Featured Project: For This Sports Bar’s AV System, Many Parts Make the Whole

Oklahoma City-based Cory’s Audio Visual was recently involved in a project in their hometown in which they helped bring to life the dreams of four sports fanatics who wanted to open their own sports bar.

Resembling something out of a Las Vegas casino sports book more than a place you would expect to find in the Midwest, Chalk is a 7,500-square-foot establishment featuring more than 100 screens of all sizes displaying sports.

Chalk is, as the owners envisioned, a “luxury” sports bar. The owners wanted the setting comfortable and welcoming and the food above average, and visually, an experience that would inspire a sense of awe.

The owners visited the Planar facility in Portland, Oregon, and hand-picked the seven 1.8- pixel pitch LED walls, which range from 10′ wide to 14′ wide and are each custom configured to split into four areas of content and each hung with Premier mounts.

In addition, a different Planar LED wall was mounted to the entry ceiling to run real time sports betting odds and updates. Six 98″ Planar displays were also hung around the interior.

An additional 84 displays come from Samsung on two different Chief mounts that allow easy access to the Crestron NVX signal management behind the displays as well as desktop mounts for the back-to-back displays in booths. Cory’s says those mounts allowed for a streamlined look that wouldn’t impede the wall-mounted displays located at every angle.

Crestron provided control, distribution, and signal management for the project. The system is housed in three Middle Atlantic full-sized racks to support multiple technical aspects from Chalk including audio visual, security, and content management.

The challenge with any open concept, especially when the building is covered in hard surfaces, is sound that audiences can hear clearly. The owners wanted an immersive experience, so Cory’s Audio Visual used a mixture of QSC flush-in-ceiling speakers and box speakers controlled with Q-SYS Core. The system allows Chalk to scale up the sound capacity for major sporting events like the Super Bowl and playoff games, but also scale down for business meetings and corporate parties.

“No matter the type of guest we can expect at Chalk, we know that our sound level and quality can accommodate,” says Chad Ford, co-owner of Chalk. “Our sports fans can feel it in their seats during the game and then can have a conversation when it is over.”

Adds his fellow co-owner, Ben Mason: “The magnitude of everything that Cory’s Audio Visual integrated into this project is unreal. The numbers blow me away. Wrapping your mind around 100 screens and miles of cabling in a building the size of Chalk is impossible until you see it for yourself.”