At the Asian Art Museum, my gear can reach the loading dock hours before I'm allowed into the room. I plan the whole build around that gap, then run the music, the microphone and the timeline so you can simply be at your own event.
The Asian Art Museum sits at 200 Larkin Street in San Francisco's Civic Center, across from City Hall. It opened in 1917 as the city's Main Library, a Beaux-Arts building with travertine walls, columns and barrel-vaulted ceilings inside. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the building was rebuilt, and the museum opened here in 2003 with a new glass-skylit court inside.
So an event here happens inside a working museum. More than 20,000 objects live in this building, the public has to be out before a party can come in, and all decor goes past the rentals department first. That shapes the day more than anything else.
The museum's rental FAQ has vendors unloading at the loading dock from 2 p.m., with no access to the event spaces until 5:15 p.m., once the building is cleared and closed to the public. Load-in is early. Setup is late.
The museum's principal formal room: travertine walls, columns, a very high ceiling and big windows. It's used for receptions, seated dinners and large celebrations. I check levels in the room before doors, so dinner stays easy to talk over and the dancing still has weight.
A barrel-vaulted, columned gallery overlooking the grand staircase, beside Samsung Hall. It's offered for cocktails, ceremonies and entrances, and the usual order of an evening runs through it: cocktails on the Loggia, then dinner and dancing next door in Samsung Hall. Anything spoken on the stair, vows or a host's welcome, gets its own small setup: a speaker toward your guests and a wireless mic.
Two contemporary courts under glass ceilings, next to the special exhibition galleries, long known as the North and South Courts. The museum offers them for presentations, cocktails, dinners, ceremonies and dancing. A presentation that turns into a party needs a clean mic first, then a real dance system.
Behind the museum's restaurant, a smaller lounge with a quiet garden. It suits an intimate dinner, a networking hour or a VIP room, and events there start no earlier than 6 p.m. Here I keep the rig compact and the music conversational.
Up top, an outdoor terrace added with the museum's new pavilion. The museum's guidelines put outdoor sound under the city's permits and sound ordinances, event by event. So a set up there starts with the permit, and I take that to the rentals department myself.
A museum sets the terms, and I'd rather know them cold than find out on the day.
I confirm the dock time and the room time for your date. Then I arrive early, stage everything at the dock and on the lower level, and build in a set order the moment the rooms open, so the sound is checked before your first guest walks in. The museum sets aside education studios as a green room and storage for the evening, so my empty cases never sit in a corner of your event.
The grand staircase and Samsung Hall sit side by side, so a ceremony or a welcome on the stair can flow straight into the reception or dinner. I run a second setup at the stair so every word carries, vows or remarks. When people turn toward the hall, the music is already playing there.
Your night ends when you choose. The museum's standard rental hours are the limit I already work inside: midnight for weddings and private events, 10:30 p.m. for corporate and non-profit events. I plan the timeline to the end time you pick, so the dance floor gets its full stretch.
New vendors are asked to schedule a walkthrough and to talk through setup, teardown and electrical needs during planning. Whatever the rentals department needs from me, I take care of it directly. The museum rents in-house A/V of its own and also lets hosts bring audiovisual services through their own vendor, which is how I work here. My estimate asks about power up front, so an outlet that isn't where I need it never comes as a surprise.
A museum has more rules than a hotel ballroom, and that's fair. There's art in the building. But none of those rules should land on you the week of your event. I take the music questions to the rentals department myself and fold the answers into the plan.
Before the day, a planning questionnaire and our calls give me your timeline, your must-plays, your do-not-plays and the exact versions of the songs you love. On the day I'm the MC: the entrances, the toasts, the cue that moves everyone from the stair to the hall, the last song. I carry backup equipment, and if a mic or a cable acts up, I've already switched. Most clients never hear about it.
The uplighting in these photos is mine. Amber on one stone column and blue-violet on the others, either side of the bronze doorway where my booth sat. The red lights on the stand beside the booth are my dance-floor lighting, and once the dancing started I washed the whole hall purple. Pale stone takes color well, so a few fixtures at the base of the columns change the room without moving a single table.
Color is your call. Uplighting, dance-floor lighting, pin spots and a monogram or pattern projection are each an add-on in my instant estimate. The museum's rentals department approves all decor, so I clear the lighting plan with them first.
The museum rents its rooms for weddings, anniversaries and private celebrations, and also for corporate events, non-profit evenings, meetings and presentations. Launch parties and formal seated dinners fit here too, and the galleries can be opened for private tours while the event runs.
I play all of those. A company holiday party in the courts. An awards dinner where the program needs a clear microphone and the right song after it. A milestone birthday. A mitzvah. And if you want a sound more than a program, a Selector Session is a set of my own programming for a cocktail hour, a dinner or an after-party.
Clubs, festival stages and every venue from Napa Valley to the coast are on one page: Places I've played.
Your date, the rooms you're considering and the feeling you want in them. Get an instant estimate in a couple of minutes, or book a short call. I'll take it from there.
