AUDIO SOLUTIONS

Cali Beach resonates with the coastal crowd

A newly opened $10m rooftop venue called Cali Beach has installed a cutting-edge all-weather audio solution that’s in tune with its elevated, open-air environment – and doesn’t keep the neighbors awake.

CALI BEACH is a brand new multifaceted rooftop venue located on a Gold Coast high rise. The first-of-its-kind open-air beach club, which sits on the fourth floor of a high rise in the heart of Surfers Paradise, opened its doors in September with a footprint of more than 5000 sqm.

This new style of venue development boasts four pools, a beach volleyball court, several bars, and outdoor deck areas and cabanas – all with ocean views.

Cali Beach is also a night-time party and entertainment hub and offers multiple dining options, a DJ area, and an outdoor cinema.

“We have DJs booked every single weekend, and a superior audio-visual offering as well. The upbeat party atmosphere is something else under the stars,” says Matthew Keegan, a partner in Artesian Hospitality, the owner and operator of the venue. It’s more than an adult party venue, though, according to Keegan. “Sound is critical for a venue like this. When you’re so focused on live entertainment and acts, and operating right throughout the day, you need to have a fantastic sound. That’s what resonates with customers.”

Artesian Hospitality operates half a dozen Gold Coast’s nightclubs and restaurants, so Keegan understood the audio challenges that would be involved in running open-air parties in the middle of a high-rise precinct.

“We have neighbours right at our doorstep but no walls or rooves that traditionally assist in containing noise, so we had to work very hard from an acoustic engineering perspective. “We had to make sure we had correct placement and the correct style of loudspeaker system in order to mitigate dispersion and maximise the quality of the sound within the venue, which is absolutely critical to the customer experience.”

Sound control

Given the crucial role sound would play in the equation, and in light of the elevated, open-air environment, Keegan says they also needed a solution that could be relied on to perform even when subjected to winds, salt air and high levels of competing noise.

“The brief to Prestige Group, who were our AV consultants on this job, was that we wanted to take the experience you can typically expect inside a venue, for example in a nightclub or in a bar atmosphere, and have that same experience here in an outdoor environment.”

Prestige Group’s GM Nathan Wright says the main challenges in fulfilling this brief were the nearby residential high-rises, and the outdoor coastal location, which meant that selecting the right speakers would be key.

“Getting a very tight pattern control, making it sound great, and weatherproofing – given we’re right next to the beach – were the three crucial elements,” he says.

JBL Professional’s range of weatherised loudspeakers with high levels of pattern control were chosen for the task, he says. “JBL ticked all the boxes. Its weatherproof range of speakers are designed for these harsh environments, the range has the right SPL specifications for the project, and the JBL product range has all of the speaker dimensions, dispersion characteristics and frequency responses that we needed.”

Hardware selection

“The beauty of the JBL product range is there’s a speaker for every eventuality,” Wright says. “Predominantly, we used a combination of CBT column and AWC full- range coax speakers. They combined seamlessly to create the right experience for everyone.”

There are around 80 loudspeakers in total in the Cali Beach project, many operating in nearfield mode to restrict spill outside the venue.

Crown CDI series amplifiers, along with BSS processing and BLU Link networking, were chosen for processing and amplification duties.

“We’re running about 40 different channels of audio output zones here, and it’s just one Ethernet cable linking between the amplifiers. That makes life from a patching and installation point of view just so much easier,” Wright says.

We wanted to take the experience you can typically expect inside a venue, and have that same experience here in an outdoor environment.

MadisonAV, in partnership with JBL, assisted on the project, Wright says. “They helped us with the 3D modelling and in recommending speakers. They were here through the whole process to answer any questions. And it put everyone at ease having the team from Madison on board to help support us during the installation process.”

Keegan also praised the sound, the installation, and the collaboration. “We’ve been very happy with JBL,” he says. “It’s been an extremely smooth experience dealing with both Prestige and MadisonAV.

“We got a lot of feedback from them in terms of modelling and speaker selection and things like that which were obviously very important to us here at Cali, given the conditions that we’re operating in and the challenges that we face.

“And since we’ve had our opening weekend and we’ve been able to test the system, I think everyone says they’ve had a great time, and from my perspective as a venue owner, we’re very happy.”