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Pretend City
Children's Museum of Orange County, CA
Cantara Design Group, press release.
Red Fish Illuminations partnered with Cantara as lighting consultant.

Cantara is a proud partner with Pretend City (www.pretendcity.org) which will open to the public on August 30th. Our systems will feature innovative uses of A/V and AMX Control technology to complete the immersive sensory environments built for children ages 2-10 years, and were in the design & engineering stage for 8 months with a total build-time of 5 months. The system is undoubtedly one of the most sophisticated and comprehensive installations in a museum to-date, and is an example of Pretend City’s commitment to the highest quality exhibits and experiences for its visitors.

Interesting System Highlights:

· A cutting-edge 64 channel Alcorn McBride & QSC RAVE digital playback and distribution system, the same as used by Disneyland and other large-scale fantasy environments, provides background ambient sound effects like roosters crowing, jackhammers at a construction site, restaurant sounds, and much more

· An incredibly fun performance stage allows children to play pre-cued lighting and audio sequences as if they were real Theater Techs – press the “rock” button and the stage comes alive with loud rock music and a synchronized light show using professional stage lighting fixtures

· An interesting beach exhibit that encourages conservation and cleanup by simulating a “polluted” beach vs. a “clean” beach through the use of projected shapes and a fully-customized-for-Cantara polarized light filter to switch the effect on and off in milliseconds as the beach is being cleaned up or polluted

· AMX Digital Signage will allow the Pretend City staff to create on-demand video announcements and welcome screens for birthdays and special events

· A Cantara-engineered pretend phone network allows children to make calls between exhibits though 1-touch buttons and communicate over a normal telephone with a real dial tone and dialing sounds.

· This massive system will operate daily from an AMX password protected keypad with just 2 buttons: “Exhibit On” and “Exhibit Off”. Everything is fully automated and programmed in-house. Numerous other AMX touchscreens in employee-only areas will control advanced functions for special events and presentations.

For more information, or to set-up a private tour of the Museum please contact Jason Voorhees, President & Director of Design at Cantara Design Group 949-645-3684