Have you ever been to a concert before? If so, what have you noticed about the behavior of people around you? People are heavily influenced by the environment around them to act a certain way. This goes for about every public/private setting you can imagine. For example, think about the differences between a public restaurant and your dining room table. How would you describe the differences between the way you and other people around you act at a restaurant compared to your dining room at home? The same question can be asked about two prominent music performance halls in Georgia.

The Classic Center in Athens Georgia is a convention center in Georgia, but it is commonly used for various kinds of musical performances, ranging from orchestras, concert bands, choirs, and etc. The Variety Playhouse however, houses mainly comedy shows and various different genres (rock, indie, folk, etc.).

So, what about them causes audiences to act in a certain way?

While both the Athens Classic Center and the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta exist to provide a place for musicians to perform, the Classics Center relies on the open, echoey atmosphere and super high ceiling in order to encourage guests to be quiet so they can hear the performers play, whereas the Variety Playhouse has flashy lights and amplifies musicians to encourage energetic behavior from the audience.

To start, the layouts of the two performance centers are very different from one another. The Performing Arts Center attached to the Classic Center is a very big open area with two seating levels on top of the main seating area. It has about 2,090 seats (that’s a lot of people :0). Meanwhile the Variety Playhouse has about 1,100 seats (about half as many people) and features movie theater type seating, which makes for a more intimate performance area.

Because classical musicians rely on the environment of the open Classic Center to carry their sound to the audience rather than using speakers to amplify themselves, the audience must maintain a silent environment in order to hear. From my personal experience watching a classical concert at The Classic Center, I have noticed that most of these types of concerts are purely acousitic. It seems obvious, but unamplified classical instruments are easily drowned out by ambient noises. That’s why before most concerts, someone will typically tell the audience to silent their phones.

This differs from The Variety Playhouse in various ways. The performers at Variety Playhouse typically amplify themselves in order to encourage listeners to be lively and active. The movie theater-like seating arrangement also gives the audience more of a chance to see everything that is happening on stage. The contagious energy of the performers, the flashy lights, and the amplified music encourage exuberant and dynamic behavior from the audience.

So, what do these designs reveal about each of their creator’s values? In regards to Variety Playhouse, the creator valued a space in which the performers had more of an intimate space with the audience while providing fun energizing entertainment. For The Classic Center, the creator most likely valued creating a formal atmosphere for more classical performances and valued a wide open space that fosters silent and reserved behavior.

All in all, both of these places are unique music centers with their own attributes, each of which dictate the way that the audiences act during a musical performance. The Classic Center fosters a quiet performance environment due to unamplified acoustic instruments and The Variety Playhouse encourages lively audience behavior with flashing lights and speakers to amplify musicians.