Queen Street Mall
Connections Magazine - February, 2000

Outdoor install puts Meyer weatherproofing to test in tropical Queensland.

In time for Christmas Brisbane's Queen Street Mall introduced its new pro-audio and lighting systems to crowds of patrons. The mall, which attracts more than 2 million shoppers per month, featured a host of performers over its opening week at both its Upper Performance Area and Lower Stage, including artists such as James Morrison, Vanessa Amorosi and Kate Ceberano.

The Mall's sound system is comprised of a high quality, programmable, multi-zoned music, effects and paging system. It is controlled by a computerbased system and supported by a network of cabling infrastructure, providing reticulation of audio signals. Included in the Mall's PA design are 8 UPA-IP's and 68 Meyer Sound HM-1's distributed across 32 output channels.

Brisbane City Council decided to purchase the self-powered loudspeakers from Meyer Sound Australia based on the recommendation by Vision Design Studio who specified the pro-audio system designs, as well as the architectural and specialized lighting, stage lighting, video and communications networks for the Mall.

"This project presented many design challenges for the systems design, not the least of which was the requirement to maintain as much open space as possible in the Mall and to minimize the size and density of the structures," said Vision Design Studio's Philip Viney.

"Self-powered loudspeakers were necessary to reduce the space required for amplifiers and processing equipment," said Viney. "in addition, the Mall is basically an outdoor space with many of the loudspeakers exposed directly to the weather. Meyer's weatherproof range of self-powered loudspeakers, the three-year outdoor warranty offered and the inherent quality of the product made the selection of UPA-IP and HM-1 very attractive.

The Queen Street Mall control system includes facilities for automated, multi-track digital audio playback of pre-produced material allowing the audio to be dynamically panned across groups of speakers throughout the mall under computer control. Control equipment includes a 16/16 channel LCS SuperNova system complete with Wildtracks, a 32 channel Mediamatrix system with Pagematrix paging and a Yamaha 01V with extended outputs. The facility can be used in conjunction with specialised lighting elements that are installed (intelligent moving lights and fibre optic luminaires) to allow the mall to "perform" - allowing designers and artists to be commissioned to "produce" a range of such performances as required.

"The ELV [extra low voltage] 48 VDC reticulated power supply for the HM-1 loudspeakers was particularly attractive as it solved some wiring code problems and resolved some safety concerns we had regarding reticulating 240V around the shopfront awnings and other people's buildings."

Other systems at the Mall that were designed by Vision Design Studio include the Upper Performance Area, which now features 4 UPA-IP's, and the Lower Stage, which is powered by a pair of weatherproofed UPA-IP's.

In keeping with the stages' design and usage, Viney commented that the only fixed elements in the two performance areas are the cabling and power reticulation.

"The selection of the UPA-IP loudspeakers." he said, "responded to the demands of the Brisbane City Council requiring professional, state-of-the-art stage systems."

Viney also mentioned that with the severe space limitations for the stages, that the self-powered loudspeakers aided in fitting the permanently installed parts of the system onto the very small racks in the main stage. Overall, he said that Vision Design Studio has been particularly pleased with the performance of the loudspeakers in the Queen Street Mall project. 'We have received quite a lot of favourable comment, particularly from the users."

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