Episode #19 - Sound & Spectacle: Engineering The Discoshow Experience in Las Vegas

This episode takes you behind the scenes of a Discoshow project in Las Vegas, where we explore the unique acoustical challenges of transforming a former sports betting room into a dynamic space featuring an LED dance floor, towering video walls, and an interactive crowd experience. You’ll hear how the expert collaboration between Kinetics Noise Control, Acousthetics, and Schwob Acoustics delivered innovative solutions to create an unforgettable sensory experience without disrupting the world around it.

Our guests are Ben Vause, Building Acoustics Sales Manager at Kinetics; Tyler Adams, Principal at Acousthetics; Michael Schwob, President at Schwob Acoustics; and Mike Bauder, Senior Vice President of Production, Design, and Development at Spiegelworld.

 

 

 

Ben Vause, Kinetics Noise Control

Hi, I'm Ben Vause. I am the Director of Sales for the Building Acoustics market group within Kinetics Noise Control. Kinetics Noise Control is a nearly 70-year-old company that is focused on manufacturing noise and vibration isolation components and systems for the construction industry. And we've got four main market segments that we target. Building acoustics is kind of within the architectural design elements of a building, HVAC equipment division, industrial, commercial, and environmental. And we also have our interiors division within the company. So Tyler?

Tyler Adams, Acousthetics

I'm Tyler Adams with Acousthetics. We're an independent sales representation firm, and we are the representatives for Kinetics Noise Control Building Acoustics in California, Nevada, and Utah.

Mike Schwob, Schwob Acoustics

Hi, I'm Mike Schwob. I'm with Schwob Acoustics. I have been providing acoustical consulting for 22 years and started Schwob Acoustics about eight years ago, specializing in architectural acoustics.

Mike Bauder, Spiegelworld

Yes, my name is Mike Bauder. I'm the Senior VP of Production Design and Development for Spiegelworld. Spiegelworld is an entertainment and hospitality company based here in Las Vegas. We've been here for about 14 years and have shows and projects throughout the U.S., and have had them overseas as well.

Ben Vause

So, today we're going to talk about the Discoshow project. So, Mike Bauder, could you give me a kind of a just a quick overview of the concept and the vision for what Discoshow was and is now today?

Mike Bauder

Sure. We started workshopping Discoshow back in 2016 in New York as the best way to describe it would be an immersive, immersive entertainment product. It's atypical from most shows in that we have what we call the box, which is a 50-foot cube where the performance takes place. It takes place in and around the audience.

There are no seats in the audience. We have four video walls on each side, and we have a video floor as well. It's essentially as if the audience are attending a club and we tell a show in that environment.

Ben Vause

I think it's a really unique space, unique environment, entertainment venue was able to visit it during construction, so it was really cool to see. Mike Schwob, being that it's in Las Vegas, you've done quite a bit of work in the entertainment spaces in Las Vegas. I know each of those kind of comes with its own challenges, a lot of renovation, existing spaces, you're transitioning one use case for a space from one thing into another.

And you also have operational efficiencies and everything that need to be maintained during construction, as well as how is the space and the entertainment venue going to affect the adjacency spaces. So, if you could maybe walk through some of the high-level challenges that Discoshow presented there for us.

Mike Schwob

The big picture challenge was that Discoshow is a louder space. It has a pretty high sound level. It has that disco energy. And we were given the directive that the addition of this venue to the link could not interfere with adjacent spaces that are already operational and must remain operational - that was kind of the big picture, objective was to add this new space and still allow the rest of the building to operate as it was before the show was built.

We had to essentially make that box that Mike was talking about into a sound enclosure.

Ben Vause

Yeah, what were some of those adjacent spaces that were sensitive?

Mike Schwob

So below the Discoshow is a casino, and if I recall correctly, it actually has an open ceiling. So the only sound barrier is actually the slab itself that's supporting Discoshow. And above Discoshow is the kind of back-of-house office areas. And so, even though they may not actually be used at the same time as Discoshow, we were given the directive to make sure that they were protected acoustically from that sound.

And then on one of the adjacent sides is a theater that has another show in it that needed to be protected as well, if you will.

Ben Vause

So, we're definitely, in the acoustics world, we talk about building a box within a box quite often, and Discoshow itself being considered a box certainly helps with that.

Mike Schwob

Absolutely, yeah, the concept of disco should work very well to create that enclosure.

Ben Vause

So, you know, within the box, within a box kind of, concepts, you know, we've obviously got ceilings and floors and walls, right, to create those, those six sides of that box. So maybe Mike and Tyler walk us through, maybe kind of the concepts on when we started to address the ceiling aspect of the isolation.

Mike Schwob

Sure. The primary objective of the ceiling was to add additional sound attenuation to the floor above. And so, I analyzed what we would need to add to that existing slab to provide that sound insulation.

What we really needed was a ceiling composed of two layers of gypsum board that was hung with springs. And so that is the basic concept behind that sound barrier above the box.

One of the problems we always have with that kind of a sound barrier ceiling is coordinating all of the penetrations, and in this case, we had much more going on up there than a typical project. There's in addition to all the building systems that are being hung from above there was also a pipe grid that was used to hang speakers and lighting. Mike, you could probably elaborate on that a little bit.

Mike Bauder

Yeah, it was pretty extensive. I think we had in total close to 120 moving lights hanging from that pipe grid and probably about 50 or 60 speakers. So, it was a fair bit of weight. And we also had some flying systems, performer flying systems that had to integrate into that as well. I think one of the toughest things we were dealing with is just how low the room was for us and how to keep that all in a very compact amount of space. So, every inch mattered.

So, when we were talking about installing these various systems to help isolate the room, that was also a consideration that was taken into account.

Ben Vause

Tyler, I'll ask this question because know, know, Acousthetics for us is a great resource on the West end and you all do all your design work in-house, which I think is a big benefit for your customers out there as well. We talked about a low-profile spring system. So, you know, for us that brings to mind our KSCH system, which I kind of term as the Swiss army knife, a little bit of our ceiling systems. Can you kind of talk through what made that particular piece, you know, very usable for a lot of the stuff that Mike just brought up, as far as things that we had to go around and considerations that you made?

Tyler Adams

Yeah, so there's a lot of limitations vertically with what could be done. So, the Kinetics KSCH spring only takes up about three and a half inches of space between the slab to the drywall. And another unique feature of that spring is we have a special base plate that allows us to anchor into the concrete with shallow anchors. And that was, I think, important on this project because I believe there was a post-tension slab in with post-tension concrete, there's these cables that run through the concrete slab, and you have to avoid touching or hitting those cables with deep anchors. So, the KSCH spring allowed us to anchor in a shallow way and also maintain a shallow airspace.

Shop drawings are always done with springs just to make sure the springs are selected correctly to, they all have to deflect an inch evenly when they're loaded with all of the finishes, but we also had to coordinate all of these penetrations, like attachments of ductwork or anything that needed to poke through the ceiling. Like Mike mentioned, it's always good to not poke things through the ceiling because you start to create Swiss cheese with your sound barrier. That other design of using the lower kind of structural framework to hold all of the lighting and supports that are needed for the show was a great innovation to incorporate into the show.

And when you're there, you can look up in the ceiling and see just all of the stuff that goes into illuminating the show. There's lasers and moving lights and all sorts of things. Mike, one question I have for you is, does the programming of the show change periodically? Or does it stay fairly consistent in terms of the kind of narrative structure, lighting, things like that?

Mike Bauder

It stays consistent on a day-to-day basis. think, you know, we're constantly looking to improve the show, so there will be iterations of the show that happen every two to three months, just to sort of tighten things up. But once we've done that, then it'll stay that show consistent until the next set of changes.

Tyler Adams

So, you do need some flexibility in the pipe grid and things like that to be able to move things around and make tweaks, and restructure stuff?

Mike Bauder

Absolutely, yeah.

Ben Vause

So, a lot more goes on in the ceiling system, I know was another part of the complicated design, especially from an isolation standpoint, was the floor system, a lot of point loads, considerations, columns, in addition to what, we were hanging off of the ceiling system, but also the floor system. Mike Schwob, talk a little bit about that and what led to the LiftWrx selection process there for a little bit.

Mike Schwob

Absolutely, yeah. The primary objective of the floating floor system was to mitigate sound transmission to the casino below. So that's where we started. We knew we needed to have a concrete floating floor system. I spoke with Tyler and his team and the LiftWrx product appeared to be the best option for this particular project. There was a lot of detail coordination because of all of the things being supported from below, and I'll actually let Tyler get into that because I know he was heavily involved with that process.

Tyler Adams

Yeah, so we could step back and just explain what a floating floor is, is you're taking four inches or more of concrete and you're supporting it from springs, and there's an airspace between this floating concrete slab and the structural slab. And so, you're creating an entire concrete floor that's basically supported by springs to keep it separate or decoupled from the supporting structure, that creates a really strong sound isolation barrier. It also helps avoid vibration impacts from things like dancing or weight drops, if you had something like that, something like that dropping on the floor.

And so, the way the Kinetics LiftWrx system works is you essentially roll out some plastic directly on the structural floor, and you lay out these canisters about every four feet or so, and you pour concrete directly onto the supporting structure. It's only separated by a layer of plastic that's poured up to the top of these lids of these canisters. And when the concrete's dry, you come back and in each canister you place a spring, and that's got some bolts on each side of the spring with a top plate, and you twist those bolts a couple times, and you go one by one.

Over and over again, it slowly lifts the slab up with those bolts, and it puts weight on the springs, and the springs compress. So, it's a couple steps to installing a spring-isolated floor like that.

On this particular project, there were a lot of design challenges. You have to think too when you're adding about six inches or more of space to your floor, you have to think about how the audience transitions from one room to the next without having to step up or step down. So, the whole floor system is sort of recessed relative to where the other kind of pre-function areas are. This show also has a really cool light-up LED dance floor. That's basically like a video screen on the floor.

And so that added a lot of height. The LED floor also has some cooling requirements because it generates a bit of heat. running in that area, that void area is also some air cooling, that's all sitting on top of our spring isolated floor. And then there's other things in the show like catwalks that performers are dancing on and roller skating up and down and, you know, finding ways to support that catwalk required some additional design that went into the floating floor, adding extra rebar, adding extra concrete in those areas.

And then the other thing when we're designing these floors, have to look at is what happens when you have a room that is full of people versus a room that's empty of people, because the weight loading can change on these springs and you have to design them in a way that your floor is not going to feel like a waterbed when you step onto it, especially when you have people all dancing in unison.

So, there's a lot of critical things that are looked at when selecting the springs and laying them out and designing the rebar and all of that stuff gets addressed in the shop drawing process when designing a Kinetics LiftWrx spring isolated slab.

Anything that you guys would add to that in terms of other design challenges that you encountered when we were working on implementing this floor system?

Mike Bauder

I remember a big one was weight, right? We were struggling a lot with, you know, not only the weight of the additional slab, but as you mentioned, we had this video floor that added a tremendous amount of weight as well as the catwalk system. So, getting that all to balance in an appropriate amount of space was a bit of a challenge, but one that we were able to overcome.

Tyler Adams

Yeah, I think you raise a good point is when these types of systems are introduced into an existing building, you have to think of whether or not that existing building can handle it. And many times, the buildings may not have been designed for that kind of extra weight. So, we did have to work with reviewing with the structural engineer of record about how much weight we could add. We use lightweight concrete instead of normal weight concrete because we did have the way to the floor, the way to the LED system, the way to the audience, and all of that stuff didn't exist in that space before. So, it was a little bit of a fine-tuning to find that balance, but it seems to have worked out well.

Ben Vause

So next, as we continue to build our box within a box, the wall system is, we can't forget the walls, right? I think that's a component that when we talk about designing a system, it really is the whole system is the solution. It's not just one component. And I think that's what we've been able to show with this project is that Kinetics can really address a lot, a wide range of those and those concerns in various ways to create the right system.

So, I wanted to talk about the walls as well, because we don't want to forget about the walls, right? And just kind of the isolation track system that we used and any other components within the walls, sometimes they might be a little easier because you've got somewhat less load characteristics in certain cases, but certainly with that much movement within the space.

Mike Schwob

Yeah, so the walls were not sitting on the floating floor. The floating floor was abutting the interior of those walls. The walls themselves were composed of staggered studs, staggered steel studs, and engineered wallboard, two layers of engineered wallboard on each side to create a pretty high sound transmission loss barrier.

Ben Vause

And we used Wallmat predominantly in that, in the wall system, right? Maybe talk, what's our, when we're using Wallmat, what are we, what are we trying to control with that?

So, the Kinetics Wallmat is an isolation pad that can go on the bottom or the top track of a wall. And the idea behind it is you're basically breaking the connection from the wall to the structure. So, if you're worried about vibration or sound energy that's in that wall radiating into the floor or into the ceiling above, this creates a resilient break between those two.

And sound doesn't really like rigid connections to things. If you think of your phone, when it vibrates, if you set it onto a table, that vibration kind of radiates through the table and makes that vibration louder. And if you were putting your phone on maybe a mouse pad or something squishy, it would prevent some of those vibrations from getting into the table and kind of radiating everywhere. So it's a similar thing with creating these resilient breaks, whether it's with Kinetics Wallmat or we're using the KSCH spring, it's all about breaking those layers from being rigidly connected to the building structure. And that's what the Wallmat is very effective with doing.

Ben Vause

We talked a little bit about just kind of the coordination effort that was needed for this project, which I think is definitely just the nature of the project. know, we get into a lot of coordination meetings and calls when we're dealing with such a sensitive space, both adjacency space and the space itself. How many ballpark, I don't know if there's probably too many to remember, but how many coordination meetings and calls did you all have to work through some of these details? I know the calls that we had internally with Tyler's group, it was probably maybe a handful here and there, but I'm sure that you'll have quite a few over the course of time.

Mike Schwob

Yeah, we had weekly meetings on this project for sure, but then we had side meetings to talk about the floating floor or the pipe grid. There was a point there where we were meeting quite often, and that's what you have to do when you have a project of this complexity. And you need to have, you know, all the players involved, you know, Mike was there, Tyler's there. We can't wait for answers. We need everybody in the meeting that's involved with that particular topic.

Mike Bauder

Yeah. And especially at the end, because with us being a live show, the creative team were still working on the show as we were constructing the venue. And there were some last-minute changes, especially with the addition of the catwalk, where we added an entire ramp system to the catwalk for the skaters to be able to get up and down off the catwalk, which added a lot more weight than was originally planned for. And so, we had to go back and just make sure that we were all sound on our various systems for that.

I remember the tail end of those discussions; we were in meetings two to three times a week with all the various consultants.

Tyler Adams

The challenge too, I think that happens is when you're designing a project like this and it's really being designed as it's developing, is you get to a certain point where the time's running out, pencils are down, and then it's like, when can we get this material on site and installed? So, I think that always becomes a bit of a stressful situation, but we can work with Kinetics to make sure that materials get staged on site pretty quickly and also be flexible in modifying the design as the rest of the project design is being, is being worked out. So, very tricky when it's you're really doing something truly new and something that's never been done before, which in the case of Discoshow is really such a unique show experience, but also unique kind of architecturally in the design of the space with these video walls and catwalks and LED floors and all that stuff.

Mike Bauder

Yeah. And I think schedule was another component of that, right? Like our creative team work as sort of a freelance team. They're not employed by Spiegelworld. We contract with them. They do Broadway shows, they do national tours, they do overseas projects. So, when you contract with the creatives, you have them for a set amount of time that they're on site. So, there wasn't a lot of options. Well, let's just push this off a month. Let's delay a month. Cause if that were to happen, then we don't have a show that we can put up until those creatives become available again.

Which, in our case, coordinating the five or six people who are key to the project would put them a year out or two years out before we could revisit getting the show up and running. So, we were constantly under this pressure of needing to stay on schedule, perhaps a bit more than other projects we worked on.

Ben Vause

Yeah, you've got an opening day set, right? Yes. That's what I was going to say. There's always that target similar to other type projects where, you know, opening day or, you know, schools.

So, work backwards. I think communication in these situations is absolutely paramount to getting all this done. I know that often communications and frequent communications, clear, concise, and having a system that allows some flexibility even throughout the design and installation, I think that's some of the benefit of the KSCH system and the LiftWrx system is that if tweaks did need to be made, but for instance, the hanger was up or the can was already in, and in a concrete, for instance, you can swap out a spring capacity or something like that if needed, which I think gives some more flexibility to that process when you're kind of overlapping some of those critical paths within a design.

So selfishly, that's why I like the system quite a bit, because it does give some of that flexibility. Then, Mike, if you're retooling Discoshow at some point, certainly engage with Mike and Tyler, and we can make any changes that we might need to make.

In that regard, how are things going? How is the show being received? I was in Vegas for a convention, was not able to make it. I was on my list of things to do. So I hope to try to get there next time I'm in town. But how are things going with Discoshow?

Mike Bauder

Well, coming up here soon on, I think a year anniversary, and, from an acoustic standpoint, couldn't ask for a better result. We've had zero complaints from either ownership at the casinos or from our neighbors next door at the theater or the offices above. It really has been a spectacular job on how much noise is produced in that room compared to what you hear on the outside of that room.

Ben Vause

Yeah, I think it's pretty cool when you go into some experiential spaces and the difference between, you know, essentially closing a door and you're kind of cut off from the world, or you go into this world of chaos. The people next door to you are none the wiser on what's going on next door. Right. And I think that's great. So, no news is great news in our world for sure. So that's great to hear. Is there another one coming somewhere that we can maybe help out with?

Mike Bauder

Perhaps, we still have a couple of pokers in the fire, so we're working through it. I don't know if we're to do something this loud again, but we'll see.

Ben Vause

You know, we do like tight, close-knit spaces that create a lot of noise here.

Mike Bauder

I'm sure we could work something out.

Ben Vause

Yeah, great. So, you know, any last thoughts or things just kind of, I'll go around the room a little bit from our standpoint, again, the network of folks that we have working with us both, you know, internally and externally and the folks, know, like Tyler's team bring a lot of value to us and to a certain degree make kinetics job easy.

And I know that, you know, working with Mike Schwob, we've started to develop a good relationship. And I think that the things that the things we're able to develop with, just the product depth and breadth that we have at our disposal, really makes us dangerous when it comes to finding solutions for unique situations. So that's kind of my wrap-up with it, for sure. So, Tyler, I'll start with you.

Tyler Adams

Yeah, I just would say I had the pleasure of visiting Discoshow. I did not know what to expect from a show standpoint. If I had read about it, I would have thought, nah, this isn't really for me. But I walked away really impressed by the whole experience. It is an entertainment experience unlike anything I've ever been in before. I mean, you're sort of transported back to the seventies disco era, and you are in a nightclub, and you're also in the show. The show's very immersive and kind of happening all around you. But yeah, you start by leaving a casino and entering a kind of subway-inspired bar. And then you're transported into a loft area where there's, you know, roller skating kind of show that gets you ready, and then you walk into this really immersive disco space that's got screens surrounding you all around.

The great thing is, you have really no idea all of the work that went into the noise control applications. They're all hidden from view, and that's the kind of magic of all of this stuff.

I would give also a shout out to GM Construction. They were the concrete contractors on this job. They did a great job. It was our first time working with them. Very complicated project with, we had, I think great shop drawings, but they, just, they did a phenomenal job. They were very easy to work with. Austin General Contracting was the GC. And, I think also the architect was Bergman and Walls and Associates, so shout out to them as well. All strong partners to work with on a really complicated project.

In the end, I would just recommend a lot of people check out Discoshow, whether you're a disco fan or not. It's just such a unique experience, and really fun and immersive, and it sounds great. The performers are fantastic. Sometimes they're very funny, and other times they're just a lot of fun.

Mike Schwob

I've been at the show as well, and I agree with Tyler 100%. It was a fantastic experience. I plan to go again pretty soon, actually. I need to bring more people with me to share that experience. Yeah, it's just been really a great experience overall working on the project as well, and having such good team members to work with to make it successful.

Mike Bauder

Yeah, it's nice to hear the comments. I think we experienced that same thing. Many people don't know what to expect when they come to the show, but I would say in 98 to 99 percent of the people who leave have a fantastic time. And from my perspective, it takes a village, and it was amazing all the partners and consultants, and folks we worked with on this. And we came away with being able to open on that opening day.

And so that was tremendous, and just the success achieved in isolating the sound was a big part of that. I know Caesar's ownership was very pleased with it as well. And it was a fantastic experience, even though it was tough at times, it was a great project to work on with everyone.

Ben Vause

That's the rewarding stuff. Those projects are the trials and tribulations. And when you come out of them with a successful project at the end, think that it obviously makes it all worth it. And when the customers and the users are thrilled with the space and there's no noise that's bothering or intruding on them when they're in the adjacent spaces, and you can have a concert or a theater production going on in one space with essentially a nightclub and another space right next door, and all the other offices above and everybody kind of is able to their own lives in those spaces. I think that's really what we're trying to accomplish here, and ultimately, it's a testament to everything that was able to be put together. So I appreciate all that effort that went into it, making it a success.

With that, we'll wrap up. Again, appreciate all the time. Gentlemen, I know it was coordination, stuff like that. It was always fun. But again, really appreciate all the time and effort and the feedback on working with us in Kinetics. And look forward to the next ones.