Walpole, MA, USA, May 7, 2026 — The Denver Debutante Ball is an annual formal event held in Denver, Colorado, to celebrate high-achieving young women, with a focus on academic excellence, leadership and community service. The event is held in the seven-floor open atrium of Denver’s historic Brown Palace Hotel with audio coverage required on six of the floors. For the 69th Denver Debutante Ball, sound provider Production Services International (PSI) was able to dramatically simplify installation and system time alignment using the wireless audio distribution capabilities of RF Venue’s RF PA Extension hardware.
“With the growth of the event over the years, the cabling has become unruly as the floors cannot be easily daisy-chained together,” says Alan Hart, Owner/President of Production Services International (PSI), which provides audio reinforcement for the event program’s spoken word content and live musical accompaniment. “Many of the cable runs would end up being upwards of 300 feet. Time alignment also became increasingly important for increased intelligibility in the extremely reverberant environment.” The challenging cabling for the event required many long hours of work, Hart shares. “All cables had to be installed to avoid trip hazards and to be out of sight for decor purposes.”
An RF Venue dealer, Hart became aware of RF Venue’s RF PA Extension Kit by way of an RF Venue partner e-mail announcing the new product. Hart says he immediately thought of the Denver Debutante Ball and ordered an expanded kit with a single transmitter and six receivers to wirelessly feed the event’s audio to the fifty-plus speakers deployed across the six floors of the atrium.
The 1RU rack-mount two-channel RF PA transmitter extends two channels of high-quality audio wirelessly via analog FM in the 470-to-506 MHz UHF band. The transmitter independently accepts two line-level analog input channels and transmits separate RF signals. Hardwired audio pass-throughs leave the primary signal path unchanged.
The single-channel portable RF PA receivers (two are provided in the Kit), powered by 12 VDC from a provided external supply or other 12 VDC source, output line-level audio to feed loudspeakers or other gear. The diversity receivers are IP54 rated with weatherproof connectors for outdoor use. Facilitating use with satellite loudspeakers and delay towers in large venues, the receiver units have up to 800 milliseconds of built-in digital delay to allow time alignment with the main PA’s propagation. Operating frequency and delay can be configured at the receiver or from the transmitter via a 2.4 GHz sync signal. The local cast transmitter signals can feed as many additional receivers as needed.
From an audio hub on the atrium’s first floor, the main program audio of the 69th Denver Debutante Ball was fed from the console to the RF PA transmitter for wireless distribution to the upper floors, with the receivers delivering audio to a master control on each floor, which then fed a combination of powered speakers and power amps for passive speakers. Wireless distribution eliminated issues faced by Balls in the past when PSI had to deal with staircases, walls and the large open space as impediments. Time running cabling, dressing wire runs for safety and appearance, and removing cabling post-event were minimized while safety and aesthetics were enhanced. Setup was “quick and easy,” says Hart, adding that the adjustable delay built into each receiver “made it simple to time align each floor, and the varied locations on each floor, with the main first floor system.”
“The event was a great success, with a plan to extend the Ball to all seven floors next year,” says Hart in summary. “The RF PA simplified the audio system installation and removal process, eliminating what used to be endless cable runs and saving valuable hours of labor. Audio quality was good. The range of wireless coverage was good. All involved were very happy with the results.”
