Newport News, VA (January 18, 2019)—Holiday lighting displays are always a treat, but of course, there’s more to them than merely lighting, as Austin Wydrzynski of Washington Professional can attest. Wydrzynski designed the temporarily installed outdoor sound system use for BayPort Credit Union’s 25 Nights of Northern Lights, an annual holiday event held from the 1st to the 25th of December in the City Center at Oyster Point in Newport News, Virginia.
Situated by the lakeside with its 400-foot fountain, a 50-foot tall pixel-mapped Christmas tree forms the focal point of the festival, which includes seasonal events, vendors and street performers as well as a light show that is tied to the tree and includes elements surrounding the fountain.
Full service AV systems integration specialist Washington Professional supplied the 2018 festival’s system, and installation was handled by RWS Entertainment, with the system hidden inside the tree to provide sound reinforcement for the synchronized light show.
The system designed by Wydrzynski employed Community’s IV6 weather-resistant modular vertical arrays. The system had two arrays, each comprising four IV6-1122 wide-dispersion 12-inch two-way array elements and two IV6-118S 18-inch subwoofers. QSC Core 110F DSP and CXD4.5 amplifiers powered the system, and source content was provided by the S4 Show HQ—the system that drove the pixel mapping for the tree itself.
The project marked the first time that Wydrzynski had worked with the IV6 arrays, having first heard them at InfoComm last summer. “Their weather rating and price point were essential to this project,” he noted. “Right out of the box, with the FIR filters for Q-Sys provided by Community’s TAG Team (Technical Applications Group), these boxes sounded great. The client was very satisfied. They were concerned at first as they know the highly reflective area has been a challenge in the past. I worked with the city staff to ensure they were completely happy with the coverage and overall sonic quality of the system.”
Community Professional Loudspeakers • www.communitypro.com
