Who says local governments can’t get big projects done and done right? The City of Cerritos, California is the owner and operator of the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, one of the most technically advanced venue designs in the country. Using a series of moving seating towers and mobile chair wagons, multiple floor lifts, and moving ceiling panels, it offers touring shows innovative variable seating and stage configurability, allowing the 6,000-square-foot performance space to transform from an 1,800-seat arena to a 900-seat recital hall to an 800-seat proscenium theater. This flexibility allows the venue to provide the ideal setting for just about any performance.
The space’s ability to reconfigure is as marvelous today as it was in 1993, when the Center first opened. However, by 2024, it was definitely time for some new audio technology, specifically to replace the facility’s aging front-of-house and monitor consoles. That was accomplished this past August, just ahead of the Center’s new season, with a pair of new Pulse software-equipped DiGiCo Quantum338 mixing consoles supplied and installed by dealer Audio West of nearby Placentia.
One 112-input Quantum338 resides at the 18-foot-wide by 8.5-foot-deep house mix position in the rear-center section of the Orchestra seating area, in front of the venue’s balconies and on a variable-height lift. It and related audio equipment sit on an air-castered wagon for efficient movement if a visiting artist brings in their own console—but that doesn’t happen very often anymore. “DiGiCo is at the top of almost every contract rider we ever see,” says Tom Hamilton, Operations Manager and Technical Director at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.
Monitor world, which now has its own Quantum338, is situated at stage-left in all of the possible configurations of the room. The consoles share a pair of 56-input SD-Racks, both with 32-bit Stadius mic preamps, and everything is on an Optocore network loop.
The suggestion for the twin DiGiCo desks came from Jon Bullock, newly named as the Cerritos Center’s Head Audio Specialist, but who has worked part time in various audio-related capacities there since 1998, as well as at Downtown Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theatre for the last 21 years, where he has been piloting that venue’s SD12 console. That experience, as well as his own time on tours, led him to advocate for a DiGiCo console when the time came to upgrade at the Center.
“I mix on pretty much every console out there, as one often has to when you’re traveling,” Bullock says. “There’s a tribute band that I tour with, and I generally come across four brands, so I’m pretty familiar with all of them. But I’ve always loved the DiGiCo format and versatility. The workflow is very flexible, but its layout is also very uniform throughout all their models. No matter which DiGiCo desk you sit at, you’re immediately comfortable with it.” That consistency of operation has also made training on the consoles easier, says Bullock, for his colleagues Kerry Dowling and Matt Adams at the Cerritos Center. “It’s very easy to get comfortable with a DiGiCo,” he says, “and the outstanding instruction and support we have had from DiGiCo’s Dan Page, Matt Larson, and Glenn Hatch of Audio West has been second to none.”
That flexibility of the Quantum338 made it a perfect choice for a venue that can shape-shift as often as the Cerritos Center does. “It definitely helps, because when we change the configuration of the theater, the PA configuration also changes a bit,” Bullock explains. “There are different matrix outputs that happen and the processing changes a bit for each setup. The console can handle all of that easily. You can configure it however you want: your main inputs here, and then your main outputs right beside it, and then your groups there—you can send your mixes anywhere you want. You can send an aux to a group and a group to an aux and back to a matrix. There’s so much that you can do. The board itself is just a treat to work on. It’s a bonus that it sounds fantastic, too!”
From a management perspective, the Quantum338 helps the venue present itself to the touring industry as a tech-savvy destination. “We’re always looking to book the most contemporary artists we can, and DiGiCo is on the riders for every type of touring artists, including younger ones,” he says. Even if they’re touring with their own gear, he says, “When they see DiGiCo on the house equipment list, they know they’re in the right place.”
For more information on the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, visit https://ccpa.cerritos.gov.
