SANDBOX VR

Crossover designs and delivers the AV package for this bustling virtual reality experience location in central London.

Spanning three floors of a former Royal Mail Sorting Centre in London’s Covent Garden, Sandbox VR offers an immersive VR experience which is ably supported by an AV concept, designed and installed by London-based AV integrator, Crossover.

The concept of Sandbox VR is inspired by the holodecks featured in Star Trek, with groups of up to six entering virtual worlds for a fun, competitive and social experience – with the social element enhanced afterwards when participants get together to review and relive their performances and enjoy refreshments.

With two holodecks in the basement and two on the ground floor, the Crossover team supplemented these areas with sound and video solutions to match the high levels of technology offered in the VR games.

“There are various zones across the different levels in the venue that all required various AV solution, with the main socialising area focussed around a large bar on the ground floor,” explained Ben Manning, Project Manager for Crossover.

“In addition to the two main floors, a mezzanine level serves as a multifunctional events space which can be hired out by larger groups to extend their stay within the venue, and part of the vision for this space was to implement AV-enabled presentations from laptops onto a projection screen for use during team building days and the like.

“For this, we installed an Epson EB-755F projector, because the low ceiling meant we needed to fit a relatively shortthrow projector, and that particular model fit the brief and budget very well.”

Digital signage was also required across various locations in the venue. Each of the four holodecks features one wallmounted 43-inch NEC Multisync E438 display to provide information to the team about the missions their have chosen, while eight 65in LG LG65UR640S screens are set up in the post experience viewing areas for participants to re-live their performances.

Outside the venue, four 49in LG 49XS4J-B displays are set-up to drive pavement appeal, while two 75in LG 75UR640S are deployed in the foyer to welcome participants to the venue.

When it came to the venue’s audio, two systems are deployed, and the nature of the venue’s layout and industrial finish provided an acoustic challenge for Crossover’s Lead Desinger, Juan Garcia.

“The Sandbox VR team wanted really good audio quality throughout the whole venue, with a focus on the bar and mezzanine, and so for those areas we supplied a Martin Audio system powered by Powersoft amplification,” said Manning.

A total of 14 Martin Audio CDD6TX-WR passive loudspeakers are deployed, with four to cover the ground floor bar, four in the post experience viewing areas and six in the mezzanine, with two SX110 subwoofers adding low end. Two Powersoft Quattrocanali 2404 amplifiers power the system, with audio processing handled via a Symetrix Jupiter 8.

The corridors, which provide a link between the rooms where lowlevel audio output is required, are covered by a separate audio system featuring Apart speakers, and while the mezzanine features the Martin Audio loudspeakers, it is also served by the secondary system, with two Apart Mask 6C speakers set up, powered by a Cloud MA40 amplifier.

“The Martin Audio speakers up in the mezzanine are for the background music, but they can be turned down if the space is in use for a corporate presentation,” explained Manning. “And for the Apart system, there is the Cloud amplifier and a Blustream input plate and receiver for control. The Cloud MA40 offers great functionality at a great price, and was a really good fit for this particular standalone part of the project.

Blustream is also a manufacturer we have been using for projects with similar requirements for a while, and we have taken to using them over some larger, more expensive brands because they provide a solid, costeffective solution and their products are nearly always available to us.” In order to maximise audio clarity, Garcia had to fit acoustic treatment, with dampening panels hanging from the ceiling in the ground floor and mezzanine levels. The walls of the holodecks weren’t built to the full height of the ceiling, so in order to reduce the amount of sound travelling from inside the hollodecks over the partition and reverberating around the rest of the spaces, Crossover fit a multitude of acoustic panels to help deaden both the noise of the participants in the holodecks, and to help acoustics generally across the venue.

The acoustic panels that were installed were chosen carefully for their aesthetics in addition to their absorptive performance, and installed in a manner to enhance the overall ‘industrial’ feel of the interior design. Another thing to help combat noise levels travelling through the building was the selection of Powerdrive anti-vibration mounts to isolate the loudspeakers from the structure of the building.

“Sandbox VR are only occupying a small section of a very large building,” confirmed Manning. “So there were concerns of noise pollution throughout the building, which is why we used the isolation mounts on the concrete and metal structures.”

The success of this install has led Crossover to be selected to supply and equip the AV solutions at future Sandbox VR sites around the UK, with a venue in Birmingham currently in production. Jake WilmotSitwell, Co-Founder at VR Entertainment Group // Sandbox VR (UK & Ireland) concluded: “Crossover did an amazing job deploying our AV requirements into the first Sandbox VR venue in Europe, so much so we are now using them for our Birmingham site – highly recommend!”

Technical Information

AUDIO:

14 x Martin Audio CDD6TX-WR, 2 x Martin Audio SX110, 2 x Powersoft Quattrocanali 2404, 8 x Apart MASK6CT, 2 x Apart MASK6C, 2 x Apart CM20DT, 2 x Apart Mask 6C, 1 x Apart Revamp 4120T Class D Amplifier, 1 x Apart Revamp 2600 Class H Amplifier, 1 x Symetrix Jupiter 8, 1 x Cloud MA40 Amplifier, 1 x Blustream HEX70CS-RX

VISUAL:

1 x Epson EB-755F projector, 2 x LG 75UR640S displays

8 x LG 65UR640S displays, 4 x LG 49XS4J-B displays, 2 x NEC

55 Multisync E558 display www.sandboxvr.com www.crossover-av.com