From the rodeo to the Harlem Globetrotters to Disney on Ice Fleet Farm Arena, formerly Gateway Arena, at Sioux City's Tyson Events Center is a busy and versatile place. With a range of concerts, family shows, corporate events, and sports—lots of sports, including 30 Sioux City Musketeers ice hockey home games each year, plus half a dozen Bandits indoor football games—needed a modernized sound system that supported many different types of shows. L-Acoustics A Series was the ideal solution.
Although Tyson Events Center has been successfully entertaining countless visitors over the past two decades, the performance of the arena’s original sound system had slowed for some time and needed a serious refresh. “Installed when the building was constructed in 2003, their distributed point source system had multiple failing components—both in the drivers and amps—so intelligibility was lacking and the volume was being pushed to compensate, which wasn’t good,” said Matt Bauer, senior integration project manager at Denver-based Brown Note Productions (BNP). “It was time for something new.”
Tyson Events Center is managed by Oak View Group (OVG), which also manages Loveland, Colorado’s Blue Arena, formerly known as Budweiser Events Center. Three years ago, Brown Note installed an L-Acoustics A10 loudspeaker system at that facility. OVG was impressed with the results, leading them to turn to BNP and L-Acoustics again for a similar solution.
“Based on our success at Blue Arena, we were convinced that A Series would also be a great fit for Tyson Events Center,” he said, “A10i strikes that perfect balance between cost-effectiveness and proven L-Acoustics performance, giving us incredible results from a compact, budget-friendly package. We also knew that adding LA7.16i amplified controllers would allow us to power every enclosure on individual circuits and to leverage Soundvision’s Autofilter tool to ensure even SPL and tonal balance throughout the arena.”
The center’s new L-Acoustics loudspeaker system features nine arrays of A10i enclosures addressing the arena’s raked, U-shaped seating geometry: six arrays of three A10i Focus over one A10i Wide cover the floor-side seats, while three arrays of three A10i Focus over two A10i Wide address the end-zone audience area. Three additional A10i arrays—two dual-enclosure hangs on the left and right, plus a single-enclosure central hang—are flown over the opposite end-zone area, which sports a massive wall-mounted video screen. A dozen SB18 IIi subs are flown over the center of the arena’s floor in three hangs of four, with a six-enclosure A10i waterfall array suspended below for floor-fill audio coverage.
Three L-Acoustics LA7.16i and two LA12X amplified controllers, requiring only ten rack spaces in total, drive the entire PA system that blankets the 10,000-capacity arena. The system also features a P1 processor using a Milan-AVB signal path for all audio traffic, with an analog fallback. BNP additionally paired the new loudspeaker design with a QSC Q-SYS control system to give the center’s staff easy, push-button system configuration recall and monitoring.
Bauer noted that several reasons made the L-Acoustics A Series enclosures the right choice for this project. “A10i’s ability to tailor both horizontal coverage via Panflex and vertical coverage with the Wide and Focus model options enabled us to provide tight dispersion to exactly where we wanted it, ensuring excellent coverage of all audience areas,” he described. “Also, Panflex was especially helpful during the system commissioning to eliminate some reflections on an untreated wall on the arena’s east end. Tyson Events Center is now experiencing exactly what we expect from an L-Acoustics system; it sounds the same in every seat. The system has great impact and musicality due to the center-hung array of a dozen SB18 IIi. Intelligibility has greatly increased throughout every listening area and everyone at the center has been very happy.”
Nick Palmiotti, OVG’s general manager for Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center and Orpheum Theatre, echoed that sentiment: “The first event to benefit from our new sound system was a Musketeers hockey match and it made an immediate difference in the whole atmosphere of the game,” he says. “It has totally transformed the environment for our events, especially sports. We’ve already heard so many comments about how much better the new sound system is, especially from our hockey fans, and I completely agree. The coverage is great, and the sound is crisp. Our fans can clearly hear the announcers and the music makes the whole place feel absolutely electric.”
