Located in the heart of Auckland, the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) serves as a world-class destination for conferences, exhibitions, banquets and live performances.
The venue, which opened earlier this year, required an audio solution capable of delivering consistent, high-quality performance across hundreds of spaces, each with unique acoustic and operational requirements.
Integrator Vega Global NZ was handed a complex technical brief for the project, so brought in Harman Professional distributor JPRO.
JPRO director Paul Edlin says: “From day one, the NZICC were very clear about their ambition. This needed to be a world-class multi-use convention centre – one that could host everything from conferences to exhibitions and live performances. With that in mind, the audio system needed to be flexible and scalable.”
The company’s managing director, Stephen Ward, adds: “When we looked at the spaces, it became clear that JBL could cover everything, from back of house through to front of house, across meeting rooms, ceiling speakers and the event halls.
“We looked at different speaker sizes and configurations, but what really stood out was JBL’s quality and voicing. The sound is consistently smooth, clear and balanced, so no matter which room you’re in, you get the same experience.”
The team selected a cohesive Harman Professional ecosystem based on JBL Professional loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers, Soundcraft digital consoles and BSS Soundweb processing to ensure seamless integration and consistent voicing.
The NZICC’s flagship venue is the Te Paepae Theatre, a modular auditorium designed to accommodate 2,850 seated guests or up to 3,300 for banquet configurations. The space can also be divided into two independent theatres seating 1,235 each.
To meet these demands, the designers implemented a scalable JBL VTX A8 line array system supported by JBL VTX G28 and JBL VTX B18 subwoofers, JBL VTX F15 delay loudspeakers, JBL VTX M20 stage monitors and JBL AC18/95 for front-fills.
The set-up represents the largest JBL VTX A Series theatre installation in the Asia-Pacific region.
It is powered by 34 Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers and managed via BSS Soundweb London BLU-806DA processors with Dante networking. Front-of-house control is handled by dual Soundcraft Vi3000 consoles with 64/32 channel stage boxes.
When configured as a single theatre, the system deploys 40 JBL VTX A8 elements in a 16-left, eight-centre and 16-right main array configuration, supported by the ground-stacked subwoofers, front-fills and delay loudspeakers to achieve consistent ±3 dB coverage from front to back.
In dual-theatre mode, the system is reconfigured into mirrored left-right arrays with cardioid subwoofer deployments and dedicated fills for each space.
Scalability was central to the design. Using JBL’s Venue Synthesis 3D Acoustic Simulation software, the team modelled multiple operational modes to ensure optimal coverage and tonal balance without the need for extensive re-rigging between events.
All tuning and calibration settings are stored directly within the Crown amplifiers, enabling the venue team to recall configurations in seconds.
In combination with the JBL VTX A Series’ lightweight design and efficient rigging system – further streamlined through the JBL Array Link app – the theatre can transition quickly between event formats, significantly reducing changeover times.
“The Te Paepae Theatre represents a milestone for professional audio in New Zealand,” says Edlin. “The selection of the JBL VTX A8 was driven by performance, efficiency and value.
“What truly stands out is how effortlessly it meets the demands of a space this size. The coverage is seamless, the sound is stunning and the system gives the NZICC the flexibility to handle anything from keynote addresses to world-class performances with ease.”
