have just become the official TD for a 2 year old venue. I think the consultant on it was Alan Symonds, but I never met him. Unfortunately he died in the middle of the project and a lot of mistakes were made. It's hard to know where the blame should go. I have listed several of my issues in a http://techshop.net/Theater/Venues/melrosetech/index.html - report I did for them last summer. Look under "some suggestions" near the bottom of the page.

Everybody winds up spending a fortune on equipment for these new theaters, and often the quality gets seriously compromised. The most important thing that gets totally ignored in all of the new, and old, venues is the ability to add equipment to the room temporarily. It shouldn't be that hard to understand that we will need to run DMX, power, audio, intercom, video, etc., etc. all over the venue. We have to run wires across places that people have to walk so we tape them down or cover them. Running anything up to the FOH positions or the booth can be a nightmare in most venues. Audio snakes wind up being run through the audience. It is always a pain, and very difficult to hide.

If I were to design a room, I would put a very high priority on providing troughs and raceways that will allow wires to be run from anywhere to everywhere. I'd put in sizeable disconnects for lighting and audio power. I'd provide certified hanging points for speakers and trusses. I'd put in places to hang lights in the box boom positions as well as front of house positions and a booth. Id make it easy to get between all of these positions without climbing ladders. I'd put in the infrastructure (T-bars and locking rails) for lots of counterweight line-sets even if I didn't have the money to install them right away. There would also be backstage and a proper loading dock. It is pretty impractical and expensive to add any of these things once the building is built. To me, all of this comes before you even think about buying a console, dimmers, or lights. You can rent all of that stuff or buy it later.

After that I'd get comfortable seats for the patrons. I'd probably want the acoustics to be quite dry because everybody wants to use sound systems these days, and they work better in a non-reverberant space. After all of these things Have been thought out, you can begin to think about the shape of the building, and what you want to do to make it pretty. As far as I can tell, most people designing "Performance Centers" and theaters do it exactly backwards.