Case study

Icehouse: an L-Acoustics rig hung on new steel

A Minneapolis venue whose sound system was the reason it could not book bigger acts.

Location Minneapolis, MN
Project type Sound system installation — design by others
Our role Rigging, wiring & commissioning
Result Icehouse started booking national touring acts

The room

Icehouse is a music venue and restaurant in Minneapolis — a room that works as a dining room most of the time and as a stage the rest of it.

The performance space is roughly 50 by 40 feet — small enough that coverage errors have nowhere to hide, and tight enough that where the rig hangs decides whether the room works.

The problem

A dated, underpowered point-source EV system. It covered the room in the sense that sound reached most of it, and it ran out of headroom exactly where a venue cannot afford to — on the nights that matter.

The design

The system was designed by L-Acoustics and sold through Allied Productions & Sales. Our scope was the rigging, the wiring and the commissioning.

We say that plainly because it matters to anyone reading this as a reference: we are just as often the crew executing someone else’s design as we are the ones drawing it, and the work of making a design real is the work we are describing here.

Acoustic prediction model of Icehouse showing predicted sound level across the floor, stage and walls, with the loudspeaker arrays in their flown positions — The acoustic model for Icehouse: predicted level across the floor, the stage and the walls, with the arrays in their flown positions. Warm colours are where the level holds; green and black are where it falls away.

The install

The existing structure would not carry what the design called for, so a new steel I-beam was supplied and installed before anything was hung. That came first — not as a change order halfway through, but as the opening move.

The old system came down, the new rig went up, and distributed speakers went through the rest of the venue with their own zone volume control. Sixty-one crew hours in total.

The result

Icehouse started booking national touring acts. The system had been the ceiling on what the room could take, and raising it changed what the venue could say yes to.

The system

L-Acoustics A10i arrays with X12 outfills. Flown KS21 subs and SB18 subwoofers. Distributed speakers throughout the venue with zone volume control.

Tell us about the room.

Send over the venue, the date and roughly what you need. We read every request and reply with real questions, not a form letter.

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