Sam Jacks was upgraded to include a dance area complete with a new lighting system, enhancements and additions to the visuals, with the installation of three new projectors, and upgrades to the Plasma and LCD displays. Utopian's operations manager Carl Hornsby commented "We must have the greatest number of display units in any Newcastle Venue with a total of 37 displays providing a visual impact to the customer of breathtaking proportions"The sound system needed reinforcing particularly for the dance area and Utopian together with Blaydon Communications chose the KV2 Audio ES system. In specifying two ES1.0 loudspeakers together with two ES1.8 bass bins, two ES2.5 bass bins and three EPAK 2500's to power the system, it more than fitted the bill.
A similar scheme was put in place for Bar 55, with once again the KV2 Audio ES system being utilised for the dance area and a Biamp Nexia to integrate the old and new systems.
Utopian's Carl Hornsby summed up both projects "We pride ourselves on giving the customer the best experience possible in our venues, I feel both of these meet that criteria."
(Jim Evans)
