White River State Park sits at the west edge of downtown Indianapolis, perched above the river across from the zoo, near museums and a ballpark. For years, Live Nation Entertainment presented a series of summer concerts in the park, erecting and tearing down a portable concert stage each season.
The new TCU Pavilion offers a huge step forward in the concertgoing experience for performers and audiences alike. Kirkegaard worked with Axis Architecture and Theatre Projects Consultants from the earliest planning stages to work out a comprehensive approach to the site, incorporating a fixed stage house, fixed seats under a canopy, and sloped lawn seating beyond. The design shields the audience from the noise generated by nearby traffic, from the staging areas for buses, from the new permanent restroom building, and from the mechanical systems for the new back-of-house block. Kirkegaard designed electrical infrastructure for the touring audio systems and established recommended locations for the loudspeakers to avoid troubling echoes, as well as analyzing reflections off the canopy. Treatments within the stagehouse ensure that performers can experience a comfortable acoustic environment even when they’re rocking out. Treatments in the back-of-house block ensure comfort for performers.
