What Brought Beyoncé, U2, and BTS to Amish Country?

April 23, 2020 10:30 AM

Next door is a building known as the Studio, a fifty-two-thousand-square-foot box sheathed in matte black sheet metal. It stands one hundred feet tall and has four loading docks and a door that a semi can drive through. A grid of steel beams along its ceiling can hold up to one million pounds of chains, motors, bumpers, trusses, lights, speakers, and screens. The Studio is the greatest rehearsal space in the world, used by the biggest acts in the world. [SL Esquire]
posted by ellieBOA (16 comments total)

This was really interesting, thanks for posting it!
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:57 AM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I wonder what BTS will make of Wilbur Buds.
posted by delfin at 12:04 PM on April 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

Business is good, in part because of the Studio’s fair rates: $7,500 a day, give or take, mostly inclusive. For tour managers who budget $10,000 a night on hotel rooms alone, that number doesn’t raise one hair of an eyebrow. In its first year, the Studio was at about 30 percent capacity; last year, it was booked at around 85 percent.

Do they pay enough taxes so that the townspeople see any success, too?

They’ve remodeled churches and rebuilt the rec center. Roy served as the mayor of Lititz for eight years. They maintain a public baseball field on the front lawn at 1 Ellen Avenue.

Good.

“I’ve gotten so used to growth that I don’t think of it as growth anymore,” he says. Last year, he brought on a private-­equity firm to facilitate Tait’s ambitions.

People have tried to copy the Rock Lititz business model—one in Delaware, another in Las Vegas, a few in Nashville.

That’s worrisome.
posted by Monochrome at 12:19 PM on April 23, 2020

I wonder what the average touring act gets paid now for a two-night run at the *checks to see if the Philadelphia Spectrum is still called the Philadelphia Spectrum, notes that it was demolished in 2011*

Oh.

That article was fascinating.
posted by emelenjr at 12:26 PM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

David Byrne wrote something about this place a few years ago:
http://davidbyrne.com/journal/the-secret-place-where-music-shows-get-made
posted by jonathanhughes at 1:26 PM on April 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

Last year, he brought on a private-­equity firm to facilitate Tait’s ambitions.

Welp, this was nice will it lasted. How long do you think this group has before it's loaded with debt, has its assets stripped and sold, and is left to collapse?
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:56 PM on April 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

Years ago a friend of mine was living in the Lancaster area. One night he was at a bar watching a local band when the E Street band walked in (and played. and danced.)
They were in town because they were doing some business at Lititz. I thought he said lighting, but maybe it was sound. Or both.
posted by MtDewd at 2:01 PM on April 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

Okay that's pretty funny/clever that the restaurant located in the Hotel Rock Litiz is named Per Diem.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:17 PM on April 23, 2020 [8 favorites]

Do they pay enough taxes so that the townspeople see any success, too?

I wouldn't doubt they got some KEOZ tax breaks
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:08 PM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thanks jonathanhughes, there is a Guardian piece about it also linked in that article.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:07 PM on April 23, 2020

Welp, this was nice will it lasted. How long do you think this group has before it's loaded with debt, has its assets stripped and sold, and is left to collapse?

Run me through the thought process here. How do you think that's going to work? They're going to sell... a giant empty hanger in the middle of nowhere and a hotel next door to it? Those assets only have value while the whole thing works.
posted by atrazine at 1:12 AM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

well you could play laser tag in it
posted by thelonius at 1:24 AM on April 24, 2020

Welp, this was nice will it lasted. How long do you think this group has before it's loaded with debt, has its assets stripped and sold, and is left to collapse?

From my reading Tait doesn't own the big box, but one of the many businesses in the -- industrial park.
posted by mikelieman at 5:40 AM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

Wired.uk article from 2018 on Tait Towers and Rock Lititz. (Has quite a bit of info on the proprietary Navigator control software.)
posted by soundguy99 at 7:43 AM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

I did a project with one of the manufacturing facilities in the complex and got to tour the rehearsal space. The ceiling is engineered to hold 1 million pounds. 1 million pounds.
posted by Sreiny at 5:24 AM on April 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

They could probably build some parts of the starships we're going to need sooner than we initially thought.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:10 AM on April 26, 2020