Background Planning : What Was I Doing During All This ?

From the day the decision was made to hire me, I was making plans. It took several months for the first iterations of the drawings and plans to come together, but we already had some ideas of how the new GATH would mirror the original. I began creating lists, and plans and drawings almost immediately. I'll share a few below.

A good analogy of the process of building starts with a shared vision. I mean an actually collaborative vision of what will be. Similar to a theatrical play for instance. You start with an empty building, or a blank, stripped bare stage, and with the collaboration of designers, technicians, carpenters and electricians, etc and the addition of technical elements, something truly magical can be created. But it always boils down to budget!

Before I go into finer detail, let me say that during the rebuilding, the emphasis was to save money any way we could. Nonetheless, there was also an emphasis on a very high-end profile from a technical standpoint. We wanted to be sure what we specified in our plans would support any national touring musical act. There's a fine line between what is acceptable for these high level professionals, both in brand and quantity. The touring guys always want the most top of the line sound and lighting. If they're on a tour that's filling weekday tour dates with club shows, then they are obliged to use the house equipment. In that situation, the pro tour guys can make a big fuss about your gear! Unless you work for smart owners! Luckily, these guys were very knowledgeable concerning sound and lighting. That made my job a lot easier in many ways. I didn't constantly have to beg for the owners to buy enough quality and quantity of items to cover the most demanding situations we would be supporting. I can count the number of times in my career on a single hand where I had total control of my budget, without having to jump through hoops. Nonetheless, the budget was tight.

The useable stage area in the old GATH was approximately 20'w X 17'D. Believe me, people always thought it was larger. The actual area was slightly larger, but because of stairways on the stage leading to dressing rooms, stairs going to the stage, and that giant monitor mixer station on the stage-right side it got smaller quickly. HA! Once you put an 8 x8 drum riser on it, it got cramped. I had to set up an opener on 3.5' of the down-stage edge many times.

We had to have a larger stage in the new GATH, that much was very obvious from the beginning. The architects did a great job in that respect. The entire stage area is offset to one side of the building by a stairwell. By placing the entrances in the right place, we could incorporate the main curtain as a means to put the center of the performance space in the actual center of the room. In the top plan drawing below, you can see that we gained a full 10 feet of useable width and about 8 feet of depth. It was a massive improvement.

I used Google and its suite of tools to create and disseminate drawings, lists, budgets, and other documents. I had to keep things simple, clear and organized. I don't have the skill set using architectural software. Normally, the architect has an audio-visual designer/company provide the layers of a blueprint that designates all the infrastructure of an integrated audiovisual installation. These layers cost pretty big bucks normally. It usually takes individuals working that specialized software to produce the drawings. Those layers contain a massive amount of information and detail. Location of physical items, wiring paths and conduit runs. Patch panels and their functions that have to be integrated throughout the building, etc. Power runs to every position and whatever signal or control circuits are accommodated as well. Naturally, an AV Design company uses specialized software tools like AutoCAD and Vectorworks to do this job. I would have to be truly comprehensive in my designs and documents in order to meet the same depth and breadth of documentation that software systems produce. The trade-off in this situation was again, budget. If I could produce all of the design as well as install everything, it would save the owners a serious chunk of money. Truly, a significant amount of money that instead of paying for design was earmarked instead for AV equipment.

The image above is a screenshot of the 3D pressure plot modeling software. This is provided by Yamaha/NEXO for deploying their GEO series line array speaker systems. This is a very early iteration of the new room. I used this tool to derive the optimum position of the speakers to cover the room. We were able to purchase a NEXO Geo-D12 PA system that was a dealer demonstration system. It was virtually brand new, and a brand and model that would exceed 98% of visiting artist's expectations. I haven't been back for years, but I'm sure it's still working very well for them.