The new Sheraton Fairplex Conference Centre – a 85,000sqft addition to the Fairplex Exposition Complex in Pomona, CA, which is home to the L.A. County fair and encompasses more than 300,000sqft of indoor exhibition and conference facilities, has a Q-Sys Integrated System Platform at the heart of the networked audio-visual facilities.
The Sheraton’s new Conference Center extension, which is located adjacent to Conference Halls 8 and 9, includes a number of office suites and several ballrooms that may be reconfigured with air walls.
As part of the $28 million (£17 million) development, CSI MultiMedia (Campbell-Shaw) of Woodland Hills, CA, was enlisted to design and integrate the new Q-Sys system.
The installed system comprises a Core 4000 with 256 x 256 I/O capability plus eleven I/O Frames outfitted with CIML4-HP high-performance mic/line I/O Cards. In addition, a further 30 QSC Audio PowerLight 3 Series PL340 (2 x 1200w at 4 ohms) and six PL325 (2 x 825w at 4 ohms) amplifiers power the installed speakers.
CSI partner Rick Shaw says: “Our objective here was to create a large networked web throughout the entire campus, so that any signal can be sent anywhere,” says Shaw. “We were looking for very powerful web-based systems – web in terms of internet and configuration – and we chose Q-Sys, which is the first of the really, really powerful web systems out there. It’s a great sounding system and very responsive.”
“Every input is connected to every other output, so if you have an overflow from the main room you can send the signal back to the hotel, or you can send it to one of the smaller office suites,” continues Shaw. “When the air walls open, Q-Sys automatically combines the rooms; same with lighting. And now you can send audio signals to Conference Hall 8.”
The installers also took advantage of the DataPorts on the QSC amplifiers. “Because QSC amplifiers speak directly to the Q-Sys Core, we have unbelievable amounts of information, such as the temperature,” says Shaw. “It’s really an interestingly sophisticated system in that we can completely administer it offline. Troubleshooting becomes almost an off-site solution.”
“One of our best assets now is that Q-Sys allows us to control the sound anywhere and we are not limited by our existing infrastructure, because the flexibility of the network solves the problem,” comments Ralph Schorbach, Technology Manager at Fairplex. “And because Q-Sys is a network based system, we didn’t even need any additional wiring or framework.“
Current plans call for the Q-Sys Integrated System Platform to be expanded across the entire Pomona Fairplex site. “We’ve made a commitment to expand with Q-Sys across the entire campus. What we plan to do, since all the Q-Sys Cores speak to each other, is install smaller Cores – the 500i and 250i – all around other locations, so that our clients can have access to the system anywhere.”
