Not What You’d Expect

Bookmark and Share

Mon, 04/13/2009 - 20:00 -- Nick Dager

Tampa Bay History Center Gets an Upgrade Visitors to Tampa’s Channelside district are discovering the newest attraction in town the Tampa Bay History Center where multimedia theatres and interactive exhibits make some of the area’s best-kept secrets come to life.  Electrosonic working with the museum division of Art Guild designed fabricated and installed the multimedia components of the new building which is on the City’s Riverwalk. Dubbed Exactly What You Didn’t Expect the history and heritage museum features 25 000 square feet of exhibition space which cover 12 000 years of local history from the first native inhabitants to the Spanish conquistadors to the Gilded Age’s railroad tycoons. Visitors get their first taste of Tampa history in the intro theatre where the approximately 15-minute Winds of Change video begins with the early exploration of the region.  Electrosonic supplied three Panasonic PT-D5700U projectors for the theatre.  They are projected on a trio of mullioned screens butted up against each other so they can show three discrete images or one large blended image.  The center screen is 104 inches wide by 78 inches high and the side screens are 74 inches wide by 58½ inches high. The company also furnished a 5.1 surround system featuring Tannoy DI8DC speakers.   Electrosonic provided control of AV systems throughout the History Center via an extensive AMX program.  The Intro Theatre’s lighting and doors are AMX-controlled; a Samsung monitor outside the theatre sports a countdown clock for the next show. Also on the first floor is a model of a cigar factory where the process of hand-rolling cigars is demonstrated.  Push button controls enable visitors to light up portions of the factory floor as they trace the industry which gained fame for Tampa. Electrosonic supplied two interactive audio playback kiosks with Aura speakers for the “Turning the Tide” exhibit which takes Tampa from the 19th to 20th centuries.  Rounding out the first floor a 50-inch Panasonic plasma screen with Tannoy DI8DC speakers and a quartet of interactive buttons allow visitors to explore the “Four Neighborhoods” of Tampa Bay. On the second floor two Panasonic PT-D5700U projectors mounted pointing down display interactive Tampa Bay area maps on a table-like surface painted with Screen Goo to create innovative projection screens.  ELO touch screen kiosks give visitors the ability to scroll through Tampa Bay attractions zoom in for greater detail and email themselves information about specific sites. Electrosonic provided a Christie HD6K rear projector and a 15 ¾ feet wide by 7 feet high curved screen for the Cowman & Crackers exhibit which tells the story of a family’s annual Tampa Bay cattle drive a tradition for more than a century.  A complement of Tannoy DI8DC speakers deliver 5.1 surround sound; user-activated local control starts the approximately 10-minute presentation and launches closed captioning. Another interactive touch screen kiosk with Aura speaker enables visitors to Make a Citrus Label in an exhibit documenting the area’s citrus fruit industry replete with displays of colorful vintage labels crates and replica grovestand. The story of the Tampa Bay port one of the nation’s largest is told in the unique “Now Loading” walk-in theatre made out of a 20-foot shipping container.  Electrosonic supplied a Panasonic PT-D4000U projector and a 6 feet wide by 3 ½ feet high screen supplementary 42- and 37-inch Panasonic plasmas and JBL Control 25 AV speakers.   Two 50-inch Panasonic plasma screens showcase the history of the area’s many sports franchises and spring-training teams in the Sportsman Spectator Fan exhibit. In addition two 3M interactive touch screen kiosks with Aura speakers make visitors Witness to Change in the region and boost awareness of Tampa as a Year-Round City.  A 12-inch Marshall LCD monitor in an old-fashioned nickelodeon-style configuration lets departing visitors peer at vintage images of bygone days. “The Tampa Bay History Center had a very challenging schedule with a compressed turnaround at the end ” says Electrosonic project manager Thursby Pierce.  “But the project went together very well and we were ready to go by the grand opening.” Cortina Productions Pyramid Studios and Monadnock Studios were the three media producers for the exhibits.  Bob Haroutunian of PPI Consulting was the AV design consultant; Gifford Eldredge was the project manager at the museum division of Art Guild. At Electrosonic Mike “Doc” Dwyre was site supervisor Dan Dwyre install technician Chris Hartwell programming and commissioning engineer Tim Smith design engineer and Bryan Abelowitz sales engineer.