Eric and I attended the West Point concert last night. The hall is very much like Tarrytown, except the restoration is much, much farther along. The hall is actually in very good shape. The size of the orchestra and balcony are almost identical to Tarrytown. As the specs showed, the proscenium opening is just about the same width, but there is an extension — slightly curved — that puts much more of the ensemble in front of the proscenium archway than is possible in Tarrytown. So the effect is that it appears much deeper. West Point seated four wind ensemble rows, plus plenty of room for percussion, plus room for another row of players at the back (the Hellcats used that space last night). There is a black curtain across the upstage wall, but no shells. There are, however, 3 rows of acoustic clouds, which seemed to do a good job. I sat in the balcony for the first half and in the orchestra for the second. The sound was extremely clear from all areas of the stage in the balcony, and pretty good from the orchestra (although I did feel the definition of the back row was not as good in the orchestra).

There is very little room in the wings. we’ve agreed that GNYWS will store and stage percussion from stage left, and WSW from stage right, and I think that will work. There are some dressing rooms and some common areas downstairs (again, similar to Tarrytown), accessed by stairs stage left. I think we should encourage as many players as possible to leave cases in that area.

I saw lots of large crates on stage, so I’m not exactly sure what large percussion was West Point’s own, and what was the ACB rented percussion for all groups. If the equipment was the supplied instruments, we’re in good shape – the mallets, bass drum, and timpani were beautiful.

There is a solid conductor’s podium, with a railing. We will have to make sure it’s far enough from the stage’s edge so the two trumpets can cross in the Sousa. Lighting was clear on stage without being glaring. Rob LaPorta was there, so Candlewood is definitely engineering the recordings.

There is a good sized parking lot right behind the theater. Parking was $5.00, flat rate. There were security people on hand after the concert along the route from the front of the theater to the parking lot. Downtown Poughkeepsie is not beautiful. I got the feeling that the security are there for all concerts to give patrons a sense of well-being.

I used my convention badge for admission. Everyone needs a ticket, but they were handing them out freely, no charge, at the box office. Tell family/friends to simply go to the Box Office and request however many tickets are needed.

Ushers handed out convention programs as concert programs — there were no programs from West Point. I had asked Art about this and he said yes to bring our own programs. So I guess we give our copies to the ushers and they use our first (with convention programs as backups, perhaps). The WSW program underwent one revision after this went to press, so I will have to announce the two changes, just in case some patrons end up with only the convention programs.

Lastly, Union Square seemed to be the nearest bar/restaurant to the theater. It’s on the next block from the Baravon.

And by the way, the theater got its name because of its Shakespeare productions – The Bard on Avon. (So you’ll be ready for Final Jeopardy.)

Drive carefully, leave yourself enough time, I’ll see you on stage at 4:45 pm.