Located in the Wicker Park neighbourhood of Chicago, YETI Inc., a premium outdoor lifestyle brand, recently opened a 4,900 square-foot store that is far from your average retail space.
Created in 2006 by brothers Ryan and Roy Seiders, YETI’s goal is to bring an outdoor experience into the city and inspire adventures in the wild. They hold a strong vision of how their customer should experience their brand; not only from its daily operations, but also with its special events with the purpose to give back to the community.
With major success at their Austin flagship location, YETI expanded their retail presence with new locations in Charleston, Dallas, and Chicago. Not only does each store display their high-quality products, but they also feature a bar and stage where weekly live performances, screenings, and events were held for the community — pre-COVID-19.
To create this unique space for YETI Chicago, YETI contacted trusted installers, The Werd Company out of Austin, TX. Werd had installed AV systems for YETI in their other locations and were happy to take on this project.
“We enjoyed the challenge to create an audio system for the retail space that could transform into a performing space,” said Drew Dunavan, Chief of Operations at The Werd Company. “We had to remind ourselves that it’s not a regular venue.”
To handle the audio of this unique space, A Symetrix Prism 8×8 DSP manages all audio routing and signal processing for the store including the input processing, signal mixing and routing, and output processing. The powerful, open architecture DSP combines extremely cost-effective processing with the flexibility of the Dante network that allows the fastest possible way to implement, control, and maintain the system.
“The Dante capabilities of the Prism 8×8 are just what we were looking for,” said Drew. “It allows us to bring in event-production design and control because these retail stores are not venues, so they’re not acoustically treated for performance. The key was to have the capabilities to get in there and tune systems based on the desired outcome.”
The unsurpassed Dante connectivity of the Symetrix Prism allows simple Dante mic solutions for performers and MCs on stage and the ability to route digital audio over the Dante network directly to amplifiers and output devices.
Despite many moving pieces involved in this project, The Werd Company was able to design, integrate, and install a state-of-the-art audiovisual system for YETI Chicago while providing continued maintenance and support through remote AV management and staffing for any live events.
“We really like the performance of Symetrix, and we’ve been implementing them in our upcoming installs,” said Drew. “AV is becoming more a part of function and design, and Symetrix is giving us the opportunity to really dial some great things in for our clients.”
