Toronto, Canada (November 1, 2024)—Great Canadian Entertainment operates 25 gambling destinations throughout the Great White North, and recently opened Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto, its largest facility, in May. One of the crown jewels of the site is The Theatre, which hosted back-to-back concerts with Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton on its opening weekend—two events that highlighted the new Meyer Sound Panther large-format linear line array loudspeaker system, which happens to be the first permanently installed Panther system in the country.
The main hangs are comprised of eight Panther-L loudspeakers and four Panther-W loudspeakers. Low frequency support is provided by 22 Meyer Sound 900-LFC compact low-frequency control elements—six flown next to, and five flown slightly behind the mains on each side. Coverage for the balcony is handled by two arrays of a dozen Leopard loudspeakers each, hung from the high steel above the FOH mixing position.
Other Meyer elements include Ultra-X20 compact wide coverage loudspeakers as stage lip fills and under-balcony support, UPQ full-size loudspeakers as out-fills for the main hangs, and Ultra-X40 compact loudspeakers for loge areas. For fight nights, a half-dozen UPQ-D3s are hung in a circle in the center of the room, where a boxing ring or octagon would be placed to provide 360-degree coverage and localize announcements from the ring.
Bugging Out with the Audio of OVO
“Panther was chosen for this project because of the size of the room and the requirement for high-level fidelity and even coverage,” said Ian Robertson of GerrAudio Distribution, Meyer Sound’s Canadian distributor, who worked with design consultant Nathan Haynes of Avio Designs on the system design. “Panther is AVB/Milan compliant, but everything else is analog; processed via Galileo Galaxy 816 Network Platforms.”
Guy Wallace, Partner at Aligned Vision Group (GCE’s audio, video, and lighting partner and integrators on the project), noted, “The way they built The Theatre venue lends itself well to a self-powered system, and although you’d think powered loudspeakers would weigh more, Meyer Sound builds their amplifiers so efficiently that we’re able to put more power into the same space without adding weight. There were capacity limitations, so the Panther boxes being as light as they are—for as high-powered as they are—really helped.”
Patrick Florin, production manager for Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto, brought things up-to-date, noting, “We’ve been very happy with how the system has performed thus far on the multiple different types of shows and events we’ve had in the space the last few months. The system has been great to work with and we look forward to having even more diverse shows here at The Theatre with the Meyer Sound system being the foundation of our productions.”
