When four sports fans got the chance to build their dream bar, they didn’t stop until their very audacious vision was a reality. That vision was a 7,500-square-foot luxury sports bar—Chalk—that would rival a Vegas sports book … in Oklahoma City, OK.
Their dream was to be the spot where Oklahoma sports fans could be awed, have a nice meal, and watch any and every sporting event in the world at the same time.
Insert Cory’s Audio Visual, a 66-year-old audiovisual team that has partnered with the rapidly growing Chisholm Creek mixed-use development in Oklahoma City, as well as local businesses, to bring many projects to life in the area. From concept to completion, the team was able to turn Chalk’s dream into reality.
Visual
The 100 installed screens spread out over more than 1,600 square feet of walls and ceiling. Hand-picked by Chalk’s owners at the Planar facility in Portland, OR, the seven 1.8 mm-pixel-pitch LED video walls range from 10 to 14 feet wide. Each display is configured to split into four areas of content and is hung with Premier mounts. A different Planar LED wall was mounted to the entry ceiling to run real-time sports betting odds and updates. The Chalk install also includes six 98-inch Planar displays.
The additional 84 displays come from Samsung; they are affixed on one of two different Chief mounts that allow easy access to the Crestron NVX signal management behind the displays. Back-to-back displays in booths are hung with desktop mounts, which ensures a streamlined look that doesn’t impede the wall-mounted displays located at every angle.
The result is that screens cover the majority of the dark wall space, delivering the spectacle of shock and awe that Chalk founders hoped for.
“This is an experience, not just a restaurant and bar,” said Britt Gotcher, senior vice president at Cory’s Audio Visual. “To be able to watch multiple games from across the world at once in such an elaborate fashion is unheard of in our region, which has a strong passion for sports.”
Crestron provided control, distribution, and signal management for the project. The system is housed in three Middle Atlantic full-sized racks to support multiple technical aspects from Chalk including audiovisual, security, and content management. Multiple rack accessories manage and organize the control room.
“The magnitude of everything that Cory’s Audio Visual integrated into this project is unreal. The numbers blow me away,” said Chalk co-owner Ben Mason. “Wrapping your mind around 100 screens and miles of cabling in a building the size of Chalk is impossible until you see it for yourself.”
Audio
The challenge with any open concept environment—especially when it is covered in hard surfaces—is making sure audiences can hear the audio clearly. But the owners at Chalk didn’t want to stop there—they envisioned audio bringing energy to the space, just like at a real-life game. Managing noise levels was challenging because not all of the room’s sound comes from the installed P.A. system; Chalk is built to be filled with patrons loudly cheering on their favorite teams.
Cory’s Audio Visual installed a mixture of QSC flush in-ceiling speakers and box speakers controlled with Q-SYS Core. The system allows Chalk to scale up the sound capacity for major sporting events like the Super Bowl and playoff games, and scale down for business meetings and corporate parties.
“No matter the type of guest we can expect at Chalk, we know that our sound level and quality can accommodate,” said Chad Ford, co-owner of Chalk. “Our sports fans can feel it in their seats during the game and then can have a conversation when it is over.”
“Chalk is a first-of-its-kind restaurant in Oklahoma City,” added Dan Ward, principal of the Medallion Group, developer of Chisholm Creek. “We are thrilled to have them as part of Chisholm Creek. With over 100 TVs and cutting-edge technology, Chalk has been the talk of the town since it opened. From ceiling screens to a specially curated app, they truly thought of everything a sports lover could imagine.”
