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Project Profile:
Total Project Cost: $748 million dollars
Location: Orlando, Florida
Total Floor Area: 2.1 million square feet
Exhibit Area: 1 million square feet
Meeting & Office Area: 1.1 million square feet
Scope:
Design & Install property-wide background music
and public address audio system.
Surveillance system
Inhouse Distributed Television Network
Control and command center
 ORLANDO
— The new Orange County Convention Center boasts
an impressive 2.1 million square feet of exhibition and
meeting space making it the second largest convention
center in the United States. Panasonic Systems was there,
playing a significant role in the development of the project
providing surveillance, facility-wide audio and an internal
cable television system. Panasonic designed, engineered
and installed 200 CCTV surveillance cameras, more than
3,000 audio speakers, a distributed television programming
system (DTV) and a command center to monitor and control
the works.
"This would be a major undertaking for any systems integration
company," said Terry Trauger, Project Manager for Panasonic.
"It was made more difficult because we were brought onboard
late in the process, but we managed to finish on time
with a very happy client."
 But
the process was not without its hitches. "Our first obstacle
was the sheer size of the project," said Trauger. "The
exhibit hall alone was one million square feet, and required
over 1,000 speakers for the background music and public
address system."
Next, was the task of coordinating our activities with
other vendors. The ceiling is an organized snake pit with
layers of conduit and ductwork. In each area sub-contractors
had to precisely schedule their work to avoid conflicts
with other contractors waiting to work on the same piece
of real estate. "It was a constant process of coordination
and negotiation," said Trauger.
Field inspections were also tough. "The county inspectors
were extremely thorough," said Keith Hanak, Director of
Engineering. "They lived by the letter of the specifications
and we had to adhere precisely to what was specified rather
than acceptable building codes."
Many of the convention centers 950 doors are watched by
Panasonic's motion-sensitive pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ)
cameras. These had to be tied into the card-access system
so that the cameras could automatically position themselves
to capture each person entering or leaving the building.
All camera activities are recorded to digital tape.
Audio equipment is housed in 20 racks in three equipment
rooms. The control rooms are linked together to route
audio and video to correct locations at the new facility.
"The system is designed so that there are virtually limitless
possibilities for deciding where audio and video are sent
within the convention center," explains Trauger.
A PC interface makes it easy and intuitive for operators
to configure the system for any given show.
 The
Panasonic team was on site for almost two years and these
challenges kept the team on their toes right up to the
very end. "One of the toughest moments was the lack of
permanent electrical power just before opening," says
Trauger. "We only got power in one of our equipment rooms
a week before the first show. We worked with the Orange
County Operations' staff to get them through it, and,
in the end, everything went fine. So far there have been
no failures and everyone is very happy with the job we
did."
The Orange County Convention Center opened in the spring
of 2003 and cost $748 million dollars. |
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