The site plan (.pdf) for the downtown Raleigh amphitheater was submitted this week and it reveals some more details about the facility. The site is the vacant lot to the west of the Raleigh Convention Center. This lot is not a simply “empty lot”, though, as it contains the service access for the center via a sweeping, curbed driveway though the property.

According to the plan, the road will remain intact, and the stage will be set just inside the road’s arc, facing the SE (toward Memorial Auditorium). Also it appears that small, portable men’s and women’s restrooms will be placed at stage right.

At this point it looks like the center will not be convenient for visitors needing to use the restrooms. The other problems that will plague this facility is acoustics. The shimmer wall and a parking garage, both hard surfaces, will be directly uphill from the stage. Perhaps the design could be improved by rotating the stage about 20 degrees to the south, with a bias toward the stage right side of the audience instead of the planned bias toward the stage left side of the crowd. This would flatten the angle against the opposing hard surfaces and drastically reduce reverb.

While the facility will be smaller and not as nice as Cary’s Booth Amphitheater, the site is not meant to be used for very many summers. The long term plan for the site is for convention center expansion.

We still need a clever name for the tent-covered amphitheater….!

map it