Utica Aud spruces up seats, lighting in nearly $800,000 renovation project

UTICA — Over the past several years, the Utica Memorial Auditorium (the Aud) has undergone a great deal of work behind the scenes including a new heating and air-conditioning system. 

Now, the Aud is getting a little more visible facelift with an almost $800,000 project to replace seats and swap out old lights for more energy-efficient ones.

The Aud is replacing the lower tier of seating, which is about 50 years old, General Manager Willard Berkheiser says. He can’t find parts for the broken ones anymore, and they are in poor shape, he adds. It takes a crew of several people up to eight hours to set up those seats when needed and just as long to put them away when an event requires extra floor space.

All of those old seats are being replaced with newer, lighter ones that take just one person 45 minutes to set up or break down, Berkheiser says. “The man-hours saved is just amazing,” and frees up time in the Aud’s schedule for more events now that the set-up time is so much shorter, he notes.

The Aud, which is owned and operated by the Upper Mohawk Valley Memorial Auditorium Authority, is spending $615,000 on the new seating, with all the money coming from the Aud’s cash on hand.

In addition, the Aud is spending another $180,000 to replace the old mercury vapor lights in the main arena with new T11 fluorescent, energy-efficient lights, Berkheiser says. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will provide some incentives, which often include rebates for part of the installation costs, once the lighting project is complete, he says.

Along with using about half the energy of the old lights, the new ones offer some features that just weren’t practical with the previous lights, he says. With the new lights, which run from a control panel, Berkheiser has the option of using one-third, two-thirds, or all the lights over the arena and similar options over the seating area. That may not sound like a big deal, but those options can help the Aud set the stage for particular events, he says. “For certain events, we want to mood-light it,” he says.

On top of those perks, the new lights are instant-on/instant-off lights — a big improvement over the 15 minutes it used to take the prior mercury-vapor lights to reach full intensity, Berkheiser says.

Work on the seats and the lights began in June, he says, and should provide those who attend the upcoming fall events with an enhanced experience, he says.

Over the past five years, the Aud has held pretty steady with about 130,000 people attending the variety of events it hosts throughout the year. Those events range from concerts like the upcoming All-American Rejects concert on Sept. 16 to area college graduations, Mohawk Valley Youth Hockey events, an annual cheerleading competition, a circus, the Harlem Globetrotters, and college sporting events.

“We do have a niche here,” Berkheiser says. And that array of events is what keeps the Aud not only going strong, but also profitable. Berkheiser declined to share revenue or profit figures, but indicated the Aud has been profitable each of the 15 years he has been at the helm.

Now, the seating and lighting upgrades should add to the Aud’s appeal to hopefully attract more events and more attendees, he says.

“I think once we start our season, people are going to notice it,” he says. He did not share projections on how much the new seats and lights might affect attendance and event numbers.

Located at 400 Oriskany St. W., the Utica Memorial Auditorium (www.uticaaud.org) has an audience capacity of 5,500. Four full-time officers and a crew that varies from about eight part-time employees in the summertime off-season to a full-time staff between 15 and 20 people during the winter season staff the facility. For events, the staff number can climb as high as 200 people, depending on the event.       

Contact DeLore at tdelore@tmvbj.com