Client:

The Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum in Peoria, Illnois (USA) lacked a public address system, meaning they could not broadcast announcements and alerts throughout the museum. This was a problem for visitors, especially parents as they had requested for numerous years for a closing time announcement instead of having to tell their children when the museum was closing – which would frequently result in many temper tantrums!

In addition to this, the museum knew that loudspeakers would be useful for announcements in emergencies, such as weather warnings for tornados or for general customer public announcements. Therefore the museum made the decision to invest in a network audio system to improve visitor experience and safety procedures.

System Requirements:

In response to visitor experience feedback and to improve safety procedures, the Peoria PlayHouse Museum called upon audio system experts Kern Group Security Solutions to specify and install a public address and background music system which would meet their needs for day-to-day public address, background music and emergency communication.

The Solution:

The system chosen to provide a solution for the museum was the Axis C1004-E Network Cabinet Speakers. One of the key reasons this system was chosen was the speaker’s ability for staff to page specific zones or the entire area using the existing phone system with SIP tie-in. Having a system you can control from the office was exactly what the museum required.

Another key benefit of the a network audio system is the spped and simplicity of installation. This is largely down to the speakers having a two-part mounting system and single cable connection. This makes it easier to install the IP speakers’ mounting brackets.

As Axis C1004-E speakers are preconfigured and provide high-quality audio in a single unit without additional hardware; including amplifier, mixer or power supply – the speakers can easily connect to the museum’s existing IP network using a single PoE cable which provides both power and audio signal connectivity.

As an added benefit, the Axis system comes with pre-installed Axis Audio Player software on all the speakers – this offers all the functionality needed to make recorded or live announcements or to schedule music playlists. The audio player is simple to use and makes it easy to schedule announcements.

Axis Audio Player also simplified the initial configuration of the speakers, including the ability to identify the lead speaker which dictates the performance and programming of all the other speakers.

As well as using the new system to make customer & staff announcements, the speakers have also been used to provide background music for events.
As time goes by the staff at the museum are finding more and more use for the network audio speaker systemwhihc is becoming an integral part of the museum infrastructure.