Iconic Stage, Upgraded Sound: The Wiltern Installs Avid VENUE | S6L
The Wiltern is one of Los Angeles’ most iconic live venues. Built in the 1930s as a Warner Brothers movie house, its Art Deco architecture and soaring ceilings have become part of the city’s cultural fabric. At around 2,000 seats, it hosts touring bands, rising artists, comedy nights, podcasts, award shows, and major events. Artists like Billie Eilish, Adele, and Chappell Roan all played here on their way up.
But a venue that’s home to this rich cultural mix comes with real operational complexity. The range of events is enormous; touring crews arrive with high expectations, and the aging audio system was struggling to keep pace. It was time for a change.
The Challenge: Legacy Equipment Under Pressure
The Wiltern had been running a 25-year-old speaker system alongside a legacy VENUE SC48 console paired with a non-Avid board. On more complex shows, the systems could be maxed out on channels. Touring crews were pushing for better facilities, and in-house staff needed a system they could move, reconfigure, and hand over to visiting engineers quickly.
The console position shifts depending on the show type: fourth tier for concerts, fifth for comedy, third for TV tapings like American Idol. Each event brings different input counts, automation demands, and engineers who may never have visited the venue before.
“With the previous console, we were maxed out. We needed something that could handle more and make things easier for every engineer walking through the door.”— Saro Koujakian, Head of Audio, The Wiltern
With such a varied schedule of different events, the team was looking for a console solution that could shift gears quickly and instantly change routing and configuration to meet new scenarios.
Why Avid VENUE | S6L?
After reviewing their options from several manufacturers, The Wiltern chose Avid VENUE | S6L for both front-of-house and monitors. Each position runs a VENUE | E6L-192 engine with a 24C control surface and a Stage 64 I/O rack, giving the team 56 inputs and 32 outputs per system. The Stage 64 was a deliberate choice: On the old rig, an SC48 and Midas Pro 2 which were regularly hitting the ceiling on channels. That headroom is now gone as a concern.
An even more important factor was ease of use. At a venue like The Wiltern, visiting engineers arrive off a tour bus, often exhausted, with minimal time to get familiar with a new system. Saro needed a smooth, unified workflow to hand over to visitors. One of his own house engineers had never touched a VENUE console before, but within ten minutes he was soft patching and ready to go.
“I personally don’t think there’s an equal to that, especially for a venue where, at any given time, there’s a million different things going on at once.”— Saro Koujakian, Head of Audio, The Wiltern
The Installation
In August, The Wiltern completed a full audio system overhaul, pairing VENUE | S6L with a new L-Acoustics L2 PA. Even before the permanent install, the team rented an S6L to run through the existing system. The results immediately turned heads.
“I opened my tuning song and I was already 99% of the way there. Everyone was blown away at how it sounded and that was through a 20-year-old PA.“— Saro Koujakian, Head of Audio, The Wiltern
Once the full install was complete, the combination of S6L and L-Acoustics delivered on every requirement: fast to configure, flexible across show types, and a clear step forward in sound quality.
Training with Virtual Soundcheck
As part of the onboarding process, The Wiltern team used the Virtual Soundcheck feature in VENUE as a staff development tool. They recorded a live band and ran the multitrack back through the PA on days off to let engineers build templates and dial in EQ without the pressure of a live event. Engineers now arrive on show day prepared with a working template already in place.
Snapshots and Show Automation
For a venue running award shows, fashion productions, and live concerts, the S6L snapshot system has become central to operations.
The Streamer Awards is a good example. The show was operated by an external crew who hadn't used the S6L before, but Saro's team was on site to guide them through it. One day in, after having no rehearsals, the show caller needed a level adjustment for a specific section. The QLab operator from the production team couldn't handle it on their end. Saro pulled up the snapshot and made the tweak ready to be recalled in seconds.
“With the snapshots it’s just effortless. There are a million little things going on at different times, and it makes the show simple.“— Saro Koujakian, Head of Audio, The Wiltern
The Result
Since the August install, The Wiltern has run the S6L hard. On one show roughly a month in, the team made full use of the 56 inputs and around 30 mixes—the kind of session that used to be a stretch on the old rig. The console moves smoothly between three fixed positions in the house, and the team have found the setup and break-down routine straightforward.
Saro has built his template around a core set of Waves plugins: the SSL bus compressor across drum groups, the L3 on the master bus, the RVX reverb, C6 multiband, DBX 160, and the Renaissance channel tools. Virtual Soundcheck has become part of the house-training program, letting engineers build and refine their templates on days off using recorded multitracks, so they arrive on show day ready to go.
“Between the functionality, the ease of use, and the quality of sound, it was a major improvement from what we had before.“— Saro Koujakian, Head of Audio, The Wiltern
Bring Avid VENUE | S6L to Your Venue
Explore the full VENUE | S6L range at avid.com/venue or speak to an Avid specialist about the right system for your space.