The Palace Theatre has hosted everything America has celebrated in the last 100 or so years: marquee-level entertainment, Roaring ‘20s gangsters, and one of the city’s and the country’s finest movie palaces of its day. After its inevitable decline in the urbanisation of the 1970s, it was rescued by the city a century after its founding in 1916 and renovated as a live music destination.

Within a few months of the revived Palace’s first show in March of 2017, the 2,500-capacity venue was once again a leading national music venue, now co-managed and co-operated by hometown First Avenue Productions and Chicago-based Jam Productions. After being fitted that year with a new L-Acoustics K2 PA system, the Palace Theatre has just capped off a nearly decade-long revival with a new pair of DiGiCo Quantum2²⁵ consoles, one each at front of house and monitors. Both were sold through and installed by local integrator and rental vendor Allied Productions & Sales.

After nursing the venue’s nearly decade-old consoles along for years, Randy Hawkins, head audio engineer/A1 at the Palace, says the arrival of the new DiGiCo desks has been “a game-changer here. I’ve been touring with a 2²⁵ with the band Atmosphere for over three years now, and I love it, and it’s the perfect choice for this venue. The thinking had originally been to go with no consoles at all, since so many artists tour with their own. But more and more of them tour with DiGiCo, or are at least very familiar with the DiGiCo worksurface. So by having that here, ready for them to plug their files into, we’re really building the model for the future of touring,” at a time when costs and logistics are paramount, he believes.

Hawkins says choosing the same console for both FOH and monitors further supports that approach, with engineers able to move positions as needed without changing their work surfaces. “The DiGiCo worksurface is instantly familiar to the majority of touring engineers out there,” he says confidently. “Very few need any tutorial on them, and most visiting engineers will just plug in their files and go.”

Like other engineers, Hawkins, who says he’ll mix the occasional opening act at the venue each week, is a fan of the Quantum’s processing. “I enjoy the Spice Rack the most, though Mustard is cool, too,” he says. “When you factor those in, you realise that this was a massive upgrade for the room’s sound, and the consoles bring huge new firepower with them. Plus, First Avenue, our sister venue, also has Quantum2²⁵ consoles, so what we’ve done is built a Quantum ecosystem between them, one that also has L-Acoustics sound systems in both — L2 at First Avenue and K2 here. Mix engineers can seamlessly move between the venues and find the same great interfaces in both. It’s a good place to be.”

For more details on the Palace Theatre, visit www.first-avenue.com/venue/palace-theatre. Allied Productions & Sales can be found online at www.allied.productions.

DiGiCo Press Contacts

Maria Fiorellino at DiGiCo                                        Chris Shuler at Public Address

Tel: +44 1372 845600                                                 Tel: +1 574 514 7131

Email: maria@digiconsoles.com                              Email: christophershuler@comcast.net

Related images:

1) DiGiCo_Palace_1.jpg – Palace Theatre Head Audio Engineer/A1 Randy Hawkins at the venue’s new DiGiCo Quantum2²⁵ house console

2) DiGiCo_Palace_2.jpg – Palace Theatre Head Audio Engineer/A1 Randy Hawkins at the venue’s new DiGiCo Quantum2²⁵ house console

3) DiGiCo_Palace_3.jpg – Palace Theatre Monitor Engineer Myles Kennedy at stage left with the venue’s second DiGiCo Quantum2²⁵ desk

4) DiGiCo_Palace_4.jpg – A view of the house, including the compact DiGiCo Quantum2²⁵ FOH console, from the Palace Theatre’s stage

5) DiGiCo_Palace_5.jpg – Of Monsters and Men performing a recent show at the Palace Theatre