Guests use words like “perfect,” “beautiful,” and “relaxing” to describe the times they’ve spent at the new Calile Hotel in Brisbane, Australia. They’re adjectives one might apply to a resort in the countryside, but in fact The Calile Hotel is centered in a busy urban neighborhood—a major shopping destination by day and a hot spot for live music, bars, clubs and restaurants by night.

Creating a “tranquil oasis” in the inner city requires extraordinary attention to detail. The larger the property, the more difficult it is to attain perfection, so it’s notable that the Calile Hotel is rather sizeable, with 178 guest rooms, five function spaces, business centre, an amphitheatre, restaurant, lobby bar, day spa, gym, and a range of elegant shops.

The Calile is stylish and visually stunning, but much of its appeal to guests is in the soothing ambience that greets them from the moment they arrive at its entrance. Much credit for this subtle effect goes to the designers of the hotel’s AV system, Soho Sound Design and Futurism Technology Australia, whose sophisticated installation runs under the control of RTI processors, touchscreens, and interfaces.

RTI controls all audiovisual components in the building. A lot of the daily operational tasks are automated through custom scheduling, however each function room and common space has access to at least one RTI 7” touch panel for on the fly changes. A number of in-house iPads allow staff to control the whole system while roaming, iPhone interfaces allow for onsite and offsite control of audio source and volume which allows management to remotely monitor how the system is being used.

A crucial and underlying element of the Calile Hotel is the audio experience. Right from the minute a guest parks in the set down to when they enter their room, they are experiencing full range high fidelity audio. The hotel common areas, pool deck, bars and function rooms are equipped with Meyer Sound speakers and subwoofers. A BSS Soundweb London DSP network carries and manages all audio feeds for the hotel including the premier suites. This system has over 120 inputs and outputs and utilizes Dante to carry audio between racks on the fibre backbones.

The mood of elegance continues inside the hotel with lighting in the lobby, lobby bar, and restaurant areas controlled by a Clipsal C-Bus system integrated with RTI. The deployment of RTI touch panel interfaces in these areas, allow staff to maintain the ambience of lighting and background music throughout the many changing atmosphere of each day.

The Calile has quickly become a prestigious venue for events, from weddings to business meetings. Its five function rooms are cleverly designed to be used individually or combined into larger spaces. This flexibility poses a challenge for the AV system, where the control interface needs to be intuitively designed allowing for shared sources across various room configurations. “This feature is critical to the daily operations of the function rooms,” says Ash Bennett, Operations Manager at Futurism Technology Australia. “It means the spaces can be quickly set-up for the dynamic use situations.”

Within the function rooms, up to eight microphone channels can be operational at any one time. By using the BSS driver and custom UI design, the system can merge the microphones in and out of the function rooms and amphitheatre as the user demands.

“Nothing was left to chance in the design of the Calile Hotel, which is obvious to anyone that’s been to the property,” Bennett goes on to say. “The client was very clear about wanting a seamless system with minimal user interaction that would perform flawlessly day and night. Selecting RTI as the control system is a huge part of making that happen. We made the right choice in RTI and are incredibly pleased with the outcome.”