Number Thirty-Eight in Denver has taken its indoor bar and restaurant outdoors, where co-owners Spencer Fronk and Andrew Palmquist were planning an expansive indoor-outdoor concept since long before the pandemic that’s now come to reality, including a sound reinforcement system utilizing d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers.
“We want this to be Denver’s après destination,” says Fronk. “We’re natives and know well how much Coloradans like to be outdoors. We hope people will bundle up; in fact, we can’t wait for the first show when it’s snowing.”
A maximum of 175 guests will be allowed into ths pace—12,000 square feet inside, 18,000 square feet outside—instead of its normal-times capacity of 1,000. To take this approach to the next level, Number Thirty Eight hired Brown Note Productions of Thornton, CO with the audio and lighting approach to their plan.
“Our client approached us to do a complete audio and lighting design for the outdoor venue, so we’ve been involved from the beginning of the project,” states Zach Richards, Director or Integration, Brown Note Productions. “Their concept is to have a performance space capable of accommodating local, regional and national artists, and want to offer all artists and fans a really premier quality system unlike many typical outdoor venues of its size. d&b became an obvious choice for the venue based on the criteria. For the local artist, they needed the system to be extremely easy to operate so we utilized the Q-SYS platform (including the d&b plugin module for Q-SYS) to provide a very easy-to-use mixer for these instances.
“Of course,” he continues. “the d&b system also has direct inputs for other consoles that regional touring artists may bring along and so they can use the Q-SYS plugin to make this change providing a direct input path to the d&b amplifiers. For larger touring artists, we did all of the necessary infrastructure specifications to allow for larger systems to be deployed if necessary.”
Brown Note specified the weatherized variant of the d&b 24S point source loudspeaker for the main left/right channels, with a weatherized d&b 10S used as a center fill and planned to be employed when larger systems are brought in for touring artists. There’s also a single weatherized 21S subwoofer in a custom fabricated enclosure providing added low-frequency coverage throughout the venue. And, the stage monitor package is headed by d&b Max2 wedges.
“We designed the sound and lighting system at Number Thirty Eight to be plug and play for our musicians,” adds Fronk. “The stage is both state of the art and accessible — any musician can plug into our systems and perform without needing to bring additional production equipment. We are hyper-focused on Number Thirty Eight being a platform for musicians from across Colorado.”
d&b components on the project include two 24S-D loudspeakers, a 10S-D loudspeaker, a 21S subwoofer, a 30 D and 10 D installation amplifier and four MAX2 monitors.
Brown Note also specified a lighting package with Chauvet Professional IP rated fixtures including COLORdash Par-Hex 12s and 7s. The lighting system can be controlled via a ChamSys Quick 10 lighting console or from the Q-SYS touch panel triggering presets from an Interactive Technologies Cue Server.
