Sherwood Hall, 940 North Main Street, Salinas, CA

Capacity 1583

This facility is a unique complex designed to serve as one facility.  The main feature of the complex is Sherwood Hall, which is available for banquets, exhibitions, theater productions and concerts.  The complex also includes meeting rooms and a large terrace on the center’s upper level.

Architectural acoustics design of a recently completed multipurpose performing arts hall. The facility, known as Sherwood Hall, is part of the Salinas Community Center in Salinas, California (located approximately 100 miles south of San Francisco). In order of priority, the program requirements called first for a space to accommodate banquets, dances, and community activities, and then for a theater and music hall. The design response to these requirements yielded a space consisting of a platform‐stage area with a fixed, flat main floor and a permanent balcony. Folding theater‐type seats on movable risers stored under the balcony allow the flat floor to be converted to sloped audience seating. The most difficult challenge acoustically was to control reflected sound energy for speech‐oriented events occurring on the flat floor and to encourage reflected sound from the stage to the audience for events in the theater/music configuration.(1)

Sherwood Hall is a beautiful and unique facility geared to providing a dramatic location
for a vast array of events. Its automated seating unit can provide an elevated platform
with comfortably cushioned theatre seats for stage presentations or an open area exhibit
space for banquets and conventions, all under one roof. Since its construction in 1976, this
versatile concert hall has hosted theatrical and musical shows, banquets, trade shows,
commercial sales and various types of seminar and convention activities. The airy two-
story lobby contains a fine collection of art for patrons to appreciate as they precede to the
seating area. The stage surface is 36" above the hall floor and all stage facilities are fully
functional in either configuration.

SHERWOOD HALL LIGHTING SYSTEM OVERVIEW
Stage lighting is controlled by a Kliegl40 channel, 3 scene manual board located in the light booth at the top of the house where the (2) Follow Spots are located. Standard lighting set-up is no-color apron and Symphony lighting plus Pink, Amber and Blue washes and front light. Specials can be set from the stage grid and house Catwalks.

SHERWOOD HALL SOUND SYSTEM OVERVIEW
The built-in Altec Sound System is excellent for announcers, presenters and walk in/background music. In addition to the Altec System, a 'Live Music' system is available which features an Allen & Heath mixer, Carver amplifiers and J.B.L. speakers plus Shure microphones and J.B.L. monitors.(2)

"I remember the hall as a cheesy VFW-type place with no seats and maybe an eye-level stage. No ... theater curtain or anything; I got the impression it was a hall-for-rent more than a concert venue. We were pretty close without trying very hard; it wasn't packed. Sherwood Hall was like a community center or something; no seats, just a big flat gym-like floor and a 5-6-foot stage at one end. I seem to recall low-ish ceilings."(3)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed here on July 23, 1979.
Neil Young performed here with Trans Band on August 12, 1982.
Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush performed here on January 26, 1983.
Blue Oyster Cult performed here on February 11, 1985.
Now known as Steinbeck Institute of Art & Culture.

Jerry performed here on
6/24/81 JGB (uncertain)
8/6/81 JGB

1.)^Paoletti, Dennis, The architectural acoustics design of Sherwood Hall, Salinas, Californi, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 64, Issue S1, pp. S101-S101 (1978); (1 page), 1978 Acoustical Society of America, http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v64/iS1/pS101_s2?bypassSSO=1
2.)^www.steinbeck.org
3.)^Petersen, Charles, JG19810624: Wednesday, June 24, 1981, Sherwood Hall, Salinas, CA (UNCERTAIN, Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger, 2011-04-21, http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/04/jg19810624-wednesday-june-24-1981.html