This spectacular edifice, owned by the UAE government and operated by Kempinski Hotels & Resorts, partialy opened for business in February, but the building of many of its 20 restaurants and other facilities will continue for the rest of the year. When finished, it will be the most expensive hotel in the world, estimated in some quarters to have cost around £2 billion, with a staff of some 2.600 and located on a 1.3 km stretch of Abu Dhabi's most beautiful sandy beach. The Palace's 20 food and drink outlets will, eventually, serve a variety of cuisines created by world renowned chefs.

Its 302 luxury rooms and 92 suites are equipped with what the hotel calls "22nd Century technology" including large plasma TVs in each room, a wireless internet network that covers the Palace, pool and beach areas, a fully interactive TV system and electronic programming guides to provide instant rewind and pause of television programming. The top floor houses six Ruler' Suites, reserved for Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) members' families from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But clearly it's not all about relaxation; when there's work to be done the Palace is more than ready for it. The Palace Conference Centre is designed to be the region's most luxurious and technologicaly advanced meeting facility. Over 7.000 sq.m (75.347 sq.ft) of meeting and conference space includes a multi-purpose, state-of-the-art auditorium accommodating 1.200 people. It's dedicated audio, lighting, video and projection systems are capable of handling concerts, lectures, conferences, film exhibitions and more.

High technology is also present in all meeting and function rooms and each comes fuly equipped with a projector, motorized screen, plasma screens, microphones, audio-visual systems, wireless and wire data systems, special sound system, video conferencing sytem, IP camera and broadcast camera connectivity. Shouls a visiting head of state wish to participate in a conference without actually leaving his suite, en-suite videoconferencing makes that perfectly feasible too.

The region's most opulent grand ballroom, divisible into three sections, has a total seating capacity of 2.800, while a choice of 48 meeting rooms of different shapes and sizes should accommodate even the pickiest conference organizer. High-tech media centre and business centres, and outdoor function space of over 10000 sq.m (107.639 sq. ft.) provide still more options for corporate entertainment and hospitality.

In charge of the AV and lighting systems is lead contractor Bond Communications, whose Emirates Palace project team is headed by Mark Clay. To them fell the task of wiring the 360 bedrooms, 92 suites, 48 meeting rooms,the auditorium and a special meeting chamber, the latter a 300-seat circular forum designed for the deliberationsof the GCC.

The 1.200-seat auditorium, the presentional centerpiece of the Emirates Palace, has already been blooded by a conference of Kempinsky's own executives and managers, who were apparently highly impressed with the latest addition to their management portfoilio. As well they might be; the auditorium can rapidly be reconfigured as a cinema, conference room, acoustic concert hall or full-blown concert auditorium complete with surround sound. If it is stalls seating is merely luxurious, the balcony - reserved for heads of state, ministers and lesser VIPs - is positively opulent.

No less than two largely separate audio systems are in use here. A triamplified JBL 5674 three-way Screen Channel System, mounted on mobile towers at the stage, powers the room in cinema mode from behind the 17 m by 6 m screen, with side and rear sound components coming from the distributed ludspeaker system - of which more in a moment. The delivery end of this system is a 35mm Cinemechanica projector with Dolby analogue and digital plus DTS digital, capable of both Cinemascope and widescreen formats. Alongside it is a 16000 lumen Digital Projections 28SX SCGA projector which takes its signal feed from an Analogue Way Graphic Switcher II.s

The original specification for the permanently installed auditorium system, written by Theatre Projects Consultants, was adapted by Richard Northwood of UK-based consultancy COMS when he joined the team to analyze the room and design the audio system. That specification called for either Meyer, Renkus-Heinz or EAW loudspeakers. Renkus-Heinz's products were finally chosen, says Northwood, largely as aresuult of the system's complexity: "The specification was based on a CobraNet infrastructure and it's quite an elaborate system overall," he comments. "We've done quite a lot of work with CobraNet, hence our involvement with this project, and Renkus-Heinz ended up as the chosen loudspeaker brand partly because it's much more CobraNet-friendly - so from a purely engineering point of view it made a lot of sence - and when we did the EASE modelling of the room, we found there was much more choice within their range that allowed us to choose an appropriate box for each part of the system. The range also includes three-way boxes which I was very happy about as I personally find the more modern three-way design much more natural sounding than traditional two-way boxes."

Analyzed in EASE, the thickly-carpeted, plush-seated auditorium was confirmed as essentially dry in nature with an RT of 1 - 1,1 seconds: "It is very speech-friendly," comments Northwood. "It is a nice space to work in but is definitely more biased towards the spoken word than music." To assist in the latter mode, a Wagner acoustic orchestral shell was installed above the 20m by 15m stage to reinforce and focus the natural acoustic.

The auditorium's audio infrastructure is relatively complex - altough the end result is simplicity of patching and routing - and is based on Peavey MediaMatrix signal routing, CobraNet distribution (via Belden CAT-6 STP) and remote control of the loudspeakers' integral amplifiers using Renkus-Heinz's proprietary R-Control system running on a LonWorks hub.

When used for live music productions, a complete front-of-house control system can be wheeled in from the control room, the flightcased 48-channel Midas XL4 console being brought in on its EasyTilt stand using a half-tonne manual chain hoist and a specially designed ramp into the auditorium. The XL4 also provides stage monitor mixing via its matrix outputs.

Alongside it are five 10U-high portable source processing racks and one 14U patch rack which contains the MediaMatrix XCAB 16i units. Extensive processing includes two Sony MD350 minidisc machines, a Marantz CD player, Focusrite Red 3 compressor, four Klark-Teknik compressor/limiters, four DN360KT dual band equalizers, a Lexicon reverb and a Kurzweil digital effects processor. All this portable equipment is connected via a patch rack to an outlet box fitted with six 12-way Veam audio connectors from where the signals are fed to the system's main patch rack, whence the 180 audio channels are dispersed around the auditorium.

Back in the control room, the main automated installation rack houses a pair of HHB CD-R players, two more Sony MD machines, a Tascam DA-45HR DAT and a Tascam 122 Mk 3, all connected digitally directly into the CobraNet system with transport control effected via AMX. Other sources available for patching-in include a JVC mini-DVcam, two Panasonic DVD writers and a JVC VHS machine - again, the audio runs directly into the MediaMatrix system for total flexibility. Eight Sennheiser 3000 radio mic systems are also on hand.

The auditorium is comprehensively covered by the audio system, which includes a regular left-and-right proscenium system, delays, front and balcony fills, and the "surround" element of the 5.1 cinema system. All the Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers - which were discretely hidden behind acoustically transparent cloth fitted by British subcontractor JC Maclean - are self-powered with the audio delivered from the MediaMatrix system via CobraNet to breakout boxes in loudspeaker locations and thence to the cabinets themselves.

The proscenium system comprises six ST6/44 and six PowerNet PN151/4 cabinets, with four PN81/9 boxes located under the stage as subwoofers and eight PN61 providing front-fill under the stage. The delay system consists of two PN121s on the second lighting bridge and four PN61s further back on lighting bridge 3. The surround sound speakers are all PN61s, 12 in total at either side, with a further eight cabinets covering the rear of the stalls and the balcony. Stage monitoring features six PN121M/12 monitors, driven directly from the Midas board.

Mark Clay comments: "The system wasn't designed to be a full-rock'n'roll system, but to be absolutely perfect for the intended mixture of VIP conferencing and film viewing. The sound from those speakers is so clear and warm, and we have a lot of sub-bass for when we run films. Renkus-Heinz simply offered the best solution all round and I'm very pleased that I went that way because they're beutiful sounding speakers, and the factory were extremely supportive and helpful throughout the project."

Lighting of the auditorium was the work of LSI Projects, under project manager Andrew Nu, to a technical specification prepared by Jerry Godden and his team at Theatre Projects Consultants who had to contend with a limited roof load capacity.

The stage engineering system, designed by LSI Projects, comprises chain hoists and trusses from which adjustable masking and stage lights are suspended; a framed flown film screen unit; motorized house curtain; flown, adjustable Wenger fibreglass acoustic reflector ceiling panels and rolling acoustic towers; and both fixed and movable curtain tracks with stage draperies and masking.

10 motorized Medium Duty truss sections from Total Fabrications, each 22m long, are individually suspended from Liftkit motorized chain hoists, controlled by LSI Projects' unique ARC control system. Sets of black and red curtains with electrically operated curtain tracks from Hall Stage are also ARS-controlled.

Lighting comprises 30 ADB C103 1.2kW Prism Convex, 12 ADB SH20 2kW TV wide angle Fresnels, 60 Thomas Par cans. Chroma Q color scrollers, 18 ADB ACP1004 cyclorama floods and an ADB Phoenix 10XT lighting console.

Bond Communications decided that AMX touch-panel control would be the standard user interface for the AV systems throughout the rest of this awe-inspiring complex, from the luxury bedrooms where the devices allow instant fingertip control over such matters as television channels, internet access, billing information and room service, to the conference suites, meeting rooms and the "special meeting chamber" which houses the high-flying political and economic sessions.

"The AMX system," comments Clay, "is running wireless touch panels via WAP access onto an NI3000 controller in each room, which commands the TV system with its options of distributed satellite TV, video on demand, DVD, internet access and all the peripherals - and the ability to take distributed video from the auditorium, special meeting chamber or the ballrooms into any of the rooms as required - so you don't have to get out of bed to attend a meeting, you can watch it on TV."

The meeting rooms typically offer Barco IQ projectors, AMX wireless touch control, Shure wireless microphones, Extron switchers, Behringer feedback destroyers, Denon DVD and Panasonic VHS playback, drop-down screens and videoconferencing facilities. Meeting room PA systems utilize EAW celing speakers; the bedrooms have Speakercraft ceiling speakers and the ballroom spec includes 96 ElectroVoice 8.2 HC high ceiling loudspeakers.

Down in the special meeting chamber, eight Nexo PS15s reside in the ceilings, driven by Crest amplification, a Soundcraft K2 desk, DIS 6000 interpretation and conference microphone systems - the latter providing eight-channel interpretation and eight interpreter booths in remote locations, each equipped with Sony 17" TFT video and data monitors. Eight surveillance cameras with pan-and-tilt heads are fitted in the meeting chamber, allowing control room operators and interpreters to monitor the proceedings remotely. Around the chamber itself are 16 60" NEC plasma screens, used primarily to display the Brahle Digivote 2000 digital voting system. At the heart of the live video system is a Panasonic MX70 vision mixer.

Renkus-Heinz Equipment:

6 x ST6/44, 6 x PN151/4, 40 x PN61, 4 x DR18-2, 2 x PN81/9, 8 x PN121M/12, 4 x PN151T.
All loudspeakers are CobraNet connected and fully supervised by use of R-Control.

Richard Northwood (Audio Consultant), John Midgley (Beyerdynamic UK), Jon Stanley (Beyerdynamic UK), Mark Clay (Bond Communications), Jayaprakash (Site Manager), Mireesh Kumar (System Engineer).

Photos and Article by: Mike Lethby, ML Media, mike@ml-media.co.uk, +44 1403 275919