The Buzz: Installation Spotlight: The Venue at Harrah’s Horseshoe Casino, Hammond, Ind.

Feb 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jessaca Gutierrez

The Venue’s audio system includes two Yamaha PM5D-RH digital consoles; one Yamaha DME24N, one DME8o-ES, and two DME64N digital mixing engine controllers; and a Meyer Sound line array. The video setup features three Digital Projection International Lightning 30isx+ projectors, screens by Draper and Lesna, and a Ross Vision QMD/X series digital switcher for video control.

CHALLENGES

It's not surprising that there were some challenges during the installation, but according to Flaws, there was nothing that couldn't be taken care of in a day or two. The largest of the challenges were on the networking side.

“We found that single-mode fiber was a little bit of a pain to deal with — having to get some specific boxes to convert stuff to work on single-mode versus multimode, and then the way the EtherSound works in the digital realm of things,” Flaws says. “We have had to reconfigure the consoles as far as the cards. The [PM5D-RHs] have four [Mini-YGDAI] card slots, and we don't need the AES/EBUs — we needed inserts. We have [the PM5D-RHs] configured for 48-channel digital snake with [MY16-ES64] cards, and then one card slot is an AES/EBU digital card. All we had to do was swap out the AES card for another card to be able to do analog inserts.”

By the time the installation was completed and ready to open, Flaws says luck was on its side, although it wasn't really needed — opening day was a big success. Thus far, the only request the casino has received from patrons is more beer.

“[As a visitor], you're going to be killed with kindness from your ushers, [and get] a technologically savvy experience from an inhouse production standpoint to when the people walk out,” Flaws says. “They try to give you the full package here. They want to make your experience memorable. They didn't by any means cut corners on the equipment.”