LAS VEGAS – On Aug. 31, top Renkus-Heinz officials joined Ken Henderson for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly named 298-capacity Renkus-Heinz Theater. The theater is a converted cinema equipped with state-of-the-art audio for live performances. It’s part of Notoriety Live, a multi-performance-space attraction that Henderson owns and operates. The stages, smaller than the big showrooms on the Strip and at the Smith Center, are designed to showcase Las Vegas’ most promising up-and-coming entertainers.
The seven performance spaces within Notoriety Live first opened with limited attendance capacity last December, and they are in the process of reopening as fluctuating Covid restrictions permit. They’re on the third floor of the Neonopolis shopping and entertainment complex just east of the Fremont Street Experience, at the intersection of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas.
As Henderson admits, Notoriety Live is more for up-and-coming magicians, comedians and music acts rather than top-tier headliners like Bruno Mars. But Henderson would argue that top-quality lighting and sound is still important for lesser-known acts.
“We try to give the chance to people here. And in order to do that, you have to have a great stage, you have to have some decent lighting, and, most important, you have to have unbelievable sound. And we have achieved that,” Henderson said, with a nod toward Ralph Heinz, son of company founder Harro Heinz, who founded the company with Algis Renkus in 1979.
Along with his presence at the ribbon cutting, Ralph Heinz, chief technology officer (CTO) of Renkus-Heinz, was on hand for a series of product demos earlier in the day led by Renkus-Heinz national sales manager Dudley McLaughlin, who handed the mic over to Ralph when it came time to explain audio concepts like the company’s “vertically oriented elliptical wave guide,” “co-entrant mid-high technology” and “acoustic source multiplier” design features.
The VIP Technology Showcase, with an assist from Ralph’s son Brandon Heinz (a Renkus-Heinz product manager) at the mixing console, used the length of the stage for a symmetric display of compact speaker systems with more than enough power to fill the two seating sections flanking the theater entranceway with high quality sound.
For the audio demos, recorded snippets of Patrick Stewart reciting poetry showcased spoken word intelligibility (just speakers, no subwoofers), followed by a sample of funky R&B and reggae music that helped underscore the power of the compact subwoofers on the stage.
After demoing the company’s point-source C-series, S-series subwoofers and a versatile pair of floor monitors, McLaughlin turned to one of the company’s beam-steering Iconyx loudspeakers, which can be wall or stand-mounted and easily optimized for different rooms via Wi-Fi from a smartphone equipped with a Renkus-Heinz app.
And for those flying into Las Vegas to attend the demo, the new Renkus-Heinz Theater might not have been their first opportunity to hear the company’s “generation 5” Iconyx loudspeaker at work. Chances are, they already heard the same beam-steering speakers installed at McCarran Airport’s baggage carousel area before leaving the airport.
