New York City has a long-standing relationship with the arts. For decades the city has birthed some of music’s most innovative acts and has built a loving community around those who pursue their artistic endeavors. While their love for art is always present, scenes come and go. New York City shifts from one sound to the next and with each new sound comes a new hub for these artists. Unfortunately, those creative safe havens come and go with those scenes, leaving the artist that visits and dwells in NYC with nowhere to go. There is one New York City venue that still stands tall and for a full 100 years in 2023, Forest Hills Stadium shows no signs of stopping.
Opening up in 1923, the historic Forest Hills Stadium once hosted tennis matches between the best players in the world. Now, the massive stadium located in Queens has brought in a slew of historic musical acts from multiple generations and continues to expand and reinvent its approach to live music. With the likes of everyone from Frank Sinatra to Drake gracing the stage at Forest Hills Stadium, their list of alumni is long and legendary. With 100 years under its belt, the venue added some touch-ups back in 2013 and is now heading into the summer of ‘23 with unwavering pride in its work.
Glide had the pleasure of speaking with Forest Hills President Mike Luba, we discuss the venue’s history and its future while also giving us a closer look into New York City’s most historic stadium and check out their impressive summer line-up below:
Forest Hills Stadium has managed to book an eclectic list of artists over the years. Brandi Carlile, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, The Smile, Jungle- what has the 13k capacity allowed you to do that the larger outdoor shed can not do?
Part of the magic of Forest Hills Stadium is that it was built to watch people play tennis. There is not a bad seat in the place. One of the truly crazy things about the stadium is that it looks like it should really be about a 7,000-cap type place but because of the horseshoe shape and the vertical nature of the bowl, it can fit twice as many yet still feel super intimate.
How do you think the culture of New York City has influenced Forest Hills Stadium the most?
There is no Forest Hills Stadium without New York City but the real heart and soul of the place comes from being in Queens. Queens is the world’s most diverse place on the planet. Forest Hills Stadium is the last of the first-generation buildings of this size left anywhere in NYC. Yankee Stadium is on Yankee Stadium 2, Shea Stadium is now Citi Field, the polo grounds are gone, and Ebbets Field is gone…..We are the last ones left. The stadium was built in 1923 so this is the 100-year centennial anniversary. Not a lot of things can make it for a full century here in NYC.
How do you guys balance major touring acts with booking independent artists? How many concerts do you typically try to book each year?
Part of the joy of working at the Stadium is that we get to truly curate the season. When we started back in 2013, we had permission to do one show. The next year we did five, then we 9, then we stopped at 16 shows per season to make sure that we weren’t overwhelming the tennis club or our neighbors. Coming out of the pandemic we did 25 shows and this year we capped it at 30 and for the first time had to actually turn away shows that I would have killed for previously. We work hard to try and program as diverse a schedule as we can. We work pretty hard on trying to avoid a season full of old white guys playing guitar.
Who runs the sound at Forest Hills and what challenges does the venue provide for sound and lighting and what advantages does it have?
As I mentioned earlier, because the stadium was designed to watch unamplified tennis, the natural acoustics in the stadium are amazing. An artist can stand on the downstage edge of the stage and sing to someone in the top row and if everyone is quiet, the singing can be heard. The technology of modern PA systems has advanced so much that we can have a band letting it rip at full stadium-level volume and yet due to the sound mitigation system we installed, it is almost dead silent on the streets outside of the stadium. Most of the artists who come through Forest Hills are traveling with their own full sound and light package so it’s our job to just make things as smooth and easy on them as possible. We do spend some time trying to explain to bands on their first time thru that although the stadium holds 13,000 folks it is so intimate that it is ok to leave some gear on the truck. Rarely is the advice heeded but we give it a shot and the truth is that if you are an artist playing at a place like Forest Hills it means that you truly have your shit together and don’t need to hear anything from us.
How far ahead of a show do you guys start getting the stadium ready for concert-goers and what is concert day like?
Our season runs from May to October. Once the season ends and we pack everything up for the winter, it takes mother nature about 2 weeks to reclaim the stadium as we are truly an outdoor 100 yr old place. It seems that every year for the last ten years we have spent each off-season working on cap-ex projects to make each season better than the last from a facility production point of view. This means that as soon as the weather allows it becomes a full-on sprint to get the place back up and running for opening day. As I write this, we are currently 17 days from the first show and there are 4 or 5 major projects all happening simultaneously. If you took a walk around the site with me today, you would think that we were totally batshit crazy and there was no way that we would get it together in the next couple of weeks but Jason Brandt who is the general manager and his skeleton crew are the real deal miracle workers and we haven’t blown it yet…..We’ve come close but the show must go on as they say. I hope I’m not jinxing ourselves by typing this but I have faith. Once we are up and running, show days are really pretty smooth. The load-in is easy, the load-out is usually the fastest that a band will have on a whole tour. When we first started, there were no permanent systems in place. No bathrooms, no stage, no power….Nothing, so each show was like a mini festival build. Over the last decade, we’ve managed to put all the basics in place so like I said, once we are up and running it’s pretty smooth.
Considering the long list of legends that have played the venue, is there anyone left you hope to see play Forest Hill Stadium? They can be dead or alive for this one.
Neil Young is on my bucket list. Tool is on my list. Pearl Jam. The Foo Fighters. Phish. I realized I just typed a list of old white guys who play guitar! Jay-Z. Billy Joel. Mccartney. The Stones. Joni Mitchell. David Gilmour. Kendrick Lamar. Diana Ross has played the stadium 4 times in 4 different decades so I would love for her to come back sometime. I think if you put a gun to my head, I would say that Dolly Parton was the best show we’ve done although there truly have been a lot of great ones. There is something about this place that seems to bring out the best in the artists. There hasn’t really been a disappointing one yet.
You guys have a great sense of pride in your acoustics, what was the process like perfecting that aspect of the stadium? Can you tell me a little about the architecture of the stadium as a whole after the 2013 update?
It’s actually a pretty simple and elegant story. When we showed up, we thought that the issue with the sound was that it was blowing out over the top of the stadium which was definitely the case back in the 60s and 70s. As I mentioned before the new PAs are so sophisticated and tuneable that our acoustical engineer told us that the issue was not the sound going over the top of the stadium but down and out through the 10 stairwells. He said that if we covered the stairs we would be able to trap 99% of the sound escaping from the stadium. And he was right. It’s actually a pretty trippy experience because as someone walks up a stairwell on the 5th or 6th step it suddenly feels like someone has put earmuffs on your head and then when you get 5 or 6 steps from the top and enter the bowl it feels like the earmuffs come off and the sound is ripping at full volume. We actually had to put signs on the walls letting people know that they were standing in a bass trap that was specifically designed to keep the sound from reaching our neighbors across the street and there was nothing wrong with their ears. The flip side to the magic of the sound mitigation plan is that I now get calls from the neighbors who used to be able to sit out on their porch and hear the concerts and they are convinced that we are just trying to force them to buy tickets to the shows when in fact it is really because there are a couple of folks who year in and year out phone in complaints so we do everything we can to keep it as loud on the inside and quiet on the outside as possible. We have one neighbor who during the 3rd season called the cops to complain about the show but the problem was that it was 2 pm in the afternoon and the show hadn’t even started yet and the cops had the guy on the phone yelling at his wife “damn it, Anne, I told you we shouldn’t have called from France”. The cops saved the tape and played it for me later that night. Classic.
What sort of freedom comes with the venue being outdoors? Do you have any crazy weather stories where nature had the deciding factor on a show?
We are a full rain-or-shine spot. We will stop if the wind hits a certain threshold and if there is lightning within a certain range. Other than that, hopefully, the band and their gear stay dry, the fans get wet and it kinda makes the whole thing even better somehow. Summers in NYC are not afraid to get hot so sometimes a little rain is a welcome addition. We have had shows where it has rained 5 inches in a single hour and the entire borough of Queens was flooding but we managed to power through. More luck than anything. We spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and karma praying to the weather gods.
What can fans expect in 2023 that is different from past years? What do you guys have planned for the incoming warm weather in NYC?
We have a new deck installation called Heaven Hill that is being built right now which should be a nice addition. We have a new walk-thru security system at the front gate that should make things better for folks on their way in. We repaved and leveled out the whole backstage area. We are going to dress the old lady up with some special bits of décor for her 100th birthday. We are replacing two of the eagle statues that disappeared sometime in the 50s with a slightly updated and modern take on the sculptures that I think should be epic. Should be a great season. Can’t wait to get it going.
One Response
The private community where the stadium is located is suing the stadium for “quality of life” concerns and the “appalling number of commercial concerts”.