Meyer Sound PANTHER Offers a Future-Forward Solution for ‘The Theatre’ at Toronto’s Great Canadian Casino Resort

Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto is Canada’s newest and largest casino resort. In May 2024, the casino celebrated its Official Grand Opening Weekend with back-to-back concerts featuring Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, unveiling the first Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeaker system permanently installed in Canada.

Located 10 minutes from Pearson International Airport, The Theatre will serve up a wide range of world-class performances and entertainment experiences including fights, live music, and comedy to feed the demand of Torontonians and visitors alike.

Chosen for its power, rider-friendliness, and the continuity it offers between other Meyer Sound-equipped Great Canadian Entertainment (GCE) venues, PANTHER is a perfect fit for The Theatre.

GCE’s previous experience with Meyer Sound, notably a LEOPARD compact linear line array loudspeaker rig at their Pickering Casino Resort, meant that Meyer Sound, and PANTHER, specifically, were in play from the very beginning of the project. “The success of the Meyer Sound system at our sister venue in Pickering was certainly a factor in going with a PANTHER rig here,” says Patrick Florin, Production Manager for Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto. “PANTHER has been the backbone for all our shows. It’s not uncommon to see touring acts take down a venue’s sound, lights, or video equipment and use their own, but to date, no act has felt it necessary. This speaks to the Meyer Sound brand as an industry leader in live concert audio.”

“PANTHER was chosen for this project because of the size of the room and the requirement for high level fidelity and even coverage. PANTHER achieves what can be described as a ‘studio monitor’ experience, but at concert venue scale,” explains Ian Robertson of GerrAudio Distribution, Meyer Sound’s Canadian distributor, who worked with design consultant Nathan Haynes of AVIO Designs on the system design. “And it’s relatively small compared to its competitors — visually, very unassuming, very high performance, with more than enough headroom to accommodate any incoming act.”

In all, the main hangs are comprised of eight PANTHER-L loudspeakers and four PANTHER-W loudspeakers. Low frequency support is provided by 22 Meyer Sound 900‑LFC compact low-frequency control elements — six flown beside, and five flown slightly behind the mains on each side. Coverage for the balcony is handled by two arrays of 12 LEOPARD loudspeakers hung from the high steel above the FOH mixing position. Other Meyer elements include ULTRA‑X20 compact wide coverage loudspeakers as stage lip fills and under-balcony support, UPQ full-size loudspeakers as out-fills for the main hangs, and ULTRA‑X40 compact loudspeakers for loge areas. For fight nights, six UPQ-D3s are hung in a circle in the center of the room, where a boxing ring or octagon would be placed to provide 360-degree coverage and localize announcements from the ring.

“PANTHER is AVB/Milan compliant, but everything else is analog; processed via Galileo GALAXY 816 Network Platforms,” Robertson notes.

Given The Theatre’s need to configure the room differently for the wide range of events it hosts, PANTHER’s compact footprint was a key consideration. “The main left/right hangs are only 12 boxes each, but they’re extremely loud and provide excellent coverage, whereas a more traditional solution probably would require 16 boxes, which would’ve been wider, heavier, longer, and deeper,” says Guy Wallace, Partner at Aligned Vision Group (GCE’s audio, video, and lighting partner and integrators on this and the Pickering project), adding that, “It was easier to design the infrastructure for a self-powered system. The way they built The Theatre venue lends itself well to a self-powered system. And, although you’d think powered loudspeakers would weigh more, Meyer Sound builds their amplifiers so efficiently that we’re able to put more power into the same space without adding weight. There were capacity limitations, so the PANTHER boxes being as light as they are — for as high-powered as they are — really helped.”

“You also gain real estate because you don’t have amplifier racks and real estate is key in these venues,” says John Coniglio, Partner at Aligned Vision Group, citing an amp room housing only two racks: one for analog tie-lines and patching, and one for five Galileo GALAXY 816 platforms providing processing.

Meyer Sound products are well known for reliability, ruggedness, and consistency in terms of voicing, but the desire for similar sounding systems across GCE venues and between individual system components was also a consideration. “Continuity of voicing is paramount,” Wallace says. “PANTHER, LEOPARD, UPQ, all sound like Meyer Sound, all have very similar voicing so we’re able to seamlessly tie them together. The other thing to note is that we’ve gone through three firmware updates to improve communication protocols on this PA since we installed it, but there’s never a concern that an update will change the voicing of the box. Meyer Sound will not allow that, ever. So, if we need to add more boxes for a different event, we know that we can cross-rent boxes, and they’ll sound the same.”

“We’ve been very happy with how the system has performed thus far on the multiple different types of shows and events we’ve had in the space the last few months. The system has been great to work with and we look forward to having even more diverse shows here at The Theatre with the Meyer Sound system being the foundation of our productions,” Florin adds.

That foundation can also be built on utilizing Meyer Sound offerings such as the company’s spatial sound design and mixing tool, Spacemap Go; a benefit for a new venue whose role in Toronto’s entertainment scene will only evolve going forward. While that has yet to be implemented: “We have the main hangs, the center hang, and outer hangs, which opens up the spatial environment,” Wallace says.

“By adding elements, a more immersive experience is possible,” Coniglio says; “the ability to talk to an artist and explain that The Theatre facility can incorporate variations in sound design helps sell the venue to artists and sound designers.”

Again, that fits perfectly with GCE’s mandate of presenting “a diverse array of world-class performances and entertainment experiences,” and, ultimately, showcases the efficacy and power of PANTHER as a choice for other venues.

“Absolutely,” Wallace concludes. “The acoustical accuracy of PANTHER, with the new AVB technology; to be able to send audio as well as doing network-based telemetry right to the box is fantastic. We’ve done a number of Meyer Sound installations. They’ve always been quite successful and acoustically very good. Deploying PANTHER makes The Theatre much more rider-friendly. PANTHER has a lot of clout; Ed Sheeran is touring with it. Metallica is touring with it. So there is a lot of good brand recognition.”