mondo*dr Awards Americas 2020 – The Winners

This year’s mondo*dr Awards Americas was held in a slightly different setting. With the global pandemic affecting the entire population, stopping all large gatherings and closing many businesses worldwide, it became apparent very early on that the ceremony would have to take place digitally, with all of the content curated from the comfort of the mondo*dr team’s own homes.

There were some amazing projects entered across the nine categories this year, which included; Theatre, Bar & Restaurant, Concert Hall, House of Worship, Multipurpose Venue, Nightclub, Parks & Attractions, Stadium and Arena. The scope of the state-of-the-art installations that we received was incredible, showcasing the uniqueness and talent behind projects in venues that we are now missing more than anything.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Theatre Award –

Shortlisted: Avalon Theatre, Teatro Colsubsidio Roberto Arias Perez

Winner: Sight & Sound Theatres – Outboard

For over 40 years, Sight & Sound Theatres have been bringing the bible to life for the American public through their live and epic-scale biblical productions. A unique aspect of the organisation is that their lavish productions are staged sequentially at two identical venues, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Branson. Missouri.  In both theatres an extra layer of vitality and sentience has been added to the storytelling with the introduction of TiMax spatial reinforcement and immersive audio.

Gary Parke, audio integrator for Sight & Sound, first evaluated the capabilities of TiMax on a production in the primary venue located in Lancaster, PA. The 2000-capacity theatre features a vast 92-metre wraparound stage and TiMax proved itself an invaluable remedial and creative tool.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Bar & Restaurant Award – 

Shortlisted: 12 Stories, 906 Cocktail and Cigar Lounge, Elite BK

Winner: Mi Cocina – Symetrix

Mi Cocina Restaurant required audiophile quality sound processing and easy control of 12 different audio zones throughout the venue, including both indoor and outdoor spaces. The Dante networked audio system for the space is based on a Symetrix Prism 8×8 DSP, a Symetrix xOut 12 Dante-to-analog expander, ARC-WEB virtual user interface and ARC-3 wall control panels.

To serve the differing needs of the various spaces in the venue, multiple loudspeaker types were used, including Tannoy ceiling loudspeakers in the first floor entry, Fulcrum Acoustic loudspeakers with Innovox subwoofers in the main dining room, Tannoy outdoor loudspeakers on the rooftop balcony, and diverse fill-in loudspeakers in other locations. These wildly different loudspeaker types throughout the restaurant require careful programming of the Prism DSP in order to match level and tonality between areas at all volume levels. The Symetrix Prism DSP provides the flexibility to use standard processing such as EQs, crossovers, duckers, limiters and compressors as well as more specialised processing such as loudness management modules to ensure that Mi Cocina lives up to the audiophile expectations of the owners.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Stadium Award – 

Shortlisted: Allianz Field, AT&T Stadium, Levi’s Stadium

Winner: Stanford Stadium

Stanford Stadium – home to PAC-12 Cardinal football – was designed, engineered and installed by Diversified, a global technology solution provider. Meyer Sound Design Services collaborated during the design phase, with prominent sports venue consulting firm, WJHW providing oversight and guidance on the football stadium. The in-house tech team at Stanford also assisted with the installation to ensure a smooth project delivery.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Arena Award – 

Shortlisted: Chase Center, Dickies Arena, Prudential Center

Winner: Esports Stadium Arlington

Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas needed to establish a broadcast workflow suitable for its modern, 100,000 sq ft event space. The stadium’s integrator suggested adding TSL Products’ advanced control system into the facility’s workflow to achieve a seamless, universal broadcast control surface.

The stadium uses TSL Products’ advanced control to significantly improve its workflow, especially with the multitude of camera angles required in esports productions. In addition to the sheer volume of inputs and potential places that the technical director needs to locate and select for preview/program, the fast-paced and ever-changing ‘action movie’ nature of the environment also lends itself to a dedicated advanced control system. Additionally, many Esports workflows require interfacing a bevy of both traditional broadcast as well as IT and COTS equipment to run properly. Using Virtual Panel Interfaces, the stadium can create an easily configurable process to customise these operations with intuitive, drag-and-drop controls.

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mondo*dr 2020 Americas Nightclub Award – 

Shortlisted: Dance Studio Vol.1, Doble B, Kaos

Winner: Daer – Robe

Over 100 Robe LED Beam 150s were specified by world-renowned lighting designer Steve Liberman for Daer Nightclub, part of Daer Florida, an enormous 44,000 sq ft indoor-outdoor facility located at the iconic Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Robe LED beam 150s are installed on a custom system chandelier to create broad colour washes over the dancefloor. There is also a detail of LED beams around the entire perimetre of the club to support all the 2nd and 3rd tier seating areas. The result is that these fixtures elevate and enhance the stunning aesthetics of the world-class space, helping ensure that “Daer will be a vibrant entertainment destination that will attract celebrities and guests from throughout the nation and around the globe,” said Hard Rock’s Vice President of Nightlife/Daylife, Matt Minichino.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Parks & Attractions Award – 

Shortlisted: Knoebels Amusement Resort, Pacific Visions at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Winner: Crystal Bridges Museum of America Art – North Forest Lights

When Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art wanted to bring a nighttime attraction to their mile-long North Forest trail, they asked Moment Factory to develop a concept that would highlight their unique surroundings. The resulting project, North Forest Lights, is an outdoor digital art exhibit composed of five installations grounded in the human relationship to nature.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas House of Worship Award – 

Shortlisted: Coast Bible Church, Mission City Church, Church of the Highlands

Winner: Cathedral of the Holy Cross – Powersoft

The cathedral is the largest church of any faith in New England and has long served as an important gathering place and ‘Mother Church’ for Catholics living in the Archdiocese of Boston. It can seat almost 2,000 people and is also home to the largest, and arguably finest, organ built by the world-renowned Hook and Hastings Company in 1875.

Despite being a very old building, little renovation work has been completed over the years, perhaps partly due to the local Roxbury puddingstone and grey limestone that was used for construction. However, last year, it was decided that an extensive upgrade would take place now that the Gothic revival cathedral is 150-years-old.

This renovation included a full-scale overhaul of the cathedral’s sound system, which includes an Innovox Microbeam PA system powered by Powersoft amplifiers.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Multipurpose Venue Award – 

Shortlisted: 70,000 Tons of Metal, Terminal 5, Tulalip Resort Casino

Winner: The Dome: Miami – VIOSO

The largest sporting event in the world garnered the largest projection dome in the world. Located just outside Super Bowl LIV in Miami, Florida, a 225 ft x 175 ft Broadwell inflatable dome was erected for some of the largest R&B and HipHop names and events. Lumen & Forge was tasked with projection mapping the 40,000 sq ft of projection surface using 24 Digital Projection M-Vision Laser 18k projectors. Together with VIOSO, it auto-calibrated the entire dome surface for mapping in a matter of an hour for a complete seamless image across the entire dome surface. With a custom Domemaster playback server, content was served as two 4K @60Hz feeds. The custom content was created by Lumen & Forge to be mapped on the dome as the unique ‘pill’ shape of the dome is very different than a standard hemispherical shape found at most venues. Since this installation was used for concerts and events, traditional media and videos wouldn’t have sufficed. Instead, the Lumen & Forge Domemaster server was used with VIOSO’s Blackbox software to perform the calibration and provide the warping and blending, which was then fed by the Lumen & Forge Mediaserver through the capture cards.

mondo*dr 2020 Americas Concert Hall Award – 

Shortlisted: Kaufmann Concert Hall, Octave 9, Sony Hall

Winner: Clementine – ADJ

Following a year-long renovation project, the former West Nashville United Methodist Church re-opened at the beginning of the summer as Clementine, a unique space for weddings as well as corporate, fundraising and music events. The venue offers a ‘blank canvas’ for hosting bespoke gatherings and that includes an expansive all-LED, all-ADJ lighting system which allows custom-coloured illumination of every part of the space.

We want to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the shortlisted projects and winners of this year’s Americas Awards!

Check out the full mondo*dr Awards Americas 2020 booklet below:

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