Crown Hill Theatre in Brooklyn, NY, officially opened its doors with a red-carpet event in early December 2023 powered by a high-quality audio experience from CODA. The brainchild of entrepreneur and musician, Peter Tulloch, Crown Hill was created with a vision to enrich the cultural experience of its community through every element of the performing arts. Across its three floors, which include a main event space, studios, co-working spaces and multi-purpose rooms, this community hub not only hosts public and private events featuring innovative and in-demand acts, but offers education and access to technology, helping to foster the next generation of young professionals in the worlds of entertainment, communications, film and media.
The permanent installation at Crown Hill Theatre is centered on CODA Audio’s ViRAY compact line array (12), with six SCP sensor controlled subs and twoSC2 bass extensions. The system is supplemented with two HOPS12i high output point source and four HOPS8 and is driven by three LINUS14 and three LINUS12C DSP amplifiers. Four CUE TWO and four CUE FOUR compact three-way stage monitors complete the install.
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As an experienced professional and veteran of the road, Tulloch understood that to present the venue most effectively for a wide variety of live events, it had to embrace innovative audio technology. As his plans crystallized, he visited the NAMM show in 2019 where he was introduced to Luke Jenks, the managing director of CODA Audio USA, and felt a good connection.
“My immediate reaction to the CODA technology was just ‘woah, this sounds interesting,’ and I asked my front-of-house engineer Derek Prescod to take a listen. He went along to a demo and also attended the Electric Daisy Carnival where CODA had a system at work. He was just as excited as me. Back in New York, I was telling anyone who’d listen just how great this stuff was—now they know.”
As the Crown Hill Theatre project was developing during 2022, and the public got an idea of what was coming, demand for the space increased and the scale and profile of the events quickly grew larger. It was apparent that the venue’s capabilities needed to scale with the variety and size of events. Tulloch reached out to both Eastern Stage Productions of New York (ESP), CODA’s Northeast U.S. dealer, and CODA Audio USA, for their support in expanding the system for a specific run of pre-launch shows which would fully demonstrate what could be achieved in the space. As the dream of the Crown Hill Theatre Project grew, so did CODA Audio’s involvement.
“ESP has an extensive inventory of CODA equipment and we worked alongside its skilled team, to design an augmented system able to support the eclectic program," Jenks explained. "The work carried out at Crown Hill by Bill Danilczyk’s expert team at ESP, who fully understand the quality and versatility of CODA Audio’s next generation technologies, was outstanding, with predictably excellent results that have the community talking.”
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“The guys from ESP did an amazing job and had us ready to go in good time for what turned out to be a hugely successful run," Tulloch added. "The ‘Fun With Friends’ event featuring DJ Puffy was a major success, with another date booked immediately for December, and Soul in the Horn were equally keen to return within weeks. The owner of a major festival in Florida saw and heard enough to book a show, so when the grand opening came around, we were completely confident in our capacity to deliver a stunning audio package for the artists and audience alike.”
