From the outset, Darden Restaurants considered sound quality and consistency to be of utmost importance in its Bahama Breeze restaurants. Since its launch less than five years ago in the southeastern U.S., the Bahama Breeze concept has been wildly successful, presenting an evening vacation on a Caribbean Island complete with superb food, drink and music.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. - purveyors of Red Lobster and Olive Garden - envisioned a non-stop soundtrack of reggae and other tropical musical styles as being crucial to the experience, with live musicians featured nightly as well. They turned to Entertainment Arts, a leading pro sound, lighting and video company based in Orlando, to design and supply a comprehensive system solution.

"Darden was most concerned with developing a sound system that would operate with maximum effectiveness, but without an operator," explains Tim Huff, president of Entertainment Arts. "Restaurant personnel, from managers on down, are simply too busy to handle even minor things like volume adjustment. This makes perfect sense. For example, when a restaurant is at its busiest, the system volume usually needs to be increased to be heard over the higher ambient noise level, but at the same time, demands on the staff are at their peak."

There's also the phenomenon that after even a short period of time, employees working in this type of environment begin to tune out the music, making them completely immune to the fact that adjustments need to be made. Attempting to accommodate the needs of live musicians further complicates the picture; again, staffers have other responsibilities, and then there's the issue of expertise.

From this location, a musician just needs to plug and play

All Bahama Breeze facilities share consistent architecture and similar physical structure, with a bar area in the center surrounded by 'Pods' that offer the majority of seating. A large outdoor 'Pavilion' is also offered at each venue, complete with a bandstand. Some locations also have a smaller 'Sunset Deck' for additional outside seating. With Vice President of Design Dan Franklin taking a hands-on roll, Entertainment Arts began devising specific system solutions. A distributed 70-volt loudspeaker system, broken down into several independent zones, would provide high-quality background music coverage to the restaurant interior, pavilion, restrooms and even to concealed loudspeakers in the parking lot. In addition to its distributed loudspeakers, the pavilion also would include two larger full-range loudspeakers mounted above the bandstand.

If possible, the interior dining, pod and bar loudspeakers would be divided into three sub-zones, each with independent gain riding. In other words, if the ambient crowd noise within one of these sub-zones gets louder, the audio level in that same zone is raised without impacting the levels of the other zones.