A Conflagration : GATH BURNS!

On June 19th, 2009, the Georgia Theatre, in Athens Georgia was almost completely destroyed in an early morning fire. It would lead to changes, great and small, for myself as well as many others. It was truly a life changing experience.

The GATH was at peak performance when the fire happened. For the two years preceding the fire, the owners and the staff had worked constantly to make the GATH as good as it could be. A great deal of money and time had been invested so it was absolutely devastating when the fire happened.

Rather than revisit the story of the fire itself, I want to tell you the story of rebuilding the Georgia Theater, from my perspective. The tenth anniversary of the reopening will occur this year, and I thought it would be cool to review what we did as a team, how things were built, and how it all came together.

Some backstory-

The GATH is an iconic theater/nightclub in Athens Georgia, a building of historical significance, and a landmark for thousands of musicians around the world. It's amazing that the GATH rose from the ashes because it wasn't a foregone conclusion afterward. It was going to be really expensive to rebuild it, and the owners at the time didn't know if it would be possible. In the end, we achieved what we all wished the GATH could be before the fire happened, but obviously, it was a wicked price to pay for the end result. Providence, fate, or blind luck as it may be, I feel I was fortunate to be part of the process nonetheless.

A year and a half before the fire, I was hired as the Production Manager and head sound guy by the owners. I had a "real" day job working at the University of Georgia, and the GATH was a way for me to keep mixing live music, my favorite pastime. Before starting at UGA, I was a rock n roll audio engineer, working for a wide variety of different bands. Traveling the world constantly for live and studio gigs. I was a "professional" with industry experience and connections, and as the new Production Manager, I could help the Theatre regain a sense of balance and keep the incoming national bands happy. This is what put me in the right spot at the right time. HA!

After the fire, I was offered the job as the A/V design consultant/Integrator for the rebuilding project and would eventually become the staff Production Manager and lead sound engineer. I jumped at this opportunity and resigned from my position at UGA. The project was as significant to me as it was to the local music community. It was a great opportunity for me to leave the soul-crushing bureaucracy of the university system behind, and instead apply every good idea I'd ever witnessed, from every venue I'd ever visited around the world. Take as many of those good ideas, add in killer sound and lights, and apply all of it to the rebuilding project. I was going to get a shot at contributing to making something truly awesome, and that hasn't happened often in my career.

I spent approximately 19 months on the job site 5-6 days a week, 8-10 hours a day drawing up plans, creating detailed wiring schematics, and communicating with vendors, contractors, and workers on the job site. I wasn't in charge in any way, but I was on the payroll and running the A/V end of things. There were plenty of things to accomplish before I had access to the entire building. I was soldering thousands of connectors and doing as much prep work as possible over on the second floor of Horton's. I knew would be a very tight schedule and we needed to prioritize our time. I constantly took pictures to document the process. I lived and breathed the Georgia Theatre rebuild for nearly two years. I have some experience with theatrical performance spaces and was tasked with designing and installing the performance support equipment, including many of the esthetic aspects of the production space. I developed the A/V specifications for the main stage, for the bars, and other public areas and played a significant role in places like the network infrastructure and the video display surfaces throughout the venue. I was the A/V guy with all the answers.

I worked like a madman on a mission throughout the process to install and QC it all before the opening day. I had to ensure that nothing was left out of the equation. There would be no margin for error in this project. I know where every connector goes, I know the length of every wire and the plugs on every panel. Roger and I soldered 100% of the audio and lighting connections in the building. HA!

Before I started working at the GATH, and well before the fire, the owners had been spending big money fixing the place. The bathrooms had been refurbed, the building had a fresh exterior paint job and looked great. We had recently updated the audio and lighting systems significantly, replacing a couple of key items and undergoing a thorough cleanup and assessment. An overarching attitude of a positive nature suffused the operation and great things were happening!