Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has been a staple of family fun since 1907. With an amusement park full of rides and games, two indoor arcades, a two-story miniature golf course, laser tag arena and bowling alley, there is no shortage of ways to spend a day by the beach. The park’s audiovisual team enlisted Q-SYS to deliver networked audio and software-based control throughout the park, alongside QSC loudspeakers and networked amplifiers.

The previous audiovisual system at the park consisted of disparate audiovisual and control components that were challenging to integrate and support. This upgrade presented an opportunity for the audiovisual team at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to find a singular audiovisual platform that had the flexibility to meet the distinct requirements of each area, while providing a holistic audiovisual experience for each guest across the entire park.

The solution needed to support a wide variety of applications including individual rides, arcade, laser tag arena and an event centre.

The system designers wanted hybrid processing architecture, using centralised processing for general, park-wide audiovisual functionality, while deploying dedicated processing in mission-critical areas of the park. To meet those requirements, the in-house audiovisual team at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk deployed the Q-SYS Ecosystem for network audio and control, along with QSC loudspeakers and amplifiers.

Redundant Q-SYS Core 1100 Enterprise Core processors handle the background music, zone paging and software-based control for all general-purpose zones. If the system detects a fault on the primary Core, the redundant Core processor would seamlessly assume full audio streaming and control communication of connected Q-SYS peripherals and third-party devices, ensuring that these functionalities remain uninterrupted throughout operating hours.

The primary Core 1100 also handles networked audio and control processing for the Casino Arcade, which also includes an attached 3,500 sq ft laser tag arena. In the arcade, a Virtual Page Station component manages the zone paging throughout the facility, while command scheduling enables automated playback of pre-recorded announcements throughout the day.

In the laser tag arena, the team used the Q-SYS Scripting Engine to write custom Lua control scripts and design custom user interfaces for the game operators. Before a match starts, the operator selects a combination of colour and time remaining on a Q-SYS TSC Series touch screen controller.

The Cocoanut Grove event space hosts a variety of in-park corporate and private events. It includes an 8,500 sq ft ballroom along with a number of divisible meeting spaces. The team deployed the software-based room combiner component, which offers a simple and intuitive way to combine audio in divisible spaces. With Q-SYS UCI Editor, the team deployed custom user control interfaces (UCI) to Q-SYS touch screen controllers.

A number of high-impact locations throughout the park feature QSC AcousticDesign Series loudspeakers. The team chose AcousticDesign Series because of the consistent acoustic properties shared across different enclosure types.

The audiovisual team also chose CXD-Q network amplifiers, which were built for the Q-SYS Ecosystem, to provide power throughout the park. Q-SYS allows for full control and telemetry monitoring of the amplifiers. The amplifiers also feature Intrinsic Correction, a QSC technology that works directly with QSC loudspeakers to provide uniquely optimised sonic performance.

“Q-SYS just seemed to be the perfect answer to our problems!” explained Kevin Grewohl, Audio Systems Supervisor at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. “First, it helped us deliver more functionality with less hardware. And because it’s software-based, it will be better prepared to support our future plans as we continue to add more features and capabilities down the line.”