SALT LAKE CITY, UT — A group led by local event promoter United Concerts has restored the downtown Salt Lake City Union Pacific Railway Station into a new space called The Depot nightclub. The Depot topped off its hard-won restoration with a Meyer Sound system. The completed venue led United Concerts president Jim C. McNeil to proclaim that "it's like nothing we've ever had in Salt Lake City." A 37,000-square-foot, three-story space, The Depot is centered around a 1,200-capacity, two-level concert hall. But the club also includes a 220-seat, five-star restaurant, as well as a separate VIP wing complete with private lounge and meeting areas, and has already seen business hosting corporate functions.
Its main purpose, though, is as a live music performance space, and in that respect the club has been a success, with the first few months witnessing performers as diverse as Cake, Los Lobos, Minnie Driver and Martin Sexton, the Reverend Horton Heat, Isaac Hayes and The Roots all taking the stage. The club's central mission is to bring a wide variety of quality music to the city while giving the local nightlife and culture a much-needed shot in the arm. United's event coordinator, Rob Pierce, contacted local pro audio dealer Webb AV, and the choice was made to install a system of MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers, supported by 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers.
The system design was created by plotting the building dimensions in Meyer Sound's MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction program and working with the array configuration until the desired coverage was obtained. The final design called for five MICA cabinets per side and four 700-HP units beneath the stage, all driven from a Galileo loudspeaker management system.
Before installing the system, however, the United crew had to deal with the fact that the old rail station wasn't ready for the vibration and abuse of regular concerts. Originally built in 1909, the building's basic frame was in good shape, but the walls and floor needed reinforcement to handle large crowds. The crews worked delicately so as not to violate any of the codes governing restoration of a historic landmark, and left the exterior of the building largely unchanged. Inside, they insulated the roof and wrapped additional material around the joists to better seal them for both insulation and sonic reasons and to reduce sound reflections from them, inserted acoustical foam in problem areas, applied sound treatment to the underside of the balcony level, and draped both the stage and the windows.
The building modifications took months of effort, in contrast with the sound system installation, which was painless. Notes Pierce, "We had it all up in a day. It was probably one of the easiest installs I've ever done."
The system passed its first real performance test when The Roots performed at the club. "I was a little worried about subwoofer capacity for that show, because they needed so much low end," Pierce says. "They came in, looked at the setup, and immediately said 'we need more subs.'" Pierce convinced them to try the setup as it was, "and they were very, very happy by the end of the show. Basically, we were rattling dishes downstairs in the restaurant."
