LILITZ, PENNSYLVANIA — In this 9,000-person Lancaster County town surrounded by Amish farms, it’s not unusual to spot a big-name celebrity.
Black buses and semi trucks roll through regularly, heading for the sound stage where major entertainers rehearse their shows, complete with lighting and production, before going on tour.
Residents said they peek out their windows and wonder who’s in town this time.
Ariana Grande made a splash at Target recently. Others who have been spotted in the Lancaster area include Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Maroon 5 and Mumford and Sons.
It’s a local quirk associated with Lititz’s status as a quiet power player in the music industry. That's a role Wilmington businessman Scott Humphrey and city officials hope to emulate in Delaware on a smaller scale as construction begins this month on a multimillion-dollar sound stage on a chunk of empty land jutting into the Christina and Brandywine rivers.
Mayor Mike Purzycki has been cheering on the plan, in March calling it Wilmington’s “best-kept secret.”
“It’s a brand-new business sector to us,” he said in September. “To have this activity going on right in the middle of the city, to have performers populating our hotels and spending weeks here, it’s a chance to put us on the map in another way.”
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City officials assisted Humphrey's New Castle-based Light Action Productions, an entertainment production company and the sound stage’s developer, in finding the site on the Seventh Street Peninsula. They plan to help more by fixing roads leading to the future venue.
The stage, Pine Box Studio, will be 95 feet tall. Only nine of the 20 acres Light Action purchased will be developed for the stage, leaving open the possibility of building a hotel or restaurant there, too, Humphrey said.
In Lititz, the sound stage, a futuristic-looking black box rising out of cornfields, lies a short drive away from a quaint downtown. Since the stage’s opening in 2014, Rock Lititz has built its own entertainment complex around it, including a luxury hotel and a “pod” of neighboring upscale businesses: yoga studio, brewery, boutique bike shop.
A $42 million expansion including another rehearsal studio and more business space is planned, with $6 million being funded through Pennsylvania state loans approved this month, PennLive reported. A Rock Lititz spokeswoman declined to be interviewed.
About 400 people work at Rock Lititz, and the expansion is expected to produce about 200 more jobs, according to Lancaster Online.
For Lititz residents and business owners, the complex is a source of customers, activity and intrigue.
When the sound stage first opened, neighbors whose homes abutted the stage’s property reported feeling sound vibrations in the air (it’s since been corrected with a row of trees, which help absorb sound, they said.)
It’s been a boon to downtown Lititz’s General Sutter Inn and its adjoining tavern, said front desk manager Laura Lobley.
“We have quite a few guests who travel from all over the world who stay with us because of their work at Rock Lititz,” she said.
The third floor of the Inn’s historic building has become the “Rock Block penthouse” for entertainment producers, outfitted with music industry memorabilia.
The sound stage draws in its own new businesses — like the instrument tuner Lobley’s musician husband uses, who moved to Lititz because of the thriving music scene.
Having a tuner in town saves her husband an hour-and-a-half drive, she said.
In Lititz, the stage was born from a trio of international entertainment heavyweights that had long been based there. Atomic Design, Tait Towers and Clair Global joined their set design, stage construction and sound system forces to create Rock Lititz in 2014.
“There’s always been a strong music culture in Lititz,” said Ben Hartranft, owner of the Lititz Music Co. records and instrument store downtown. The sound stage was “just extra,” he said.
Humphrey, owner of Light Action, said there’s room for the same collective of entertainment industry companies — manufacturers and producers of lighting, sound and staging materials — to grow together in Wilmington.
Already, he said he’s heard from current clients who need space to produce and rehearse corporate media clips and sports television spots. Being located just off I-95, near popular festivals such as Firefly and Made in America, makes concert and show rehearsals possible at the Pine Box too, Humphrey said.
In Lititz "they were creating this sort of environment where [the music industry] feeds off itself,” he said. “We're doing a similar thing but on a much smaller scale … We’ve always been more of a mom-and-pop production.”
That will mean booking smaller acts as opposed to Lititz’s “A-list” clientele, but he said demand is plentiful.
“It’s not going to be the Taylor Swifts of the world, but smaller groups that are starting out, or ones that are established that cater to a smaller crowd,” he said. “Take a look at all the tours that start out in Philadelphia or New York or Washington, D.C., or think about all the festivals within a 90-mile radius. All those groups have to rehearse.”
Jeanne Kuang covers Wilmington for The News Journal. Contact her at jkuang@delawareonline.com.
2019-10-01 10:01:00Z
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2019/10/01/can-new-sound-stage-bring-mom-and-pop-entertainment-scene-wilmington/2196572001/
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