The Opportunity
As New Zealand’s only venue with official International Convention Centre status, the New Zealand International Convention Centre was designed to host conferences, exhibitions, banquets and live performances on an international scale. The facility includes hundreds of spaces with unique acoustic and operational requirements, ranging from meeting rooms and exhibition halls to its flagship Te Paepae Theatre.
To support this broad range of applications, NZICC required an audio solution capable of delivering consistent sound quality throughout the venue while remaining flexible enough to adapt to multiple room configurations and event formats. The venue also sought a unified technology platform that would simplify operation while meeting the expectations of international clients, performers and event organizers.
The Solution
Working with JPRO and Vega Global NZ, NZICC implemented a HARMAN Professional ecosystem centered on JBL Professional loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers, Soundcraft mixing consoles and BSS Soundweb processing.
At the heart of the installation is the Te Paepae Theatre, a modular auditorium accommodating up to 2,850 seated guests or 3,300 banquet attendees. The space can also be divided into two independent theatres, requiring an audio system capable of adapting to multiple configurations while maintaining consistent coverage and intelligibility.
The theatre features 40 JBL Professional VTX A8 line array loudspeakers deployed in scalable configurations, supported by JBL Professional VTX G28 and VTX B18 subwoofers, JBL Professional VTX F15 delay loudspeakers, JBL Professional VTX M20 stage monitors and JBL Professional AC18/95 loudspeakers for front-fill coverage. The system is powered by 34 Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers and managed by BSS Soundweb London BLU-806DA processors with Dante networking. Front-of-house control is provided by dual Soundcraft Vi3000 consoles with 64/32 channel stage boxes.
JBL Venue Synthesis 3D Acoustic Simulation software was used to model multiple operational modes, including full-theatre, dual-theatre and hybrid configurations. All tuning and calibration settings are stored within the Crown amplifiers, enabling venue staff to recall system configurations quickly while reducing setup and changeover times.
Beyond the theatre, JBL Professional loudspeakers were deployed throughout meeting rooms, exhibition halls, public spaces and back-of-house areas to provide consistent voicing and audio performance across the entire facility.
The Result
The completed installation provides NZICC with a scalable audio platform capable of supporting everything from keynote presentations and international conferences to banquets and live performances. The JBL Professional system delivers consistent coverage and tonal balance throughout the venue while allowing staff to reconfigure spaces efficiently without extensive re-rigging or retuning.
In the Te Paepae Theatre, the JBL Professional VTX A8 system provides uniform sound coverage across multiple room layouts, ensuring speech intelligibility and musical clarity regardless of seating configuration. Combined with Crown amplification, BSS networked processing and Soundcraft mixing consoles, the integrated solution streamlines operation and enables rapid transitions between events.
With a venue-wide HARMAN Professional ecosystem in place, NZICC is equipped to meet the demands of international conventions, exhibitions and performances while maintaining consistent audio quality across every space in the facility.
