In business, trust is one virtue that cannot be bought. It has to be earned through a combination of good advice, great service, and excellent products, all leading to a first-class customer experience.

For Spanish AV company PROJECT SOUND, trust played a major part in securing a prestigious sound and lighting installation at SAOKO, a new nightclub in Huelva, Southern Spain. Firstly, Project Sound's client trusted the company to handle the job and, secondly, Project Sound trusted EQUIPSON GROUP to supply all the equipment needed to make the installation a resounding success.

 "I was on vacation in California when this job came through," says Project Sound's Director Manuel Cardenas. "My client sent me the plans and entrusted me with the club's entire sound and lighting installation. He didn't give us any technical summary of what was wanted. He trusted us 100% with all aspects of the job and allowed himself to be always advised. In turn, we trusted EQUIPSON because we have used the company's products on previous installations and have always had a very positive experience in terms of the quality, reliability, and breadth of their product range. After we had made our recommendations, there were no changes during the installation process – absolutely none."

Located in the Aqualon shopping centre complex, SAOKO officially opened at the end of 2022 and has already hosted nights with DJs such as Baste, David Rojas, Mike Morato, and Juan Mendoza. According to its marketing, it offers 'the best music, the most select atmosphere, and a great audio-visual show with a great technical display of lights and sound'.

To deliver this great atmosphere Project Sound installed a wide range product including a powerful WorkPro ARION Series sound system consisting of six SL 210 A line array powered speakers and six SL 218 SA powered subwoofers. Also installed are four WorkPro ENTAR 12 passive speakers, six ENTAR 15 passive subwoofers, eight WorkPro IC8K-PRO ceiling speakers, three WorkPro ZENITH2500 power amplifiers and one WorkPro PA240USB/R amplifier that incorporates a five-input mixer for audio control and independent volume control.

The lighting installation includes 20 MARK BEAM201 moving head LED beams; four MARK MOVILED304 moving head LED beams; two MARK MF1500VT fog machines and four MARK FLM200RGBW flash effects. These are all controlled by a LIGHTSHARK LS-1 DMX-based hardware lighting console that offers assignable faders, encoders, rotary controls and a separate DMX engine. By combining the versatility of software solutions with the ergonomic interface and ease of use of a hardware console, LIGHTSHARK Lighting Controller range is already winning awards and revolutionising the lighting industry.

"The lighting technician at SAOKO was given training on the LS-1 by our staff and he easily adapted to the system," Manuel Cardenas says. "We didn't need to offer training for the audio equipment because we set it up so that it was ready to use."

Cardenas adds that the only major technical challenge his team faced during this project was structural – namely that the ceiling of the nightclub was made of plasterboard and to hang the ARION line array, the installers had to locate the main beams of the shopping centre, which were strong enough to take the weight of the cabinets.