Nokia Theatre Gets Ready

The Nokia Theatre Times Square, set to open in September in NYC, has announced some of the first acts that will debut the 2,100-capacity venue.

Included in the lineup are STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), Keller Williams, Norm MacDonald, Simple Plan, Bauhaus, Switchfoot, Hanson, and Brad Paisley.

The venue, which will be run by AEG Live – NY‘s Mark Shulman and Bill Brusca, can be configured to bring capacity down to 1,500 if need be. Full capacity includes 600 reserved seats and 1,500 general admission.

Shulman is credited with finding the club. AEG Live President Randy Phillips told Pollstar the former Metropolitan Talent exec spent years shopping around the city, looking at warehouses and other potential performance spaces before finding the former Loews Astor Plaza – the largest one-screen movie auditorium in New York, which shuttered last year.

“Sometime’s it a result of just one person’s drive,” Phillips said.

Shulman told Pollstar the $21 million venue will come with all kinds of bells and whistles. The walls and ceilings will be covered with Insulquilt acoustical matting “discovered” by architect David Rockwell that not only will give the room perfect sound but has the added benefit of reflecting colors.

MTV helped wire the venue for television so that a TV crew can plug its satellite truck into the building, set up its cameras and start shooting. The theatre is also wired to MTV studios.

“If MTV wanted to shoot at a facility, they needed two days to load in,” Shulman said. “Now a band comes to town, they bring their cameras and its ready to go.”

Managers and agents will have their own VIP room with coat-check, showers and private bar service. The backstage area includes flat-screen TVs and a warming pantry for full catering. The venue can be configured for seated events, GA, a combination of each, or cabaret tables.

Irving Plaza and Webster Hall have 1,000 and 1,400 capacities respectively, and Roseland Ballroom and Hammerstein Ballroom seat well over 3,000. Until now, NYC apparently did not have a room in between.

“We always knew we wanted a room of that size and it just worked,” AEG Live’s Debra Rathwell told Pollstar. “It’s very hard to find a space like this and be able to open it in this city. [NYC is] pretty developed, then there’s community boards, and we needed the right location.”

AEG Live has been adding mid-size venues to its staple of arenas including the 2,400-capacity Club Nokia in Los Angeles.

“Everybody knows we’re an arena company; we do arena tours,” Phillips said. “However, to really be in the music business, you can’t just skim the cream off the top all of the time. You have to develop artists and be involved with them early on in their career.

“And this is no bullshit: It’s the most beautiful venue I’ve ever been in from a performance standpoint. I stood on that stage. The stage is big and wide and there’s no poles or anything, so the sight lines are unbelievable and the acoustics are going to be great. This room is smokin’.”

Other upcoming shows include Olivia Newton-John, Danzig, Les Claypool, Rusted Root, Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, Coheed and Cambria, Guster, and The Meters.

Joe Reinartz