Chicago’s Riviera Theatre first opened in 1917 as a lavish French Renaissance Revival-style movie palace for the Balaban & Katz chain. But the historic Uptown venue took on a new life 50 years ago, when emerging concert promoter Jam Productions booked Supertramp for a show in April 1975. Since then, “The Riv” has remained a cornerstone of Chicago’s live music scene, earning a place in the pantheon of legendary venues alongside San Francisco’s Fillmore. While the $5.50 ticket price from that debut concert is long gone, the experience continues to improve – most recently with the installation of a cutting-edge L-Acoustics L Series loudspeaker system.
In recent years, the 2,500 capacity venue has undertaken a major restoration effort to bring the century-old theater back to its original splendor. As part of the renovation, it became clear that the sound system needed an upgrade. Jam turned to Minnesota-based Allied Productions, who in 2017 installed an L-Acoustics system at the Palace Theatre (St. Paul, MN) and had recently installed the world’s first L Series system at Minneapolis’ iconic First Avenue – earning rave reviews from both artists and fans.
“Having experienced Allied Productions’ exceptional work and the impressive performance of the L-Acoustics system during its installation at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul, I became a strong admirer of both,” says Jerry Mickelson, CEO, President, and Co-founder of Jam Productions. “So when it came time to upgrade the sound at the Riv, bringing them in was an easy decision.”
Today, the Riv’s sound system is comprised of two L-Acoustics L2 enclosures flown over a single L2D per side as mains, sonically anchored by 11 KS28 subs spread out under the downstage edge of the deck. Four A10 Focus enclosures line the stage lip supplying front-fill, while four A15i Wide and five A10i Wide ceiling-mounted under the balcony serve as distributed delay fills. Seven 16-channel LA7.16 amplified controllers drive the main arrays and distributed delays, six four-channel LA12X power the subs and front-fills, and the entire system runs on a redundant Milan-AVB network managed by two P1 processors.
Onstage, a dozen L-Acoustics X15 HiQ wedges plus two KS21 subs are available to offer monitoring, as is a side-fill system featuring two arrays of two KS21, one A15 Focus, and one A15 Wide flown behind the L Series on each side of the stage.
Allied Productions also supplied the venue with two DiGiCo Quantum225 Pulse consoles: one at stage left joined by a pair of SD-Racks, and the other out at front of house, paired with an XTA M36 console switch to accommodate artists carrying their own control surfaces.
As structural integrity and architectural renovations had been completed before sound system upgrade began, preserving these features was paramount. Tyler Thomas, who led Allied Productions’ engineering team, explains how this led to rigging challenges: “Deep into the project, the rigging plan was simplified to a single point hang per side, since the entire system was fabricated and installed before the PA renovation.” Their Soundvision model easily accommodated the redesign with minimal impact – just a .01 degree difference. L-Acoustics proved ideal for the project due to the lightweight design of L Series and its versatile rigging options. Thomas notes, “Each L Series enclosure comes in under a half-ton. A comparable system would have been at least 500 pounds heavier. And the L2-BAR’s versatile rigging options allowed us to work within the building’s existing constraints rather than requiring structural modifications. We simply needed to tie the speakers to a permanent pipe to ensure proper alignment while respecting the completed architectural restoration.”
The Riv’s first show to feature the new L Series was a Dweezil Zappa concert, held just three days after calibration. “The sound quality is remarkable throughout the entire venue, even reaching the furthest balcony seats,” says Thomas. “The L Series cardioid drivers also significantly reduce noise bleed onstage.”
Thomas notes that the technical performance exceeded expectations from the start. ”Our Soundvision design predictions were spot-on, with less than one decibel of frequency response variation from front to back of the venue. We achieved 98% of our high-volume sound distribution targets and 99.8% of our overall volume change targets from front to back – performance metrics that other speaker systems would struggle to match.” Beyond sound quality, the system’s visual impact was also considered: “The elegant L2/L2D design helps the equipment visually disappear, keeping the focus on the performers. Both the Riviera Theatre team and Jam Productions are extremely satisfied with the coverage and sound.”
For more details on the Riviera Theater, visit www.jamusa.com/riviera-theatre. Allied Productions can be found online at www.allied.productions.
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