Las Vegas, NV – August, 2013… Despite the recent real estate woes, Las Vegas remains one of the fastest growing cities in America. And as the city has grown, so has its airport. Along with the recent opening of its new 1.9 million square foot Terminal 3, McCarran International Airport has also revamped and renovated the original Terminal 1, including an updated sound system featuring dozens of Renkus-Heinz Iconyx digitally steerable array loudspeakers.

“Terminal 1 was not designed with a dedicated paging system,” explains Edouard Charland, Vice President of Lenexa, KS-based Coffeen Fricke & Associates, Inc. (CFA). “The airport was using the fire alarm systems for paging, and most of the terminal-wide announcements were originating from a paging office that was using the telephone system to originate those announcements. This approach produced low levels of speech intelligibility and offered very little flexibility for zoning and directing announcements.”

Based on their involvement in the Terminal 3 project, CFA was called in to offer suggestions for the ailing audio issues at Terminal 1.. One of the most challenging areas was the expansive baggage claim area. As Charland explains, in addition to the typical acoustical issues inherent in large spaces, there was something uniquely Vegas.

“All around the carousel area there are numerous large screens playing video advertisements for local casinos and night clubs. The audio systems for those screens are fairly loud. They’re running pretty much non-stop 24/7, and they’re only overridden for emergency announcements.”