Pasadena’s civic duty to maintain venues

PLAYING PASADENA: Pasadena Civic Auditorium, shown in the background and built in 1932, sits next to Pasadena Convention Center, which opened in 2009. (Courtesy venue)

At 92, Pasadena Civic Auditorium is a prime location for TV and movie business

PASADENA, California — The historic Pasadena Civic Auditorium keeps rolling along as a special event venue years after the 3,000-seat building exited the concert market in southern California.

In a fiercely competitive landscape for concerts, the 92-year-old theater turned its focus to serving as a prime location for the lucrative television and motion picture production business.

As the auditorium churns toward the century mark, the nonprofit corporation that runs the building and the much newer Pasadena Convention Center next door, is in the midst of improving the theater’s exterior infrastructure.

Officials are in the process of completing the first piece of a multiphase project, waterproofing the facade and repairing stairways with new concrete, at a cost of $1.4 million.

It’s funded through a city loan to be repaid through operating revenues, said Naz Sabripour, the convention center’s executive director. The initial work started last spring, Sabripour said.

Phase two will encompass the perimeter plaza outside the auditorium, going through the same procedure to repour concrete, reseal it and waterproof the surface to prevent water leaks, Sabripour said.

Inside the auditorium, where original furniture in the lobby remains intact, including old ticket boxes, new lighting and sound systems have been installed, and the original fire curtain was touched up and repainted for $125,000.

The building, designed in the styles of Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean Revival, has carved a niche for reality shows on network television, such as “America’s Got Talent” and “American Idol.”

Motion pictures have also taken advantage of the historic venue, most notably “Oppenheimer,” which dominated the 2024 Academy Awards, winning seven Oscars, including one for cinematography.

One scene from the movie was shot inside the 400-seat Gold Room on the auditorium’s second floor, whose presidential feel draws Hollywood productions to the building, said Michael Ross, CEO of the Pasadena Convention Center, civic auditorium and the convention and visitors bureau.

Television shows “The West Wing,” “Ray Donovan” and “Scandal” have also used the Gold Room, which was originally designed for poetry readings, as a backdrop for those productions.

Apart from on location shoots, the 56th annual NAACP Image Awards is booked for Feb. 22 at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. It will be the 15th time the event has been held there since 1992.

The Distinguished Speaker Series, in its 28th season, has scheduled Dr. Sanjay Gupta; adventurists Pete McBride and Kevin Fedarko; British reporter Zanny Minton Beddoes’ and journalist and television host Emily Chang.

For 20 years, from 1976-96, the auditorium served as the home of the Emmy Awards before the event moved to the bigger Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Van Halen fanatics know Pasadena Civic Auditorium well. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers grew up in Pasadena and played 14 shows at the auditorium from 1975-78, which stands as ground zero for the group’s success.

To commemorate the band’s rise to stardom, Pasadena Civic Auditorium’s stone exterior wall has a plaque honoring guitarist Eddie Van Halen, which was installed in October 2021, one year after his death.

A group called Pasadena 4 Van Halen formed after his passing raised $6,000 for the project. After paying for the plaque, the rest of the money was donated to music programs at Pasadena High School, Ross said.

In Pasadena, the business model is a bit different than most municipally-owned facilities, said Ross, who’s served as CEO since 2006.

Ross and his staff are not city employees. Instead, they work for the nonprofit that started in 1971 and was incorporated in 1973. At that time, Pasadena was among the first cities in America that combined their CVB, convention center and theater operations into one entity called the Pasadena Center Operating Co. The Pasadena Ice Skating Center, which sits adjacent to the convention center, is also part of the group.

The operating company, which still reports to the city and submits budgets through city channels, was formed to more efficiently manage the four facilities. Its mission is to promote Pasadena as a meeting and travel destination to help improve the local economy and add value for all city stakeholders, as summarized in a corporate history package.

Funding for the operating company, which encompasses 65 full-time employees and 150 part-time workers, is tied to tourism taxes and operating revenues. It has a 15-member board of directors.

“We got the loan to fix (the auditorium), which may seem odd,” Ross said. “It’s fine, because we’ve been doing well financially since COVID.”

Still, maintaining a vintage building takes extra time and effort compared with a modern facility. From a historic standpoint, it’s not the easiest to rectify plumbing and electrical issues and ensure it remains within the standards required for historical structures, Sabripour said.

The Pasadena Convention Center turned 15 years old this year, playing host to 200 events.

Ross said there’s been an uptick in the number of events and revenue year over year. and sales continue to target key markets such as state associations, scientific meetings and local corporate events.

Some of 2024’s  biggest functions were the Salvation Army Congress (3,400 attendees); the American Choral Directors Western Region Conference (2,000); and the American Youth Soccer Organization (1,200).

Upcoming renovations for the convention center extend to a new house sound system and a new LED event lighting system that on its own costs $750,000,, Sabripour said.

The loading dock has an interesting feature that’s a bit unusual in the convention center world — a concrete wall mural marking the Cleveland Cavaliers’ NBA championship in 2016, led by superstar LeBron James.

It was originally part of a Kia automotive commercial that shows the Cavs walking to their locker room after winning the title. The mural provided background graphics for the staged celebration.

Why Pasadena and not Cleveland?

“They did the whole shoot here,” Ross said. “It’s easier to bring a few athletes here than to take the whole production to Cleveland. When the ads got done, we asked the crew to keep it up; it’s a great conversation piece.”