This weekend, I had the pleasure of being the disc jockey at a fun wedding at Key Hall at Proctors of Schenectady NY. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this venue, it is conveniently located to the left of Proctor’s on State Street in downtown Schenectady, NY.
This hall is the former Key Bank who many may remember as being decked out in stone and marble flooring, now making an interesting backdrop for weddings and other events, alike.
For this particular wedding of about 100 guests or so, the front of the hall was curtained off to provide accommodations for a cozy ceremony. After the ceremony, the chairs are lifted and shifted back to the tables and the cocktail hour is ready to go.
Comfortably seating 200 guests for a sit-down dinner at Key Hall at Proctors, this hall is somewhat narrow, but is still very spacious. There is also a nice bar in the opposite corner of where the ceremony was set.
The food was great! The caterers had four different stations featuring a carving station, a pasta station, a nice buffet selection, and a hamburger slider table with homemade milkshakes to order.
If you are thinking about booking this hall for your wedding, the high ceilings and the original vaults from the old-fashioned bank make for some great picture opportunities, as well.
The acoustics are quite a bit tricky in this hall, but can be dealt with. I have found that an L1 Model2 BOSE System (not a model 1) is ideal to use for this venue. The Model 2 may be the best option for sound, due to the stone walls making it kind of gymnasium-like. Therefore, if you are looking at this hall, you may want to see if the BOSE L1 Model 2 is an option from your DJ.
This particular BOSE system (L1 Model2) has many, many small speakers (rather than one large one) that are tilted in many different directions and aligned into a sound bar-like position. This enables the speakers to send out a blanket of sound waves further at lower levels. This means you don’t have to crank the sound very loud to reach the back of the hall. What your DJ should probably do is turn the bass down a bit, as well, so that it doesn’t echo too much, as the acoustics in this hall will accentuate the bass that is already there.
In the end, Key Hall at Proctors is a good option where you can have your ceremony, cocktail hour and reception all in the same place.
Franklin Plaza of Troy, NY is located right across the street from Dinosaur BBQThe Franklin Plaza Banquet Hall is a great place to have a wedding, prom, or other high-end event demanding class.
I work as a DJ and often an event planner, so I am used to managing every detail of big events myself. If you choose to book the Franklin Plaza, hopefully you will agree that they do think about everything, as they did for the recent prom that I did there in June.
One thing I wanted to highlight now, is that they have their own in-house dance lights now at the Plaza. The hall manager, Greg Cushman, told me that they put their custom light show up only a few months ago, and spared no expense in components and installation. The LED lights with programmable DMX technology are a great extra bonus for booking the hall, with no charge to the customer and they are up high in the corners of the dance floor, out of sight.
I would give the place 4 and a half stars out of 5, subtracting only a half a star for the homeless guy that I think spit on my car in the parking lot, because I didn’t have time to listen to his sob story setting up. (If you see him, shoot me an email so I can knock the last two teeth out of his head.)
