As part of the Viparis group of event sites, the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles exhibition park is the largest in France and hosts over 120 trade-shows including some of the French capital’s most prestigious occasions.
With such a diverse and high-profile array of exhibitions to cater for, the venue’s sound system needed to be of an equally high standard. When the venue’s largest pavilion – the 7,000sqm Hall 1 – required an audio upgrade, APG’s Uniline Compact was chosen as the key component to achieve pristine sound.
The audio system in the venue was specified as a result of an electro-acoustic study undertaken by LM Ingénierie Audiovisuel (LMI AV), while the equipment itself was supplied and integrated by Belgian company Inytium.
Partner and project manager for LM Ingénierie Audiovisuel, Tristan Hoël-Bâcle, lent his audio expertise to the system design for Hall 1, in collaboration with project manager Charlotte Brassart.
The system had to be discrete, but still be able to guarantee a high level of intelligibility with regard to the acoustics of the rooms, as well as a sufficient level of musicality when necessary.
To achieve this, the team specified 48 boxes of APG UC206W, to be arranged in 12 clusters of four speakers.
Inytium’s project manager Xavier Goffin said: “The Uniline Compact boasts a number of advantages that were critical to the success of this integration, including its light weight and compact dimensions, along with the excellent level of intelligibility, not to mention the performances of the system which helped us to achieve a homogeneous result all across the venue.”
This system was complemented by 12x Ray-On column speakers from APG’s sister company Active Audio, which are to be used primarily as a VA and evacuation voice message system.
APG’s support and sales manager Maxence Castelain, commented: “LM Ingénierie Audiovisel and Inytium have both done a remarkable integration job. Hall 1 has very large dimensions – 120m x 60m x 25m (height) – and features a lot of reflective concrete surfaces and a canopy ceiling. The Uniline Compact system is able to combat this in a number of ways, including its outstanding control of the acoustic opening throughout the entire frequency spectrum.”
Hoël-Bâcle added: “There were complexities during the install, such as the requirement to interface with the venue’s fire safety system, while the installation of all the speakers, including hundreds of ceiling ones, was also carried out in a very constrained time and with an empty hall, which complicated the settings.”
The new system was inaugurated at one of France’s largest trade fairs, the 2018 Paris Motor Show, which took place in October last year.
