Boston-based venue Roadrunner, the largest general admission venue in New England, has installed L-Acoustics’ K and A Series systems to bring “pristine” sound to the space.
Initially, the 50,000-square-foot space at Allston-Brighton’s Boston Landing development was designed to serve as a Celtics training facility, before the team decided to move across the street. The Bowery Presents (TBP) and AEG then saw the available space as an ideal location for a 3,500-capacity live music venue, with concert promoters looking to NYC-based integrator See Factor to supply the venue with an L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system.
The new $20 million Roadrunner features a scalable stage and room design, with the stage spanning 60 feet to accommodate full arena-sized touring productions. However, its footprint can also be reduced. As such, a house PA was designed to travel upstage/downstage on trolleys to three different positions to deliver more intimate experiences for smaller-capacity crowds.
“When we finally got in the building and began incorporating all of the production elements, we decided to make a few changes from the original design based on our desire to keep all of our production elements mobile for multiple room setups and artists’ needs,” said Roadrunner technical director of audio, Morgan ‘Mo’ Russell, who serves alongside Roadrunner production manager Eric Jenson and A2 Reid Calkin as the primary audio crew for TBP’s new venue. “All of those considerations led us to deploy main hangs of 12 K2 enclosures per side with six flown KS21 subs in cardioid right behind them for true full-range left and right, and these are all flown on custom-beam trolleys that can travel up to 16 feet out into the house when we shrink the venue based on production needs.”
Roadrunner also has eight A15 Wide enclosures hung as under-balcony fills and two A15 Wide as over-balcony fills that “follow left and right accordingly to maintain stunning stereo imaging throughout the venue,” Russell noted. On the sub feed, the venue has 10 KS28 suspended approximately half an inch off the ground, flown from the front stage decking, allowing the club to move the entire ground sub cluster forward as a unit when it builds the stage out to decrease the room size. Furthermore, eight Kara IIi on the downstage-edge riser decks handle front-fill, and these also move forward with the ground subs.
Onstage, 15 X15 wedges are available for monitoring, plus stereo side-fills consisting of two A15i Focus and two KS28 subs per side. LA12X amplified controllers drive most of the house and monitor systems, with a few additional LA4X.
The initial loudspeaker system design was created by TBP/AEG system design engineer Lorne Grabe, working with NYC-based engineer Alex Kehr and L-Acoustics applications engineer Chris ‘Sully’ Sullivan.
“I have been working with L-Acoustics for a long time now, so it’s an easy fit for us at The Bowery Presents,” said Grabe, who also serves as the head sound engineer for Manhattan venue Terminal 5, which is home to a K2 system. “Both companies have a great relationship, and L-Acoustics has been amazing with taking care of us for Roadrunner and our NYC builds, including Brooklyn Steel, Terminal 5, and Webster Hall. Plus, when we had to modify Boston’s new design on the fly—first for sightline issues and then for flown sub weight issues—Sully at L-Acoustics was always there for us to check our work.”
Long before the PA was assembled at See Factor in Queens and brought over to the new venue in touring cases, TPB director of operations/construction Scott Raved was instrumental in designing the room and ensuring it was acoustically treated and isolated from the club’s neighbors, including the adjacent TRACK at New Balance sports complex.
“I have taken point since the initial design process began to final installation of the one-of-a-kind moving production elements at Roadrunner,” he explained. “With the help of a very deep bench of experts in their related fields, Roadrunner’s production is the best embodiment of Bowery’s combined experiences and expectations of any of our venues so far.
“Specific to the audio system, L-Acoustics has been such a great partner throughout this process. Lorne and Sully worked together on Roadrunner’s Soundvision files for more than two years. The design has evolved from a 3D file to a hole in the ground, then a completed venue with robust exterior sound containment, to the acoustically treated interior we have today. And L-Acoustics has been there for us all the way, including fine-tuning the new rig in the middle of the night, just a few days before the first show.”
In addition to new DiGiCo Quantum225 consoles at both FOH and monitor mix positions, the venue also features an L-Acoustics P1 processor at FOH paired with five LS10 switches for Milan-AVB conversion, system control, and atmospheric adjustment. The entire PA is run via AVB.
Russell described the decision to use AVB as a ‘no-brainer’.
“Who wouldn’t want pristine, perfectly-aligned audio driving the system?” he asked. “But we also appreciate the seamless redundancy that P1 offers, so we always have AES and analog backup running but have never had any issues with the AVB dropping other than when we were pulling the cables out and watching the P1 revert to back up and saying, ‘Wow, cool, you can’t even tell it switched.’
“The P1 is an absolutely amazing tool to have in our belt,” he added. “With the integration of the M1 measurement tools, it allows me to easily set up the PA any way a guest engineer might like. While we have two main positions for the PA, every artist’s needs are different. We just had an engineer come through that was struggling to get volume out of the vocal mics on his tour, and in the morning, when he came in, we moved the PA just a couple more feet off-stage to maximize his gain-before-feedback. With the P1, that was easy; I had new timings for the room in a few minutes. Then I sat back and watched the touring SE play with Smaart for an hour before he came to the same conclusion that the M1 had recommended initially.
“I also find the Autoclimate feature outstanding and appreciate that I can fade into the recommended changes and hear what it’s actually doing. The temperature and humidity conditions at soundcheck compared to mid-sold-out show are significant, and Autoclimate helps me maintain consistency from soundcheck to end of show, and I am very grateful for it.”
He continued: “Not only do bands come in all shapes, sizes and styles, but engineers have many different approaches and styles,” says Russell. “We are ready to accommodate here. We have the best tools L-Acoustics and DiGiCo have to offer. With the P1 and the M1 measurement tools it is not only easy but a very fast process to make any adjustments to the system. Also, Soundvision allows us to give incoming engineers an extremely accurate picture of what they will be walking into when they arrive at the venue and allows us to play with potential changes to accommodate their show virtually during the advance process. This affords us the opportunity to be almost completely dialed in before the bands’ buses even pull up.”
Commenting on the biggest challenges faced while working on the project, Russell concluded:“Perhaps our biggest challenge on the install was how much time we had between getting occupancy of the building and our first show (about one week). I knew what myself and Reid Calkin (A2) wanted to accomplish, and it was a lot for that time frame. Our crew chief Mike Kadomiya ensured we had all the hands and riggers we needed.
“When we got in we saw that Scott Raved (TPB director of operations/construction) had done such a beautiful job making sure our building infrastructure was flawless, ensuring the room didn’t fight back and felt like a willing partner in our vision of what we wanted this venue to be. Lorne Grabe, Sully Sullivan and Alex Kehr had been trading Soundvision files on this for over a year before I got involved. They weighed all the different options for deployment and they are just really, really good at what they do.
“See Factor provided us space and resources to prep all the gear before we got into the venue, so when we walked in we almost loaded it in like a tour. Eric Jensen (PM) and Troy Dunphy (APM) made sure we had whatever we needed as soon as we needed it to complete the install. Everyone at Roadrunner, from Allison Finney (GM) and Ashley Lord (BM) to the rest of the team gave their all to this. Despite the challenge, everyone involved stepped up and proved their dedication to making this one of the best venues in the world from day one.”