Built in 1925 as a Masonic cathedral, Scottish Rite Theatre (the Scotty) has completed a US$5m-plus renovation and is now a major performance and event venue in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the venue houses an 800-seat theatre, a lower-level ballroom with capacity for 300 people, and more than 10,000 feet of usable space, as well as a full basement kitchen and banquet facility.

Part of its renovation included an L-Acoustics Syva sound system installed by the Chicago office of integrator Creative Technology.

‘Syva was the perfect solution for audio reinforcement at the Scotty,’ says Creative Technology Installations Project Manager, Greg Moore. ‘It had to sound great, which it does, but it also had to disappear.

‘The aesthetics of this project were of paramount importance to the client. We were able to essentially camouflage the Syva, which we ordered in white from L-Acoustics, by installing them in the fluted trim around the sides of the proscenium. We used a combination of the manufacturer’s own mounting solutions and a custom Unistrut bracket to hang them. The Syva form factor is a perfect fit with the venue’s proscenium architecture.’

The Scotty’s new system comprises one Syva enclosure mounted to each side of the stage, a white Syva Low sitting on the stage below each main Syva column, four KS21 subs in the orchestra pit, and six 5XT coaxials across the stage lip as front fill. In addition, there is a cluster of two A10 Focus and one A10 Wide per side as balcony fills, as well as two short-throw X12 coaxials as near-balcony side fill, two X8 loudspeakers as under-balcony side fill, and two further X12s as under-balcony delays. Six LA4X amplified controllers power the system.

‘The venue’s acoustics were pretty good to start with, and it has some nice natural diffusion, so there was no need for acoustical treatment,’ says Moore. ‘And with the L-Acoustics deployment, we don’t have to push the system to get the kind of impact we need. The Syva themselves are doing only about 40 per cent of the work, well supported by the other speakers, and the Syva Low enclosures are a great intermediary between the Syva and the KS21 subs.’ The system, he says, covers both the seating area and the frequency spectrum effortlessly.

Executive Director of Performing Arts at the venue’s parent company, The KDB Group, Jenny Parkhurst says the Syva system is more than they had hoped for: ‘While we are not quite open to the general public yet, we’ve had a few test runs of the sound system and it sounds amazing, far exceeding our expectations. We appreciate the time and effort taken by Creative Technology to carefully analyse the performance space, listen to our needs, and implement a state-of-the-art sound system that will prove to be the best in our community.’