Sound problems at pavilion might be over

Dan Kulin

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 9:47 a.m.

Nearly eight months after the $12 million Henderson Pavilion opened, lingering sound problems there might be coming to an end, city officials said Thursday.

Within the past month 46 cloth acoustic panels that look like large banners have been hung from the large tent over the pavilion. Eight speakers have been moved and another speaker added in an attempt to eliminate the problems that have made some performances hard to hear for some, city construction manager John Simmons said. The city is also fine-tuning the sound engineering operations during performances, he said.

The first test of the fixes, which cost $14,000, will come Saturday, when the group BLOO gives a concert at the pavilion. Promotional materials describe BLOO as a four-man folk, funk, jazz and blues group.

Complaints of muffled sounds and some echoing have been made since the pavilion's inaugural concert, a Sept. 27 performance that featured the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Opera Las Vegas and Nevada Ballet Theater, Simmons said.

"When sound comes from different directions and hit each other, they cancel each other. It sounds muffled," Simmons said.

Before the five or so performances since then, city staff and sound consultants tried to fix the problem by re-aiming speakers and making other minor changes.

"Through a process of elimination we came to realize we needed to spend some money to fix the problem," Simmons said.

Councilman Steve Kirk said he was surprised when he first heard of the problems with the sound system and hopes it is finally fixed.

"I was like, 'Oh you gotta be kidding me,' after what we paid for it," Kirk said.

Kirk said he didn't notice a sound problem at the pavilion's first concert. But he had a hard time hearing Shakespeare in the Park a few weeks later.

"For Hal Holbrook I could hear very well, but I understand further back there were problems," Kirk said. "Hopefully this is just fine-tuning now."