For years, Lititz has had an unlikely claim to fame among touring musicians: the companies that build their stages and run their sound are based here. In September 2014, that reputation got a building to match. The Rock Lititz Studio opened with a celebration worthy of the arena shows it was built to serve.
The dark gray rehearsal hall rises more than 100 feet over what had been Lancaster County farmland. At the grand opening, confetti cannons fired, a giant lighting rig fresh from an awards-show appearance hung overhead, and guests got their first look inside a space designed to let major productions rehearse at full scale.
A dream decades in the making
The studio was the vision of Roy Clair, who founded Clair Brothers in 1966 with his brother Gene. The company grew into Clair Global, one of the world’s leading providers of concert sound. Gene Clair had died the previous year, and the opening carried extra meaning for his brother.
“It’s extremely exciting,” Roy Clair said at the event. “I just don’t have the words for it.”
Clair recalled that when the brothers started out, clients told them they would have to leave Lititz to succeed. “So it’s very special that we stayed here and we, so to speak, made it,” he said.
The studio was built in partnership with Tait Towers, the Lititz-based company known for designing and fabricating stages and set pieces for major tours. Michael Tait, founder of Tait Towers, credited the local workforce. “I’m very lucky to have employees who love to work, who love to work hard,” he said. “They’re dedicated and amazingly talented.”
Built for big shows
The studio’s main rehearsal hall covers about 52,000 square feet, with an 80-foot grid capable of supporting more than a million pounds of equipment. It includes production offices, a dining area and dressing rooms for touring artists.
The point is scale. Big tours need to assemble their full stage, program lighting and video, and rehearse with all the moving parts before the first show. Arenas and stadiums are expensive and often booked. A purpose-built hall lets a production set up, test and refine everything under one roof, including complex rigging and effects.
At its opening, the studio already had bookings into 2015. Organizers described it as the only purpose-built facility of its kind in the world.
Local hands
Many of the guests at the opening had a personal stake. Contractors who worked on the building attended alongside Tait and Clair employees and their families. One local electrical contractor’s team finished its work in about four months.
A longtime Tait employee who had worked at the company for 25 years recalled the early days, when “everybody did a little bit of everything.” The work has become more specialized, she said, as the shows have grown.
A Tait lead designer, showing his wife the view from high on the facility stairs, would not say which artists would rehearse first. He noted that his team had worked on designs for acts including Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Metallica.
“It’s big, it’s the first structure to go up, and it’s just for rehearsals,” he said. “To be a part of it is a fantastic opportunity.”
The first of a campus
The studio was the first building on the Rock Lititz campus, which was planned as a hub for companies serving the live-event industry. In the years after the opening, additional buildings followed, including Tait’s own facility and space for other production companies, along with a hotel and offices.
The campus turned a cornfield on the edge of town into one of the world’s notable centers for concert production, and brought major tours and their crews to Lititz to rehearse.
A hometown story
The opening was, above all, a hometown story. Two local companies that began small in Lititz grew into global leaders without leaving. On the day the studio opened, they celebrated by inviting the community inside to stand on the stage where the world’s biggest performers would soon rehearse.
As one guest put it while posing beside the prop switch used to open the building, it was a rock star moment for Lititz.