Sound Kingdom Changes Name to Event Systems and Adds L-ACOUSTICS On the cusp of celebrating its tenth year of business in the production services market, Wichita, Kansas-based Sound Kingdom, Inc. has now changed its name to Event Systems, Inc. and expanded its L-ACOUSTICS inventory with the purchase of six ARCS line source systems, four 12XT coaxials, and an additional LA8 amplified controller. The new gear complements an existing equipment roster that includes 18 KIVA and six KILO elements -- collectively driven by a single LA-RAK -- plus six 115XT HiQ coaxial stage wedges and two tiny 108P self-powered enclosures. Primarily specializing in "one-off" concerts, festivals, and theatrical functions, Event Systems is L-ACOUSTICS' sole certified provider in the region and counts both the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (WSO) and historic Orpheum Theatre among its regular clients. "We purchased our KIVA-KILO system specifically for this year's Wichita Symphony Orchestra pops concerts, which are held at the 5,000-seat Century II Convention Hall," says Event Systems' owner, Josh Gordon. "We had initially considered using KARA, but, after running some acoustic models in SOUNDVISION, we found that three KILO and nine KIVA per side flown inline covered the room very nicely -- even though I believe that this is now the largest venue that KIVA has been used on. Trumpeter Chris Botti recently performed there with the symphony and the show sounded fantastic. Music Theatre of Wichita also uses a KIVA-KILO system for its summer season in the Century II Concert Hall, which is in the same complex, so the continuity from room to room is nice as well." Between WSO pops shows, Event Systems keeps a slightly scaled down version of the system in place at the 1,281-seat Orpheum Theatre, plus augments it with its newly-added ARCS for sidefill, 12XT and 115XT HiQ for stage monitoring, and 108P for frontfill. Over the past few months, the gear has been used on a wide range of Orpheum productions, including performances by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Tower of Power, The Temptations, The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Bella Fleck and the Flecktones, Lewis Black, Lily Tomlin, Martin Short, and theatrical events such as Mark Twain Tonight! starring Hal Holbrook. "Although the perception in America has long been that bigger is better, I'm finding that more and more engineers are really starting to embrace smaller boxes like KIVA and the 108P," Gordon says. "For example, when I recently advanced Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot for the Orpheum, their front-of-house engineer told me that he loved seeing sound companies finally starting to use smaller line arrays and deploying more boxes to achieve better sound and coverage, which is awesome. People are starting to grasp that these little boxes really do rock. "I think we may very well be one of the world's smallest L-ACOUSTICS Certified Providers, but I am extremely proud of that title and our relationship with them," he adds. "We've worked with a number of other loudspeaker manufacturers over the years, and even though we're a long way from being a big fish, the level of service and follow-up from L-ACOUSTICS has been miles above anything we've ever experienced." 
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