RIVERSIDE, CA – Eighth Day Sound, a Clair Global brand, provided almost identical L-Acoustics L Series loudspeaker rigs for two Live Nation venues in Riverside, CA – the Riverside Municipal Auditorium and Fox Performing Arts Center. Just three blocks apart, the venues are now equipped with new L-Acoustics L2/L2D systems.
More details from L-Acoustics (www.l-acoustics.com):
Two historic Southern California venues, Riverside Municipal Auditorium and Fox Performing Arts Center, simultaneously upgraded their respective in-house sound systems at the end of 2024, installing almost identical L-Acoustics L Series loudspeaker rigs. The L2/L2D systems, supplied by Eighth Day Sound, a Clair Global brand, were installed by team members from Clair Global, L-Acoustics, and Live Nation, which manages and operates both venues.
The two facilities located three blocks from each other in the City of Riverside, 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, originally opened two months apart. Riverside Municipal Auditorium (RMA), a Mission Revival-style building that also memorializes Riverside County’s World War I servicemembers, opened its doors in November 1928. Fox Performing Arts Center (the Fox), built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, opened just two months later in January 1929. The theaters last underwent building improvements and sound system upgrades about 15 years ago, a few years before Live Nation assumed responsibility for the operation of the two venues.
“I’m not a sound engineer by trade, but I’ve always loved the sound of L-Acoustics equipment,” explains Brendon Davis, Director of Venue Production for Riverside Municipal Auditorium and Fox Performing Arts Center. “The club where I originally started my career had an L-Acoustics rig installed by Rat Sound, and it’s always done us right.” Davis continues, “When I came to Riverside about three years ago and began researching options for our sound systems, I knew immediately that I wanted matching setups in both venues. We share the same crew across locations, so having identical systems significantly streamlines operations for our audio engineers.”
Jason Vrobel, Global Sales, Clair Global, reports that the request for L Series came from Davis. “At that point, Vic Wagner, L-Acoustics Touring Systems Applications Engineer, and C.W. Alkire, the Design Engineer from our team, did site walk-throughs and came up with the design and what was needed in each of the venues.” Vrobel also notes that these are the first L Series systems that Clair Global has installed in a Live Nation venue.
Both venues feature L-Acoustics L2/L2D systems customized for their unique architectural requirements. The Fox, a traditional theater seating 1,600 patrons, employs two L2 and one L2D per side in its main hang, with an L2D center hang and three installed KS21i subwoofers per side. The 1,400-capacity RMA uses a more compact configuration of one L2 and one L2D per side with an L2D center hang, complemented by four floor-standing KS28 subwoofers per side. Each venue’s system includes strategically placed fill speakers (X8, X8i, and A10 Focus models) to ensure complete coverage throughout all seating areas. The Fox is powered by eight LA7.16i and one LA12X amplified controller, while RMA employs five LA7.16i, two LA12X, and three LA4X units. Both rooms are now equipped to host their diverse upcoming performances, with the Fox presenting Shen Yun, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Engelbert Humperdinck, while RMA welcomes The Mars Volta, Less Than Jake, and Dance Gavin Dance in the coming months.
“We’ve done probably 35 Live Nation venues in the last two and a half years, keeping them as uniform as possible so that whenever a guest engineer or system tech comes into the building, the systems are the same as they saw in the last Live Nation building they were in,” Vrobel explains. In the case of the Fox and RMA, equipment uniformity extends to the front-of-house and monitor consoles at the venues, which added three DiGiCo SD12, each with an SD-Rack, to the RMA’s existing SD12, replacing three older mixing desks.
Vrobel also notes, “For some of the venues, we set them up as close to our touring packages as possible. If one of those venues has a failure – say, they have an amp rack go down – then we can send them a replacement from our touring inventory and have them back up and running the next day.”
“Because our crew managed this project, they know the rooms and how the equipment is installed,” Davis confirms. “So if they ever have to tech anything, they could do it themselves.”
Davis reports that not only did the new L-Acoustics systems deliver an immediate sonic improvement to audience members at the two theaters, but the rider-friendly package has also reinvigorated interest among artists to put the venues on their touring schedules. “Social Distortion last played RMA in 2014, I believe, and that was a band that we thought we were never going to see again,” he says. “I talked to the talent team and said, ‘What if we got this new system installed before New Year’s Eve? Will they do the show?’ And they said, ‘Send over what you’re going to install,’ and Social Distortion immediately confirmed. They played on New Year’s Eve and it was great.”
For more details on Riverside Municipal Auditorium and Fox Performing Arts Center, visit www.riversiderma.com and www.foxriverside.com. Eighth Day Sound and Clair Global can be found online at www.8thdaysound.com and www.clairglobal.com.
