— “The RF performance is solid, and the dropouts are gone” at The Village after installation of the new innovative IP-rated, low-profile and circularly-polarized RF Venue® CP Stage™ antennas solved its wireless IEM issues —
Walpole, MA, USA, April 10, 2025 – At The Villages, one of the nation’s largest active retirement communities, located in Central Florida, world-class amenities like recreation centers and shopping districts, daily live entertainment, live music and outdoor performances are staples that support a vibrant lifestyle for residents. The sprawling community hosts live music in its unique town square configurations, often with multiple performances happening simultaneously. Frequent wireless in-ear monitor system reception and audio dropout issues began interrupting the groove at three key venues, despite use of OEM transmitter combiners and some external antennas.
RF Venue’s compact, rugged, IP-rated and circularly-polarized CP Stage antenna is shown deployed on a mic stand on the stage at The Villages’ Spanish Springs Town Square “in-the-round” venue before a planned relocation to the ceiling above the stage.
“We were regularly taking RF hits and getting audio dropouts, which was distracting to the musicians and the listeners,” said Gregory Lynch, Assistant Technical Manager at The Villages. “Some racks even used chassis-mounted whips or mismatched omni antennas, and we had long runs of old lossy coax cable — obviously this was not ideal.” Following a consultation with RF Venue’s Adam Brass, the team installed two compact, circularly-polarized RF Venue CP Stage antennas, along with lower-loss LMR400 cable — a setup that proved transformational. “We reached out to RF Venue to explain our situation and were guided toward the CP Stage antenna as a solution,” said Lynch. “The directionality and gain of the antenna immediately solved the dropouts, whisps, and RF hits. Our usable range improved dramatically.”
The first low-profile CP Stage antenna was ceiling-mounted above the outdoor stage at The Villages’ Sawgrass Grove venue, connected via 100 feet of LMR400 cable with the CP Stage’s rugged IP-rated housing enshrouded in a vinyl drawstring bag. The second was installed in an outdoor venue at Spanish Springs, an “in-the-round” city-square style venue, where it’s currently mounted on a mic stand with plans to move it to the ceiling. The three outdoor venues have fixed racks housing four Shure PSM300 in-ear monitor transmitters. Two portable IEM racks, each with two transmitters, allow up to eight channels of wireless IEM monitoring per venue. Each venue uses Shure PA411 IEM transmitter combiners to feed the CP Stage antennas. “The musicians noticed the difference right away, as previously they took RF hits and had regular audio dropouts,” stated Lynch. “The RF performance is solid, and the dropouts are gone. They’re happy, and so are we.”
A low-profile, circularly-polarized RF Venue CP Stage antenna (enshrouded in a vinyl drawstring bag) was ceiling-mounted above the outdoor stage at The Villages’ Sawgrass Grove venue to eliminate IEM system RF issues
While this marks The Villages’ first deployment of RF Venue products, it’s unlikely to be the last. “RF Venue's technical support was second to none with Adam Brass listening to my situation, and he guided us to a solution that suited us perfectly. The bottom line is they listened to our needs and delivered a perfect-fit solution,” Lynch added. “We’re thrilled with the results.”
Gasse says that this was Show Devant’s first deployment of RF Venue products — but it won’t be the last. “We appreciate RF Venue for providing a full IP-rated antenna to the business with an elegant look on top of its performance. The success at Zoo de Granby has been so convincing,” he says, “that we’re now planning antenna upgrades at 19 additional exhibit stations for this client alone.”
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