'Phenomenal' center opens to rave reviews

by Steven Hyden / Post-Crescent (November 25, 2002 )

APPLETON - When Sue Ring found out she had third balcony seats for Sunday's Martina McBride concert at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, she wondered how much of the concert she would see.

By the end of the country singer's 80-minute performance at the new $45 million complex, the Appleton woman, an employee at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, had a much better view.

"It was phenomenal," she said. "The sound, you could hear a pin drop."
What about sitting in the "nosebleed" seats?

"I felt I was closer than most places," Ring said. "No matter how high up you are, you still feel close to the stage."

With talk about the PAC before Sunday centered on architectural designs and artsy dreams, Sunday's Thrivent employees-only event featuring McBride and Tony Bennett in two separate concerts was the first opportunity for operators to finally show rather than tell.

The building opened Sunday after 2½ years of construction and over three years of planning and fund-raising.

The general public will get its first look tonight at a grand opening gala also featuring Bennett, followed by an all-day open house Tuesday and a community grand opening celebration featuring the local arts group production "Realizing Dreams" Friday and Saturday.

If the long-term health of the PAC is determined by word of mouth, then the early prognosis for the theater is very good. Thrivent employees had nothing but glowing reviews for the facility. Feedback was particularly positive regarding the theater's sound, sightlines and design.

"Very nice," said Steve Snyder of Greenville. "It certainly looks like there's not a bad seat in the house."

Like other early visitors to the downtown complex, Snyder compared the PAC favorably to the similar Weidner Center in Green Bay.

"It seems pretty comparable to the Weidner but newer and a little nicer," he said. "A little more comfortable."

"I thought the sound was exceptional," Kim Olson of Menasha said. "I liked the crown shape of the room."

Marcia Engel of Neenah was surprised how intimate the theater seemed from her third balcony seat. She didn't expect to feel as close to the stage as she did.

"Even though the building is as big as it is, it has a warm, welcoming atmosphere," Engel said.
"The intimacy of the hall was just great," agreed Dan Evensen of Appleton. "There were a lot of people but it felt very intimate."

Ben Piaskowski of Gillett was also wowed by the design of the building.

"I'm really impressed by the architecture," he said. "It's still an efficient design.

"A lot of the time you get into post-modern architecture and you have things that are novel for the sake of being novel and it's inefficient."

Evensen thinks the main hall, named Thrivent Financial Hall, has a timeless look.

"It wasn't too ornate," he said. "There was just enough to be elegant in style to translate to different periods of time."

Sunday's event had been on the arts center's schedule since September 1999, when Thrivent predecessor Aid Association for Lutherans made an $8 million start-up pledge for the project on the condition that the building be ready for the company's 100th anniversary.

Employees had the option of seeing McBride at 1 p.m. or Bennett at 8 p.m., with a reception at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel between the shows.