Hall size (was tuned front duplexes)

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phillip L Ford" <fordpiano@lycos.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: November 15, 2001 3:01 AM
Subject: Hall size (was tuned front duplexes)


> -----
I understood that you were talking about maximum and I was talking about an
ideal.
I gave this some more thought.  To give these numbers a bit more validity,
at least in my own mind, I thought of some specific halls and investigated
how many each would seat.  I found that all of my selected halls, the ideal,
the maximum, and the just too large seated more than I thought.  A couple of
halls that I thought of as acceptable but on the verge of being too big were
1000 seat halls.  A couple of halls that I thought of as being a bit over
the limit in size were 1200 - 1300 seat halls.  A couple that I thought of
as good were 500 seat halls.  I certainly wouldn't argue with a smaller hall
so I still will stick with my ideal as 200 - 500 but I would revise my
maximum size upward to 1000.  In my investigation I found out something that
I didn't know.  One of the halls that I thought of as good was Wigmore Hall
in London.  When I went to their website it turns out that Wigmore Hall was
built in 1901 originally as Bechstein Hall. It was next door to their sales
rooms at the time.  It was built to be large enough to showcase famous
musicians but small enough to show the pianos to their best advantage. It
seats around 550 people.  So Bechstein at the turn of the century apparently
had similar feelings about hall size.
>
> Phil
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The difficulty most business-type hall managers give for wanting larger
halls is, of course, financial. Theoretically a hall seating 3,000 people
can generate four time more revenue than a hall seating only 750. Still, the
large halls seem to be constantly in financial trouble. At least they seem
to be constantly in need of financial assistance from various government
and/or business donors. I wonder what the economic facts of life are for
halls of various sizes really are. Do the costs also increase by a factor of
four? Or are they higher? Or lower? How about real vs. potential revenue? I
should think it would be harder to consistently fill a 3,000 seat hall than
it would be a 750 seat hall.

I mentioned seating capacities of 500 to 750 simply because these are the
approximate sizes of the halls at several schools I used to service pianos
for some years back. There was nothing architecturally special about them
yet their acoustics were quite nice. I'm not all that knowledgeable about
building acoustics but it seems to me it is much easier to come up with an
acoustically excellent small hall than it is to come up with and
acoustically acceptable large hall.

These smaller facilities were (relatively) economical to build. They didn't
require large permanent staffs to maintain, set up and prepare for use. They
weren't excessively expensive to heat and/or cool. Everyone had a 'good'
seat, that is they could all clearly (and closely) see the performer. And
everyone could hear the full dynamics of the performance. Even those seated
well back. After all, with rows 25 seats wide the last row back in a hall
seating 750 people is still only row 30. Offsetting all of the positives
were their somewhat smaller and less elaborate stages which probably did
limit the types and sizes of productions they could accommodate. Though they
all had them, these halls didn't really need 9' pianos. I worked in two of
them that several times brought in 7' pianos for duo-piano works and the
smaller pianos did just fine. Much larger and the 9' piano becomes nearly
mandatory. And, I think, the acoustics becomes some trickier.

So. Shall we start a movement, or what?

Del