Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena

The Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena is over 12 million cubic feet in volume with more than 12,000 seats and crowds that routinely exceed 108 dB of noise. 

It took 54 Meyer Sound Labs speakers to provide even coverage through out the entire bowl of the arena.  Meyer Sound Labs had been selected for the INB Performing Arts Center which provided a quality reference for the Spokane Public Facilities District personnel.  The SPFD maintains several venues in Spokane including the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, the INB Performing Arts Center and the Spokane Convention Center.

Their vision statement says it all “The Spokane Public Facilities District’s vision is to create event experiences that make our guests say WOW!”. 

As their consultant we were tasked with two different challenges.  Review the existing systems for possible upgrades and improvements and make the most of a fixed budget.  All this while hearing their Executive Director say “Experiences that make our guests say WOW!”

In the initial programming meetings their goals were to replace the speakers, amps and processing with new equipment.  There were murmurs of line arrays for an end stage system and sub woofers for the bowl system but only if the budget would allow.  As their guide in the process we brought the SPFD staff through several programmatic meetings in which we identified two basic speaker system designs and six ancillary systems that could use some improvements.  In the end there was a Meyer Sound solution that would tax their budget entirely and a JBL Professional solution that would have addressed more of the systems that needed work at a smaller price tag.  Some of those ancillary systems were that end stage line array, computerized control of several sets of rigging motors, additional Ethersound interface boxes and finally enhanced low frequency support for East and West clusters with the JBL solution. 

In 1994 the infrastructure supplied for the connection of audio lines from Tech World the AV control center to the press box, arena floor and marshalling dock area were all copper based and somewhat limited.  As part of the design process we discovered that these were actually critical concerns that were placed on the back burner for costs sake.

As the consultancy for the project we were given the unique opportunity to visit the building a second time.  First in 1994 while employed by Dimensional Sound Communications I was blessed with the opportunity to install the initial sound system.  Now in 2009 MBF Audiovisual and Morgan Sound were awarded the opportunity to return as the consultant and review the existing system and building acoustics for potential upgrades and improvements.