As part of an extensive renovation of the five-year-old, 7,000-seat outdoor venue, the City of Fishers, Indiana set out to raise the calibre of its Nickel Plate District Amphitheater to attract national touring acts.
City employee, event booker and production manager, Bob McCutcheon, lead the audio overhaul with support from Sound Image and Mid-America Sound Corporation.
The newly renovated venue boasts an all-VUE system anchored with 2x hangs of 8x al-12 elements per side, with 8x al-4 elements for front fill and 4x hs-221s subwoofers (with an additional 4 hs-221s from Mid-America’s rental inventory when required) for low-end support — all driven by VUE’s v3 and v4 VUEDrive systems engines.
The City also tripled the size of the stage to 48’ x 40′ and installed truss to support a state-of-the-art 55-element lighting rig. Being an outdoor venue in the Midwest, the system is designed to be taken down and stored each Fall, and re-installed each Spring.
According to Bob, thanks to the VUE system and rapidly spreading the word about the installation, the Amphitheater is already attracting far more interest from national acts.
Bob explained: “While fielding a call from a national act’s booking agent the other day, I was asked about the in-house system, which would’ve in the past usually ended the conversation, but as soon as I explained we had a VUE al-12 rig with 2 hangs of 8 elements per side, we started talking about dates, no objections.”
