Metinteractive Upgrades Darien High School's Auditorium to Professional AV Standards

	Sorensen reports that, "we're still learning how to use the videowall, but we got a tremendous amount of positive feedback from people who came to see Les Miserables where the videowall made an impressive debut."

Metinteractive (Mi) has completed the two-phase auditorium upgrade at Darien High School in Darien, Connecticut bringing AV equipment in the space up to professional standards. The project included sound system replacement, an LED videowall, and updates to stage lighting, stage masking and monitoring.

"We very much enjoy doing performing arts spaces; many of the Metinteractive team have backgrounds in theatre and understand what's needed to make these spaces work," says Rich Gold, Metinteractive's CTO. "And, as a national company, it's always nice to have a project close to home here in Connecticut. The renovated auditorium is a beautiful, well-equipped space designed to standards you often see at the professional level."

According to Colleen Thompson, director of visual art and music at the Darien Public Schools, the auditorium was built about 20 years ago. "It is one of the premier performing spaces in the area, and one of the largest in the region with almost 1,100 seats," she says. "In addition to being used by the high school, the auditorium is also rented out to clients such as dance companies."

When Thompson came on board in 2020, she discovered that a lot of the technology was original to the space. "Our auditorium manager, Jeff DeMaio, had a wish list to bring the technology up to speed and was instrumental in getting [the upgrade] proposal going."

They were referred to Metinteractive by Marc Kaplan, who had run one of Manhattan's premier music listening spaces and "had great things to say about Metinteractive designing spaces that are acoustically sound. Every performance here needs to be miked and amplified, so unless you have the right equipment, you will have done months of work and ended up with the audience not hearing an authentic version of the show. We were very impressed by the quality of Metinteractive's proposal and their attention to detail."

One of the biggest upgrades was to the auditorium's sound system, which now features an EAW RSX Series self-powered line array speaker system, a 64-input Allen & Heath Avantis console and an inventory of high-quality microphones.

"The original system had big box loudspeakers hung directly over center stage in front of the proscenium, an approach taken years ago, which doesn't really work anymore," explains Gold. "We took them out and put up a small line array in the center with sub woofers to handle the front of orchestra area. Now, the majority of the area is covered by the stage left and stage right line arrays, and that's vastly improved the quality of audio in the room." A Q-SYS DSP system with touch-panel control and Cisco audio network were also installed.

"In such a large auditorium there had been lots of dead space," recalls Tim Sorensen, musical theater director at Darien High School. "If you can't hear, you can't tell the story. Now, we've got the ability to really project music and voices. Everything sounds so much better, so much fuller in the space. We wanted really improved acoustics, and Metinteractive delivered that."

Because the back wall of the auditorium is a hard surface, performers on stage were getting slapback echo, a particular problem for musicians, Gold notes. "We resolved that by covering the back wall with draperies color matched to others in the house and hung on tracks to open and close so you can see out of the control room behind them."

Wrap-around seating at the proscenium gives an extreme angle of viewing into the backstage area, so Metinteractive also hung masking draperies on tracks on both sides upstage and downstage to hide the backstage when necessary. They can be raised out of the way by chain motors when not needed.

A set of five Audio Technica AT-4050 mics mounted on thin, lightweight poles are also on motors so they can be lowered to provide top quality sound for orchestras and string ensembles. There is an Earthworks Audio PM40 piano mic system and Clockaudio C 8SE-RF overhead choral mics plus lavalier and head-worn mics, a new Clear-Com FreeSpeak Edge wireless intercom system and Clear-Com Encore Partyline RS-701wired and wireless intercom systems.

Efficient streaming capabilities are essential today, and the auditorium was in dire need of an upgrade in this respect. "Post-COVID we couldn't stream with our existing equipment: We were using an iPad on a tripod," Thompson recalls. "We needed to make every performance sound authentic to those in the room and everyone at home. Streaming had to sound just as good as if you were sitting in the audience."

Metinteractive replaced the old system with Blackmagic Design's ATEM Television Studio 4K8 Ultra HD production switcher with control panel and a Blackmagic HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro video recorder with a pair of Samsung 1 TB SSDs. Five Marshall Electronics' HD PTZ cameras are wall mounted with a remote camera system controller. An Apple Mac mini provides video playback.

Presentation AV also came in for an upgrade. Two 75" confidence monitors were mounted on the balcony rail. "Presenters standing on stage can now see their PowerPoints on these monitors instead of having to look behind them at displays," says Gold.

The auditorium's existing projector was retained, but Metinteractive hung a new 24-foot-wide motorized projection screen downstage of the proscenium. "The old screen was on a fixed frame and took up needed space, but this one can be lowered for presentation purposes," Gold explains.

Upstage, a permanent ElationLogic TL3.9 LED videowall with a hoist system and power distribution system was installed. The 40' x 20' wall acts as a versatile scenic backdrop for performances. "Painting backdrops has become something of a specialized art," notes Gold. "The LED videowall serves as a scenic element for still or motion digital art. Students are very comfortable creating art for this medium."

"The LED videowall is our big-ticket item," says Thompson. "It makes us very unique among schools - we're the only school in the area to have one."

Sorensen reports that, "we're still learning how to use the videowall, but we got a tremendous amount of positive feedback from people who came to see Les Miserables where the videowall made an impressive debut. We have a staff of capable artists working in digital technology; you'd have thought there were paintings in the background of the scenes."

Metinteractive also provided stage lighting. The company retrofitted some 50 conventional ETC Source Four fixtures to LEDs. "The main advantage is that they can now control the color and intensity of the lights from the ETC Ion controller -- no more being restricted to using gels," Gold points out.

Old ellipsoidal fixtures were replaced with new ETC Source Four Series 3 Lustr fixtures, and stage wash lights (previously a combination of 6- and 8-inch fresnels and fanless and non-fanless LED washes) were replaced with new Chroma-Q Color One LEDs, "which are higher quality and quiet," says Gold. Dimming racks now have 8 DMX universes for the theater with 512 channels each.

Sorensen is "excited to explore what the LED videowall and our new movers and LED fixtures have given us. We've only scratched the surface; there's a lot of exploration to do."

Darien High School annually stages a fall season dramatic production plus a spring musical. The first show to utilize all the upgraded equipment was Les Miserables earlier this year. 2026 may see the addition of a senior showcase at the end of the school year.

All the band, choral and orchestral performances of the high school and middle school are enjoying the upgraded space as well. "This spring we hosted the Districtwide Band Festival with guest performers The West Point Concert Band playing with our students, and the sound quality was just beautiful," Thompson reports.

She notes that Metinteractive's upgrade has been very user friendly, an important factor when the auditorium manager and students are the end users. "The students are able to work with equipment they encounter in other real-world situations," she points out.

Or maybe equipment that's even better than what they're likely to encounter elsewhere. Sorensen recalls a freshman college student returning to the high school for a visit remarking that his college doesn't have the equipment that Darien High School now boasts. "Not everyone gets to use and design with such updated systems," he says. "It's a big step in their professional growth. These technological advancements have really taken us to the next level. They've been a real game changer. Metinteractive's expertise helped reimagine the space."

"It's been great working with Metinteractive; I can't say enough about how their work has enhanced our programming," Thompson concludes.

The Videowall was funded by a generous grand from the Darien Foundation.

At Metinteractive, Kyle Passaro was the project manager for the auditorium upgrade and Rhys Dawson the lead technician.

ShowMotion, Inc. provided the rig and winch for the LED videowall. The LED videowall was funded by The Darien Foundation.