Kentucky Show at the Kentucky Center

Louisville, KY; Architect: Potter & Associates; Consultant: Donna Lawrence

Project Description: An area in the Kentucky Center live theater and exhibition complex called the North Lobby was renovated into a very wide screen theater for the showing of The Kentucky Show.  Two walls of the North Lobby consisted of 1500 square feet of curtain wall glass.  According to the Consultant and the Architect’s plane, all light form these walls of glass was to be eliminated by the use of our blackout shades.  The very wide screen was to be covered by a “Roll Up Curtain” that would retract into the ceiling through an operable trap door.

We chose ESI controls because they allowed us to meet the “Challenges” of this project.

The job was put out to bid by the Architect with basic statements and drawings showing 10 very large roll shades with blackout side channels, a 25’ x 14’ roll up curtain with a trap door, and a note that these items were to be controlled by the AV system supplied by others.  From our experience with the RP60 and its various control interfaces we knew that this job would present no real problems on the control side. 

At the first construction meeting and the Architect and Theater Consultant fill in the specific details of what they want our shades and curtain to do.  The 10 window shades are to go up and down in a stair step pattern. (Picture the ATT “ More Bars” commercials).  One of the shades covered an exit door, so it had to be additionally controlled by the fire alarm system.  The motorized roll up curtain and the motorized trap door had to work in unison too.

With the ESI products, our installation was not difficult.  Each motor got its own RQ60.  The R2D7 interfaced with the AMX AV controller.  We connected the fire alarm system to the door shade RQ60 via the closed contact terminals.  We connected an IR receiver to one of the shade RQ60s so that we and the owner could service the shades from a remote instead of the AMX touch screen.