HONOLULU – The weather in Hawaii is always beautiful – except, of course, when it's not. And the 18 years since BAUS Engineering equipped the Waikiki Shell with eight Meyer Sound UPA-1A loudspeakers, mounted on outdoor poles and used as permanent lawn delays, have included storms as fierce as the Category 4 Hurricane Iniki in 1992.
"They were outside through the hurricane and numerous tropical storms," said John Fuhrmann, the event services manager for the City of Honolulu's Department of Enterprise Services, the venue's operator. "Also, the Shell operates year round, so they were constantly exposed to humidity and salt air. We used them for every show, and we've been very pleased with them."
The UPA-1A loudspeakers were recently brought back to BAUS Engineering for refurbishment and for upgrading the drivers to the newer Berkeley-built compression drivers as found in the self-powered UPA-1P. Signal processing and delay was now provided by a new Galileo loudspeaker management system.
"These UPAs testify to the quality and reliability of Meyer Sound products," said Randy Bauske, owner of BAUS Engineering. "Eight speakers times 18 years makes 144 total operating years, working thousands of shows, with no failures due to weather exposure."
Bauske said that even he was somewhat surprised by the loudspeakers' longevity.
"I was expecting the norm of 10 to 12 years," he said. "But the stainless steel hardware prevented corrosion, and the cabinets were totally protected so there was no damage at all to the wood." He was also pleased to discover that all the parts he needed were still available. "After 18 years, the UPAs were far from obsolete. Meyer has made improvements, but the design never went out of date. That is truly extraordinary in this industry."
Seeing the performance and durability of the UPA delays, the venue made an easy decision to replace the house system mounted at the shell with two Meyer Sound MVC-5 graduated vertical coverage loudspeakers to cover all front seating areas for high school and college graduations, corporate events, and various community gatherings. For amplified pop/rock concerts, rental systems are brought in to complement the installed system.
"The old system just ran out of gas before you hit the delays," says Bauske. "Now with the MVC-5s we have seamless coverage from front to back as well as side to side."
According to Fuhrmann, "Clarity and coverage are critical for this type of venue, and the new Meyer system will be much better for events we have here. For example, we just had graduation ceremonies for an elite private college. Parents paid a lot of money for the privilege of being there, and they wanted to hear everything clearly."
Owned and operated by the City of Honolulu as part of the Neal S. Blaisdell Center, the Waikiki Shell has permanent seating for 1,958 and allows additional seating for up to 500 in the front "pool" area. The lawn can accommodate up to 6,000.
In addition to a variety of community events, the Waikiki Shell hosts outdoor concerts by the Honolulu Symphony, national touring acts (Jimmy Buffett made a recent stop), and radio station-sponsored promotions featuring local bands.
For more information, please visit www.meyersound.com .
