The Jeff Show: Nabbing a Cab in Vegas

It was exciting to read all your smart travel tips in response to my plea for ideas. However, I must confess, almost everything started or ended with food. Let a tech out of a ballroom for 30 minutes, and they will find food. Please continue to e-mail me with all your travel tips. We’ll include some of them soon. 


So on to giving away the travel tip for May.

Sooner or later, everyone flies to Vegas. It’s a rule in our business.

When you get off the plane at McCarran International Airport, you'll fight the urge to play the quarter slot machines. You ride down and fight your way on to the tram. Hurling down through the tunnel, you arrive at baggage claim with several thousand of your friends. With no thanks to your air carrier, you wait a good half hour for your baggage. Then, it’s time to hustle outside and get into the cab line.

Now don’t get me wrong, the cab line is not as bad as used to be since the economy tanked. But snaking through that line can take a good half hour. It’s never fun – and I’ve always wondered if there was a way to bypass that stupid cab line.

But wait there is, and you walked right past it. The pesky sky caps that push their carts into your way are your salvation. Let them put your bag on that silver cart, and they will whisk you outside to the left of the line and straight into a cab. It’s the best couple of bucks you can spend in order to get to the casino and lose your money faster - just the way God intended it.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Company owner Jeff Warner has been involved in the industry for as long as he can remember as his dad, Harry, started WAV. He joined the company full-time in 1979, and travels the world to help big clients like Bankers Life and Casualty, McDonald's and American Airlines plan AV displays for meetings and events. E-mail Jeff your own travel tips to jwarner@warnerav.com

Line Array VS Virtual Array Systems

To Line Array or not? That is a question you should ask your AV vendor when evaluating the best audio solutions for your next event. Today, audio engineers have many tools to solve problems. There are two major forms of sound design to help solve these problems, Line and Virtual Arrays:

• Line Array: Many people might think Line Array systems are a recent development. You can actually trace them to the design of the column speaker that’s been used since the late 1950’s. Put simply, a Line Array has multiple speakers stacked closely in a vertical column. This produces a wide horizontal and narrow vertical sound wave. The intent is to distribute and direct sound to the audience in a controlled pattern, keeping unwanted energy reflection to a minimum.
   
• Virtual Array: This sound theory became relevant in the mid-1980’s as a development of concert sound practice of the time. It’s design seeks to combine all the elements of a sound wave to produce sound that appears to come from a single point in space, which comes from the surface of a sphere. When that surface resonates it sends sound waves equally in all directions. Through careful manipulation of cabinet design, multiple cabinets are arrayed to produce a unified wave that represents a portion of that sphere.
   

These two different designs both provide a uniform sound wave to the audience with as little unwanted reflection in the room as possible.

In today’s industrial audio world, knowing which set-up to use is the key to a successful audio display. If your room is wide and deep with a low ceiling, Virtual Array elements used in a distributed system may be your best solution.

However, if your room is wide and deep with a high ceiling, the application of a Line Array system may give you the best bang for your buck.

In small to mid-sized rooms Line Array speakers and ground supporting may work, but it might not be the most efficient and cost effective answer. Using Virtual cabinets can give you a more flexible installation.

Everyone likes to use the newest and most advanced AV equipment. Remember, one tool does not fix all your problems. Technologies may or may not be more relevant to a particular problem regardless of age. Give your clients the best results by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of different sound systems and applying them correctly to different types of rooms.
______________________________________________________________________________

Craig Vlasic | Technical Director/Audio

Joining WAV in 1982, Craig was the first full-time employee. In 30+ years, Craig has engineered over 700 meetings with audiences ranging from 20 to 35,000 people. While current in the latest audio techniques and theories, he brings knowledge in fundamental audio logic to every production from corporate talking heads to rock-n-roll bands.

WAV Comes Prepared for Lissie, Zumba and More.

In Wheaton's Cantigny Park, Project Managers Craig Vlasic, Tim Stenberg and Tom Kaster provided the sound set-up for a wonderful cause - the Chicago Chapter of ALS Association's (Lou Gehrig Disease) "Walk to Defeat ALS."

Since the event took place outdoors, Craig, Tim and Tom made sure they were prepared for rain by covering the speakers with tarp. Covering speakers ensures the event goes on rain or shine!

Participants enjoyed a two-mile family walk, DJ, a concert by Lissie as well as a Zumba class.

PlaybackPro Plus Players an A+

In our never ending quest to make the most advanced equipment available, we’re excited to add PlaybackPro Plus Players to our inventory. Setting the standards for the capabilities of DDRs, DVD players and video tape machines, this MacBook Pro loaded with 128g of solid state drives and PlaybackPro Plus software tailors to the unique demands of the events industry.

You can build a cue list for a show in less than 10 minutes and play back 4:2:2 ProRes in 1080p all day long. It can also cut and dissolve between clips, and has variable fade and kill settings. Any type of file can be played by adding easy to find QuickTime components to the software.

Its fast, it’s reliable and it’s affordable. These are all qualities we like to see in our inventory.