Bell Bank is one of the largest family-owned banks in the United States, built on a culture of connection and community. Bell Tower, the company’s Fargo, North Dakota headquarters, is a 14-story, 105,000-square-foot facility that serves as the hub for the institution. As such, the Town Hall section of the corporate headquarters needed to reflect that central focus with a space that went beyond the traditional corporate model of a boardroom or meeting room.
Bell Bank envisioned a dynamic, multi-functional environment serving as a collaborative center for meetings and training sessions that can then transition seamlessly into a professional production space for high-level events such as receptions, presentations, and more.
To bring this vision to life, Bell Bank turned to FARBER Sound – Venue Transformation, leveraging a long-standing partnership built on a deep understanding of the bank’s operational culture. A project of this scope demanded a proven power control foundation. For FARBER, that meant incorporating LynTec into the project.
A Core Challenge
The core challenge was significant: the Town Hall needed to function simultaneously as a multi-purpose event space and a broadcast-capable facility. That dual mandate required integrating a wide range of disparate audio, video, and lighting (AVL) systems spanning everyday presentation gear, a professional mixing console and stage box network, multi-camera 4K capable video production infrastructure, architectural lighting, and a full complement of event and entertainment lighting fixtures. Each system category carries its own power requirements, startup dependencies, and operational profiles. The task was to unify all of those elements under a single, intelligent power control solution that could adapt automatically to whatever mode the room needed to be in, without placing the burden of technical management on the bank’s staff.
To address this, FARBER’s system designer, Cory Deming, specified a LynTec RPC-384 power control panel as the backbone of the entire AVL system. The RPC-384 manages sequenced power distribution across all AVL subsystems, ensuring every component powers on and off in the correct order based on the active room configuration. “We have been using LynTec products for decades and were confident this would be the correct product to handle the Town Hall requirements,” Deming said.
Beyond on-site performance, the RPC-384 also enables FARBER’s team to monitor system performance and handle the majority of troubleshooting remotely from their headquarters in Plymouth, Minnesota, reducing the need for on-site service calls and providing Bell Bank with a responsive support infrastructure.
Physical flexibility was built into every layer of the design as well: the stage was engineered in full, half, and quarter configurations, complete with an ADA-accessible ramp, with the entire assembly storable out of sight when not in use. The Chauvet Pro and GLP moving-head lighting fixtures can be repositioned into preset looks saved to the control system and executed on any touch panel in the room, eliminating the need for ladders or manual repositioning between events.
Working in close collaboration with the architectural team, Farber integrated multi-angled acoustic ceiling clouds to optimize sound diffusion while contributing to the visual identity of the space. A proscenium design and curtain system enable dynamic theatrical reveals and adaptable performance configurations, giving the room a range of presentation modes that would feel at home in a professional venue. Detailed EASE acoustic modeling guided targeted treatments to parallel walls and other reflective surfaces, improving speech intelligibility across all event types. The result is a room where under-the-hood complexity stays invisible, and the experience remains focused on the content.
“Bell Bank needed a space that could do two very different jobs without feeling like either one was a compromise," said Dave Farber, owner of FARBER. "The only way to make that work is to get the power architecture right from the start. Our experience working with LynTec products in other projects gave us the confidence that the RPC could handle an installation this complex.”
A Unified Solution
The RPC-384 provides the unified power control foundation that makes the dual-purpose room architecture practical. The production backbone it manages includes a Yamaha DM7-EX digital mixing console, a 20Gbit redundant fiber network supporting AVoIP, Dante, GreenGO, HiQnet, NDI, and sACN protocols, and a 12G SDI video infrastructure anchored by Panasonic 4K PTZ cameras, a FOR-A production switcher, and AJA matrix routing. The architectural and event lighting system centers on Chauvet Pro and GLP moving-head fixtures and wash units, all addressable and positionable from the room’s touch panels. The front-end interface throughout is an Extron control system, providing staff with a clean, intuitive surface for day-to-day operation regardless of what is running beneath it.
By interfacing the Extron control system directly with the LynTec RPC-384, FARBER turned power management into a background function. When a staff member taps a touch panel to configure the room, the RPC-384 sequences power to the appropriate equipment automatically. A simple presentation mode enables only the necessary audio and video components. A full Town Hall production spins up the complete system, including the control booth, only when dedicated technicians are on-site. Bank staff operate a professional-grade venue confidently, regardless of their technical background.
