Taking a ride
Published: MEA
The Mall of Istanbul will be a familiar concept to many. Built on the grandest of scales in the Başakşehir district of the city, it features nearly 350 shops as well as a multi-screen cinema and various food outlets. However, one of the distinguishing features for this addition to the city’s myriad shopping destinations is the amount of floor space which is not dedicated to retail.
Increasingly, shopping malls have needed more than just the shops inside them to draw in visitors. They are trying to be an experience destination which encourage visitors to stay all day. In keeping with this, the Mall of Istanbul has given over 30 per cent of its leasable area to entertainment.
Taking up a significant portion of this is Moi Park, a 12,000 sq-m indoor theme park which is the first of its kind in Turkey. Split over two levels and containing 22 different rides as well as an interactive dancefloor, the venue required high quality sound, dedicated zone controls and synchronisation of sound and light systems when the rides are triggered.
Equipping the theme park was a large and complicated project. ‘The customer was expecting to find a company that could fulfil their needs in terms of complex system design and engineering,’ recalls Cengiz Kalçık project design engineer for Istanbul-based distributor, designer and integrator, Asimetrik. ‘As a result of the customer's search, we were recommended.’
With no previous examples in the country to work from, the proposition for the indoor theme park’s A/V system was unique. ‘In a Nutshell, Moi Park has 22 rides and each ride has its own individual sound and lighting systems with special light and music scenarios,’ explains Ufuk Ayanoglu, Moi Park’s occupational safety engineer. ‘Twentry-two rides means 22 different zones with numerous music and lighting scenarios in a huge indoor area, with equal SPL and high intelligibility all around the park.’
Asimetrik was responsible for the sound system and show controller installation. The design proposed by Asimetrik and subsequently installed was based around products from QSC. Audio output is via 239 of the manufacturer’s speakers, while control is via a redundant pair of Q-Sys Core 500i processors.
The main speaker called into action at the theme park is QSC’s S8T. Asimetrik installed 70 of the surface-mount full range speaker to cover various locations. In terms of numbers, the S8T is swiftly followed by the AP-5102-BK 10-inch two-way cabinet and AP 5122 –BK 12-inch two-way enclosure with 68 and 55 installed respectively. Rounding off the main speaker system are 38 AD-CI52ST ceiling speakers.
The loudspeakers are mostly hidden in Rockwork artificial rocks and acoustically isolated to avoid vibrations being transferred to the décor. Asimetrik calculated the appropriate places around the venue to install the speakers and ensure an even SPL for visitors across the site.
While these speakers covered the majority of rides in the park, there was a much larger solution called into action for one specific area. Six QSC KLA12 active line array speakers and a pair of KLA181 subwoofers provide the audio for an interactive stage. It is the first interactive dancefloor to be installed in a Turkish theme park and it allows visitors create their own customised lighting tricks on the floor whilst dancing.
The scale of the speaker installation is impressive, but it is the control and processing required for the venue that really grabs the attention. Moi Park wanted to control each zone’s volume, mute/unmute and additional features from one mobile interface using Wi-Fi, and the changes had to be made in real time. The client had no experience of advanced sound processing, and Asimetrik wanted to make sure that the technicians at Moi Park did not have to use complex DSP applications. To meet these needs, Asimetrik opted for a Q-Sys solution.
‘We chose to use Q-Sys because there are several different systems which need to communicate with each other in the park,’ says Mr Kalçık. ‘It offers redundancy and flexibility, real time monitoring and it is easy for customer to use with its user friendly graphical user interface.’
While ease of use for the end-customer was key to the selection of Q-Sys, it also proved to be a simple solution for the integrator to configure and install. ‘The drag and drop features of the Q-Sys designer software let us easily design the system,’ explains Mr Kalçık. ‘We used Q-Sys Lua Script to setup complex communication with other systems and it was really easy to understand with this simple script language.’
The scale of the system meant that different rack rooms – East and West – each with their own dedicated I/O frame for sound management were required. The redundant Core 500i setup has been used to make Moi Park’s solution easily programmable so music or announcements can be played in any desired area. On top of this Q-Sys manages all channelling, processing and control functions for the whole system. The solution has been configured to keep the complex processing options away from the end user. Instead, Asimetrik makes weekly visits to the venue to monitor the error logs in the Core, troubleshooting any potential problems and keeping the software up to date. This ensures the theme park is constantly supported and the system itself is kept in good working order.
The final audio element Asimetrik needed to consider was the mixer. For this the company installed and Allen & Heath iLive R72 compact surface and iDR-16 MixRack.
With the audio side of the installation covered, there was also the issue of combining the different audio, visual and lighting systems to work together. To achieve this, an Alcorn McBride V 16 Pro show controller has been used for the sound and light synchronisation of each ride. This has been installed so that when the sequence for each ride is triggered, a synchronised pre-recorded sound and lighting shows get underway to enhance the customer experience.
The end result is one the end-user is clearly very pleased with. ‘In Moi Park, we have several systems which are separate from each other, but all of the systems can talk each other synchronously and all of the complicated systems can be monitored and managed from one point easily with a graphical user interface which was created by Asimetrik,’ says Moi Park’s Mr Ayanoglu. ‘Our visitors are having fun in the park without any complaint about the sound and light systems. Actually these systems create a really cool atmosphere and ambience. We really appreciate Asimetrik for providing us with the robust project we needed throughout the design and installation.’
Moi Park may be the first of its kind in Turkey, but it has certainly set a high benchmark for future indoor theme parks in the country. The system has been carefully designed and installed to ensure the complex system appears with a simple interface for its end-users.