The Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is one of “the” places to see and be seen when it comes to live music performance.
Originally conceived in the mid-1920s as a silent film showplace, by the time the venue opened in late 1929, the premier feature was a talking picture (Tiger Rose starring Lupe Velez, if you’re curious).
Silent films were obsolete, which serves as a somewhat ironic early indicator that the Beacon was never going to be a quiet place.
It continued to function primarily as a first-run movie theater into the early 1970s, in addition to offering vaudeville acts, musical productions, drama, and opera.
Designed by Chicago architect Walter Ahlschlager in the Art Deco style, the hall has long been noted for its excellent acoustics.
In the mid 1970s, Marvin Getlan and Allen Rosoff bought the venue and gave it new life as the host of live concerts, with the inaugural series of 1976 highlighted by a series of shows by the Grateful Dead.
The rest, as they say, is history, as the Beacon stage has gone on to be graced by some of the top artists in the world, including The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson – to name but a few.
Now owned by Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG), the 2,800-plus-seat venue has likely never been in better form, particularly with the recent addition of its first-ever complete house concert reinforcement system, implemented by Clair Brothers Audio Systems.
Previously, acts would load in, set up and sound check their own sound equipment hours before the show opened.
“With the new system, our clients can leave their own PAs on the truck and simply utilize our in-house system, saving time and energy,” MSG Entertainment/Radio City Music Hall head audio engineer Tom Arrigoni explains.
“No touring sound engineer would have the time, during a load-in, that we had while installing and perfecting this system.”
Jim Devenney, senior systems designer for Clair, adds that the new system is an asset to the Beacon because previously bands would sometimes show up to find that they didn’t have enough sound reinforcement horsepower to cover the expansive 4-tier (orchestra/main floor, loge, lower and upper balconies) theatre.
The installation was undertaken in two phases that were part of a $16-million comprehensive restoration project.
The first phase, completed several years ago, saw Clair installing under balcony fill consisting of EAW KF850 full-range loudspeakers that had been re-purposed from another MSG property.
