ABOUT THE CLIENT
ABOUT THE CLIENTMGM Cotai is a luxury resort and casino in the Cotai Strip in Macau. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, it was constructed at a cost of $3.4 billion. and opened in February 2018. The unique structure has the appearance of nine jeweller's boxes stacked upon each other, forming two interconnected towers. Its exterior is coloured gold, silver, and bronze just like the MGM Macau hotel, and that and its asymmetrical sculptural form "create a dynamic and glorious appearance", according to Emporis. MGM Macau, with a total floor area of 280,000 sq m (over 3,000,000 sq ft), has 1,390 rooms and suites.
Source: Wikipedia
MGM COTAI, MACAU PRESENTS ASIA’S FIRST DYNAMIC THEATRE
Over two years in the making, the MGM Cotai, Macau Theater is an engineering and architectural masterpiece which can accommodate up to 2,000 people in more than 10 different configurations. Every detail has been carefully selected to ensure the greatest entertainment experience for all guests. The reconfigurable seating was developed by GALA Systems, the world’s largest manufacturer of understage equipment and the leader in automated multipurpose halls, and will deliver prime sightlines for every guest. The seats are designed and manufactured by Poltrona Frau, one of the most esteemed Italian furniture makers with over 100 years of experience and the seat maker for Ferrari cars. Empowered by the latest in technology and engineering, the MGM Theater can create custom arrangements for special events, from a traditional concert, fashion show or movie premiere layout to a 360-degree configuration for talk shows, product launches and international DJs.
“The Theatre at MGM Cotai, Macau brings the future of events to Macau, today,” said James Murren, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of MGM Resorts International and Chairperson & Executive Director of MGM China Holdings Limited. “MGM is synonymous with entertainment and we have taken our deep knowledge and incorporated it with cutting-edge technology to create a setting that will redefine and elevate the way our guests experience entertainment.”
“The intricacy of the MGM Theater is one of the most complex in the world and we have invested in training our local staff to learn how to use this leading entertainment technology. We sent a group of 10 local team members to Hollywood for an intensive two-week training program, helping them to familiarize themselves with the entertainment technology they will operate at MGM Cotai, Macau. The group has visited VER, the creative experience company that supplied the LED panels on the giant wall totalling 28 million pixels,” said Murren. MGM Theater is home to three resident shows with two launching first, The Experience and Destiny. The Experience, inspired by the soul of Macau, is a 10-minute mind-bending and harmonious technological symphony that showcases the Theater’s engineering and architectural dexterity. Meanwhile, Destiny is an electrifying, action-packed immersive theatrical production that is inspired by the concept of TV game shows and adventure video games. Through the Theater’s various configuration capabilities, guests can experience multiple types of entertainment events at the same location.
Electronics & Engineering Pte Ltd (E&E), the Singapore based systems integrator was awarded the contract to integrate and commission the audio and video systems that included Intercom systems, Loudspeakers, Audio signal processing systems, Wireless microphone Systems, Audio Console, Video media player systems, Video mixing system and Cameras in MGM Cotai Macau.
E&E worked with Canadian consultant Scéno Plus to install and commission the audio system. The system was to adapt to various seating configurations and provide adequate coverage in each scenario. In order to achieve this, E&E has installed 6 clusters of L-Acoustics speakers excluding 4 sound effect speaker zones. The system was optimized by Andre Pichette, the L-Acoustics Head of Applications, Install, USA.
The loudspeaker system configuration is as follows:
- Main Left, Right & center cluster each consists of 12 X L’acoustics Kara with 4X L’acoustics SB18.
- Upstage Left & Right cluster each consists of 12 X L’acoustics Kara with 4X L’acoustics SB18, while the upstage centre cluster consist of 8 X L’acoustics Kara.
- In-a-round speakers consist of 6 units of L’acoustics ARCS II
- Ground floors subwoofers consist of 12 X L’acoustics SB28
- Balcony Rear Channel clusters consist of 8 X L’acoustics 8XTI
- Orchestra Channel Cluster consist of 8 X L’acoustics 12 XTI
- Stage monitor consists of 8 X L’acoustics 115XTHIQ
- SFX Left & Right Clusters each consist of 8 X L’acoustics Kara-i and a L’acoustics Arcs II
- All speakers are powered by 46 units of L’acoustics LA4X & 3 units of L’acoustics La8
E&E also installed the Meyer Sound D-Mitri system which performs audio routing, shows cues and features the innovative SpaceMap software. The system allows the sound designer to save scene-specific parameters and allows these scenes to be recalled automatically over time code. The SpaceMap software allows the sound designer to dynamically pan sound effects throughout the theater affording the designers unparalleled flexibility.
The Meyer sound D’mitri systems consists of one unit of Meyer DCP, Meyer DWTRX, Meyer DAIO, Meyer DGPIO and three units of Meyer DDIO.
Scéno Plus specified a Digico mixing system feature 4 consoles, 2 Units of Digico SD 10 and 2 units od Digico SD11 and 6 remote input and output nodes connected in a ring topology. 4 Units of Digico SDrack and 2 Units of Digico SDmini. The set-up features signal redundancy and over 300 simultaneous channels of processing.
The video LED wall which spans 70 by 12 meters at 5.33333mm pitch size is one of the key features of the theatre. The video wall consists of movable parts, which allows it to transform into multiple configurations and at the same time display a Background later covering the entire wall and having multipe PIPs on it. The video system had to achieve a resolution of 16384 x 2160 @50p resolution and the design called for various routing and cable infrastructure. E&E provided the video backbone to support these configurations consisting of disguise media servers and Barco E2s for video wall management.
Four units of disguise 4x4pro media server were installed to feed the full Background layer to the video wall with enough redundancy and load balancing to sustain the heavy processing required to achieve the output resolution. Two Barco E2s were installed in order to manage the 4x4pro content as well as to allows other video sources to be displayed. This is the first install where 2 Barco E2s were linked together in order to achieve the canvas resolution for the LED wall.
UP TO MARK
“The theatre was designed so that it can be configured for different purposes and layouts, from concerts, fashion shows and movie premieres to talk shows, product launches and international DJ sessions. The challenge was in ensuring whatever the seating configuration, the audio and video systems must perform to its optimum ensuring a great experience for the audience,” said Gary Goh, Deputy Managing Director, Electronics and Engineering Pte Ltd.
“We are elated and pleased that we were able to be involved in this unique project and together with the other key companies and people involved, delivered to MGM COTAI what they had envisioned,” added Gary.
Photo Credit: MGM Cotai
E&E PLAYS KEY ROLE INTEGRATING THE AUDIO AND VISUAL SYSTEMS
Publications
