Born and raised in Murfreesboro, Tenesseee, Brad Leeman and Hunter Taylor always felt a keen void in the town’s social scene whenever they returned home during college breaks. So, having explored many entertainment venues across the country, Leeman and Taylor conspired to fill that void with the founding of Happy’s Sports Lounge, bringing on integrator Professional Audio Visual Systems (PAVS) to help make their dreams a reality.

Featuring miniature duckpin bowling, cutting-edge golf simulators, a sports viewing lounge, live music, good drinks and food, and a state-of-the-art audio/video system, the lounge aimed to combine the best aspects of all the different entertainment venues the duo had visited. However, it was that last element, the AV system, that was the most crucial.

Centered on an expansive AV over IP system from Key Digital, it’s this aspect of Happy’s Sports Lounge that the duo credit to elevating the restaurant to being the prime entertainment venue in Murfreesboro for those of every age and interest.

PAVS Translates Dreams into Reality at Happy’s Sports Lounge

Based in Franklin, Tennessee, PAVS, under the direction of managing partner Mike Richards, was chosen due to the integrator’s track record for creativity. In business since 2005, PAVS specializes in complete turnkey systems for restaurants, corporate, hospitality, houses of worship, educational institutions and more.

“Over the course of my career, I’ve done many restaurants, live performance spaces, etc., but [Happy’s] is a really unique space,” stated Richards.

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During planning, Richards and his team met with Leeman and Taylor constantly to help piece together the dream picture for Happy’s Sports Lounge.

“We had a lot of creative and collaborative-type meetings, initially,” said Richards. “They told me, ‘We  would like everything to work cohesively with an intuitive management system for our staff.’ We spent a lot of time talking about physical layout of the various spaces within Happy’s.

“We discussed sight lines and equipping some of the displays for digital signage messaging, based on where they were placed. They definitely had a good idea about what they wanted at a high level. But I also talked to them about how to do some branding and some marketing in the space, as they also wanted to have corporate clients in addition to individual patrons.” 

After selecting the basic layout and design for the system, the decision then came down to finding the right company to partner with for the creation and installation of many of the systems within Happy’s Sports Lounge.

“For over 20 years, we’ve worked with pretty much every brand in the industry. And on this project, Key Digital really stood out in terms of how easy they are to do business with, plus they really do a great job with AV over IP and with video distribution,” remarked Richards.  

Eventually, Key Digital worked its way to the top of the list.

“Their products technically excel, have a reputation for reliability, and are competitively priced,” Richards noted. “Beyond that, it’s very beneficial to have an entire team of people on the other end at a manufacturer to help make things go smoothly.”

AV over IP Runs the Show at Happy’s

Given the client’s guidelines for a commercial-quality video distribution system that provides a high level of reliability, intuitive operation and support for high-resolution video across Happy’s Sports Lounge, Richards chose 16 KD-IP822ENC 4K AV over IP System Encoders and 27 KD-IP822DEC 4K AV over IP System Decoders for the 26 large screen televisions (one decoder is for audio).

Additionally, Richard included one KD-X2x1WDTx HDMI Display Port over 40m CAT6 HDBaseT Wall Plate Transmitter/Switcher feeding a KD-X40MRx HDBaseT Receiver, and one KD-SMS16 Shelf Mounting System for the AV over IP encoders.

The entire AV system at Happy’s is under Crestron control, with Key Digital’s Open API architecture controlling all displays via RS232. 

When asked to summarize his experience choosing and installing Key Digital components at Happy’s, Richards quickly responded, “Key Digital stands out from the pack because they took the time to pre-configure the network equipment and to verify everything worked properly before they even shipped it to us.

“To me, that’s a big thing. From our perspective, as a firm that interacts directly with all of the manufacturers in our space, Key Digital’s level of service makes them stand out among their competition. It shows that they have taken a seat at the table to work with us – that’s definitely something exceptional and earns a lot of loyalty with us.”

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