The Greater Atlanta Christian School’s Long Forum Has A Dual Personality NORCROSS, GA—The Greater Atlanta Christian School (GACS) in Norcross, GA
The main concert speaker system comprises 16 Electro-Voice XLCi127 DVX boxes (flown in arrays of eight per side) and eight XLC215 subs in two arrays of four boxes, flown between the mains. envisioned a truly flexible AV solution for its new Long Forum sports and concert arena. The facility is required to serve as a basketball arena, a concert hall, and a sanctuary for weekly worship services, and it needed high-tech sound, light, and video solutions to help make it all happen as seamlessly as possible. In particular, the school wanted the new sound system to perform as if it had been specifically designed for each of these individual applications.
GACS’ vision for Long Forum proved so revolutionary that it stumped even the most seasoned of Georgia’s AV professionals. The ESB Group of Birmingham, AL, originally hired only to install the sound system, was quickly appointed as the complete AV system designer.
“Some of the other designers just couldn’t grasp GACS’ vision, whereas we saw it as a challenge,” said Larry Bounds, CFO, The ESB Group.
After a sit-down with the school, Bounds went to work with his engineering team (headed by chief engineer Beau Blackwell) to design a system that would bring the vision of the school to fruition.
“During the design process, Steve Land (of regional Electro-Voice reps EDA Pro Group) made the implementation of EV product into the design effortless,” Bounds said. “He supplied us with everything we needed to make sure the system would not only perform to our technical standards but also to our service standards.
“EV’s value proposition, its bangfor- the-buck, was obvious for all to see—and hear,” Bounds continued. This allowed us to rest assured with a high-performance audio spec that was well within budget, meaning we could to focus remaining funds on the HD video spec.”
The speaker system for basketball sound reinforcement includes a centrally-flown main array of 18 white EV XLCi127 DVX boxes with a single array of four XLC215 subs. design of Long Forum’s new system is divided into two distinct parts, one for basketball functions, and the other for concert events. The main concert speaker system comprises 16 XLCi127 DVX boxes (flown in arrays of eight per side) and eight XLC215 subs in two arrays of four boxes, flown between the mains. The system also includes four ground-stacked Xsubs, recessed under the stage, and a central array of four XLE boxes for front fill.
The speaker system for basketball sound reinforcement includes a centrally- flown main array of 18 white XLCi127 DVX boxes with a single array of four XLC215 subs. To increase the capability of the forum’s entire system, the speakers in the basketball system were designed to also function as a delay system for the concert system, providing coverage to rear sections of the arena. And to ensure that coverage was not lost in the wings of the forum’s sizeable upper bowl during basketball games, The ESB Group prescribed six of EV’s 1123A/106F Xi Series boxes to provide delay fills.
Adding to the long list of EV equipment at Long Forum is a small army of EVID loudspeakers. The ESB Group placed 25 EVID C8.2 speakers for coverage throughout the building and four EVID 6.2 surfacemount speakers over the Forum’s staircases and in the arena’s broadcast room as studio monitors.
