4.8T ceiling speaker offered the perfect solution. "Over the years we have installed over 800 of these, both indoor and outdoor, on poles, against a wall, on moving attractions, in the food and drink areas ... you name it! You will not leave the theme parks without having been confronted with the light grey or graphite of the C115. The ICT technology, the 90° conical dispersion, the choice between 8Ohm or 100Volt, the great plastic housing and bracket - which is resistant to bad weather - the105dB power and compact size and feather light chassis are everything we need."
For higher output and longer distance throw,a Martin Audio OmniLine system was chosen. "With the live open stages situated next to the other attractions we needed high beaming controlled speakers," states Karel. "Normally a line array or 12" cluster would achieve this but we didn't have the space to hang them, nor the budget. Besides that, the customer didn't want big ugly boxes in his expensively decorated areas."
FACE have also installed all sound management systems with Media Matrix control, which handles signal routing, audio content, hard disk play back, source management, equalization and line control. For amplification they use Powersoft .
(Jim Evans)
Caption : Mayaland at Plospaland De Panne (photo: Geert Moors/Painting with Light)
