The venue was upgraded and expanded in the 1930s into a 900-seat Art Deco standout, which it remains today. In its present life the Varsity features stunning new interior lighting and architectural design details, and hosts an eclectic variety of events, including national touring acts (KT Tunstall, The Fray, Goo Goo Dolls, Imogen Heap, Suzanne Vega, etc.), local music, live theatre and special events such as weddings, fundraisers and corporate events.
With a new in-house sound system from Electro-Voice, the Varsity is now able to handle all types of events with minimal turnaround time and no outside sound system rentals necessary - even for the most demanding touring artists.
"Over the years the Varsity has established a reputation as a leading concert venue in the landscape of clubs in the Midwest," says Josh Lacey, who promotes concerts and events for the venue. "The level of touring outfits that we were seeing was continuing to advance and still is. Visiting tour managers and audio engineers were consistently telling us that the room had the potential to be among the very best in the country of its size, with one caveat being that the audio equipment was in serious need of an overhaul. So it was time to go for it and bring our venue to the next level. To continue building our reputation we decided to move ahead with a major audio upgrade."
Rob Schmidt, who handles all things technical at the Varsity, says that one key factor in choosing Electro-Voice to provide the new system was the company's "attentiveness and interest in developing a relationship with their customer base." In this instance that was exemplified by the willingness of Mike Doucot of EV sales to allow the theatre a demo period with the new system. Of course that legendary Minnesota niceness wouldn't count for much if the product itself had not been standout. "Once we had the boxes in the room," Schmidt confirms, "they really spoke for themselves in regards to performance and aesthetic."
The main workhorse of the system is the Electro-Voice XLD281 dual 8-inch line array element, a 3-way system in a very compact enclosure. The XLD281s are hung in two lines of six each. "They are lightweight, small and pack a punch," Schmidt says. "In terms of clarity, headroom and contour, they hold up to boxes that are twice the cost."
A half-dozen QRx 218S compact dual 18-inch subwoofers deliver the lows from their home directly under the downstage.
A set of Dx46 sound system processors provide control, crossovers, and FIR filtering.
Reflecting on the new system's impact, Schmidt says that "since the install, we've housed plenty of large national touring acts, all of whom have been more than happy with the system's performance. I've even personally had FOH engineers asking for contact information to bring an EV rig on tour."
(Jim Evans)
