The Twin Cities’ own Mystic Lake Casino Hotel recently entered the outdoor concert market with the new 8,357-seat Mystic Amphitheater that features a sound reinforcement system supplied by South Saint Paul-based Allied Productions & Sales, which is providing an L-Acoustics loudspeaker and amplifier package for the venue’s inaugural summer concert season.
According to Allied’s Chad Pechacek, the production company is flying a dozen L-Acoustics KUDO enclosures per side paired with a total of 12 ground-stacked SB28 subwoofers.
Three dV-DOSC spread out across the stage lip deliver front-fill, while two six-dV-DOSC arrays are flown out in the seating area for delay.
On stage, 115XT HiQ wedges typically provide monitoring, with a pair of dV-SUB deployed for drum fill. All systems are powered and processed by L-Acoustics LA8 amplified processors.
San Diego pop star Jason Mraz helped Mystic Lake officially debut its new amphitheater with a concert on July 3, followed by Diamond Rio playing a free Independence Day show complete with fireworks the next night.
Other artists scheduled to perform at the venue this season include Big & Rich with Gretchen Wilson, Beach Boys, Stevie Nicks, Carrie Underwood and Alan Jackson.
“We did an outdoor show with the Oak Ridge Boys at Mystic Lake on the 4th of July last year and it was such a huge success that they decided to create a summer amphitheater between their hotel and golf course,” says Pechacek. “Although we flew dV-DOSC as the mains for last year’s show, the size and scale of what they wanted to do this year dictated that we use something larger.
“We knew that KUDO would give us the impact and coverage we needed and everyone’s been extremely happy with it so far.”
Mystic Lake audio engineer Brian Dynes knew that they had chosen the right concert sound system when Jason Mraz took the stage on opening night. “We got many compliments from the crowd because everything sounded so good. I’m personally very partial to the musical yet non-colored sound—particularly the high-end clarity—of the L-Acoustics boxes. They make mixing easier since ‘system compensation’ isn’t part of the challenge. I haven’t mixed every system on the menu, but these are my favorite so far.”
Allied’s Pechacek is quick to add that the LA8 amplified controllers are a big part of KUDO’s success at Mystic Amphitheater. “We purchased 21 LA8s at the tail end of last year and I’ve quickly become a huge fan of them,” he says. “With their new presets and everything else, our KUDOs have matured into a truly phenomenal sounding system. In fact, we’re now planning to sell off the rest of our older amps later this year and switch everything over to the LA8 platform.”
