Crested Butte Center for the Arts

Location
Crested Butte Colorado

Owner
Crested Butte Center for the Arts

Team
Acoustics and AV - Threshold
Architect - Holzman Moss Bottino and Andrew Hadley Architect
Theatre Consultant - Schuler Shook
Engineers - Resource Engineering Group, JVA, Inc, McDowell Engineering

Size
15,000 square feet
300-seats

Schedule
Completed 2020

The Center for the Arts in Crested Butte, Colorado is a special venue serving a town with a population of just 1,500 and a hunger for the arts that routinely leads to sold-out shows of diverse performances year round. Given the range of end-users and priorities – visual arts, dramatic arts, touring facilities, literary arts – Threshold prioritized an acoustic and AV system that was attractive to outside performers while remaining intuitive and friendly to the local community. Underlining this need to appeal to local enthusiasts as well as touring professionals was the constraint of renting equipment while deep in the Rocky Mountains. 

Along with a sound system in the auditorium that is rider friendly and attractive to touring acts, AV is used through out the building to foster connection. A large video wall is programmable for any media display during the day while at night a performance can be channeled onto the large screen, conveniently located above the bar so patrons can enjoy a second round without missing a moment a single line of dialogue. The system remains flexible intentionally; it was designed for the flexibility of a multi hyphenated community and continues to grow as end users find new ways to use and enjoy the Center. 

“We’ve come a long way,” says Joel Benisch, Center for the Arts board president, who remembers how the property used to be a county maintenance garage before the original 6,000-square-foot Center was built in 1986/87. “I’m excited about the capabilities of the building and what the infrastructure provides for the community,” he said. “Now all of the programs of the Center have come together under one new roof.