Guild, Woman’s Club donate $14,500 to POA

The Fine Arts Guild donated $10,000 and the Woman’s Club donated $4,500 to the POA’s Holiday Bay Room Sound and Lighting Project. Representatives from from both clubs presented the donations during the December POA Board of Directors meeting.

The POA Board of Directors is proceeding with the Sound and Lighting Project and has taken the first step by purchasing soundproof curtains. They were installed on Oct. 18.

It has been recognized for some time that the sound and lighting in the Holiday Bay Room at the lodge has been lacking in quality.

As the Canyon Lake Fine Arts Guild conducts four concerts per year in the room, its members decided to form a committee to conduct a detailed analysis of the problem and provide recommended solutions to the POA.

The committee members, Daryl Ballou, Larry Garland and President Ron Martel, determined that the biggest problem is the room itself. The ceiling is very low, the floors are made of hardwood and an entire wall is made of glass.

This allows the amplified sound to bounce indiscriminately around the room, causing an uneven distribution of distortion throughout the venue.

“Speakers placed in the front of the room overwhelm those in the front rows while leaving those in the back without enough amplification to hear sufficiently,” said Ron. “When a second set of speakers is placed in the back of the room, a propagation delay causes distortion randomly throughout the venue. Given the speaker placement and the design of the room, the results are far from desirable.”

Although nothing can be done for the low ceiling, the first recommendation was to acquire soundproof curtains against the glass wall to help soften the unrestrained noise.

The second recommendation is to acquire two sets of properly selected speakers to be permanently mounted in the room. Instead of placing the first directly in front of the first rows, these speakers would be mounted higher towards the ceiling. The second set of speakers would be mounted about halfway back, also near the ceiling.

“The volume of the first could now be reduced, making it more acceptable to those in the front section, while the back of the room could be directed to the volume from the second set of speakers,” explained Ron. “A set of amplification equipment would be included that would factor in an accurate amount of propagation to both sets of speakers, which would minimize distortion.”

The speakers and amplification equipment were sized and placed via a computer model of the Holiday Bay Room to optimize the acquisition and implementation.

The analysis further went on to consider the lighting equipment as well, but that will be addressed sometime in the new year.