The SPAC Amphitheatre was created as a nurturing environment for great art. One hundred ten feet high (the equivalent of 10 stories), it is sited in a natural, curved bowl surrounded by towering pines and sweeping lawns. Inside are sheltered seats for 5,200 people; outside, the sloping lawn accommodates an additional 20,000.
The stage was designed to accommodate a full symphony orchestra, with a floor especially engineered for NYCB. Arnold H. Vollmer designed the floor honoring the wishes of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein making the original floor a design marvel. With insights from Maestro Ormandy and working with a scale model and exotic testing devices, Paul S. Veneklassen designed a series of baffles and sound-reflecting surfaces to draw out the full depth of the music, making SPAC one of the world’s most acoustically acclaimed outdoor performance venues.
