History has it that the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, Louisiana had a reputation for being known for the worst sound for live concerts in the 1970’s. Because of that, the renowned Texas trio ZZ Top would use the venue for their tour rehearsals knowing if they could get the sound good there, it could sound good anywhere they went.
In 2016, the Shreveport Mudbugs, a new North American Hockey League expansion team, signed a 12-year lease agreement with the facility. As the new team prepared for their debut season, plans were put into place to upgrade the facility’s audio system to increase the fan experience.
With that, team owner Tommy Scott called on regional event production company Paxton Sound to explore and evaluate the best solution for the venue.
“After reviewing all of the options out there for this type of installation, I came to recognize RCF offered the best solution,” says Paxton Sound principal Eric Paxton.
The design for the 4,000 seat multi-purpose arena called for a center box truss system with four line array hangs, each comprised of five RCF HDL20-A dual 10” active line array cabinets complimented with a single HDL18-AS subwoofer.
“The system meets the performance needs, stayed within budgetary demands, and everybody is extremely happy with the results,” Paxton notes.
“Usually a system like this gets hung for the first time, there is some minor angle adjustments and tweaking necessary,” says Paxton. “With the RCF (Shape Designer) software, I found no changes were needed.” The system called for two aiming positions, as the east and west arrays called for a longer throw in the rectangular shape of the arena. And, as reverberant as the building was known to be, “we only had to do some hard EQ on some of the low frequencies to tune the system.”
“The system has exceeded our expectations,” for both vocal clarity and meeting the needs of the fan experience entertainment value notes Mudbugs Media Manager Eric Tuxen. “It really sounds nice no matter where you are,” adding, “The output capability, the strong range and with the absolute clarity, we’re extremely satisfied with the system.”
