I plan the patio and the hall as two setups with one handoff, because the park district that runs the Brazilian Room in Berkeley allows amplified sound outdoors for only the first 90 minutes of an event. I DJ and MC your retreat, wedding or party, from the flagstone patio to the last song indoors.
The Brazilian Room started as Brazil's pavilion at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. Brazil gave it to the park district as a gift of friendship, the WPA built its permanent English-style exterior in Tilden Regional Park, and it was dedicated in 1941. The hardwood paneling inside came from the pavilion.
Today it's a rental hall run by the East Bay Regional Park District (officially the Brazilian Room at Tilden Regional Park), at Wildcat Canyon Road and Shasta Road in the Berkeley hills. Central Berkeley is a short drive away. It doesn't feel like it. The hall sits among pine, oak and eucalyptus, with the Botanic Garden next door, and the setting is wooded and quiet.
Wood walls and a hardwood floor reflect sound, so speaker placement counts for more than volume. The windows and doors open straight onto the patio, so an event can move between outside and in without anyone hiking. And the district's rules set the clock, outdoors and at the end of the night. More on both below.
Hardwood paneling, a hardwood floor, a fireplace and tall windows into the trees. The room has its own screen, projector, speakers, microphone and podium. In my 2017 photos here, the booth sits at the fireplace with a speaker on each side and the floor open for dancing.
About 40 by 42 feet with an extension, right outside the hall's doors. Ceremonies and cocktail hours tend to land here. I bring a second setup out (one of my photos shows it under the tree), aimed at the guests and back toward the building, as the rules ask.
A sloping lawn around the building, good for mingling and portraits. Tables and chairs stay off the grass and nothing gets staked into it, so I keep stands and gear on the flagstones and cover the lawn from the patio.
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is adjacent, and the district rents it as a separate add-on for photos and ceremonies, with its own limits. If your ceremony is in the garden, tell me early. It changes where the ceremony sound goes and how it gets there.
The Brazilian Room is simple to look at and specific to work in.
With 90 minutes of amplified sound outdoors, the patio gets its own speaker and wireless mic for a ceremony, a welcome or cocktail hour, and the main rig is live in the hall. When the outdoor window closes, the music is already waiting indoors. When that window starts is the first thing I ask the district.
Parking is a short walk from the hall, and nothing can arrive early or be stored. Everything loads in and out inside your reservation. I arrive early in that window, pack so the gear rolls in a few trips, and count load-out into the plan so it doesn't run past your contracted time.
Paneled walls and a hardwood floor send sound back at you. In my photos here the booth sits at the fireplace with a speaker on each side, which suits a room 32 by 54 feet. Dinner music stays at a level you can talk over. Outdoors, sound should carry no more than about 50 feet, so the patio stays close and clear.
Music has to be fully off at least an hour before your reservation ends, so guests can leave and cleanup can start. That's the district's rule. I build the timeline back from that point. Toasts and the big moments land early, the floor gets its full stretch, and the last song is the one you chose.
A park district hall gives you a building, a patio and a rulebook. The event itself still needs someone running the music and the microphone. That part I take. Before the day we go through a planning questionnaire and calls, your must-plays and do-not-plays, and the order of everything. By the time I arrive, I already know your event inside and out.
On the day I'm the MC as well as the DJ. I call guests in from the patio, make every announcement, introduce the toasts and watch the clock so you can stay in the room. At a wedding that includes lining up the processional and cueing the first dance. I carry backup equipment, and if something goes sideways, most hosts never find out. The questions below are the ones I put to the rental office before your date. I ask. I don't guess.
The hall is paneled in Brazilian hardwood, and dark wood drinks light. Uplighting along the walls would bring the grain back out after sunset. Dance-floor lighting would turn the open hardwood into the center of the night, and a monogram or pattern projection is there if you want your mark on the room.
The hall's rules don't allow anything nailed, taped or attached to surfaces, so everything I'd use here stands on the floor and leaves no trace. You choose lighting in the instant estimate, and I check with the venue what's allowed before the day.
The district rents this hall for weddings, parties and business retreats, and it suits all three. A company retreat can use the room's screen and projector by day and turn into a dinner and a dance floor by evening. Milestone birthdays, rehearsal dinners, holiday parties, fundraisers and mitzvahs fit the same way: dinner at the tables, then the floor.
Daytime events work here too, brunch celebrations included. For a host who wants a sound more than a program, a Selector Session is a set of my own programming for a welcome party, a dinner or an after-party. And the Journey, a live sound bath that flows into a facilitated ecstatic dance, can be its own event here or one part of a longer day.
Every room, from Napa Valley to the coast, is on the rooms list.
Your date, the kind of event, and how you picture the patio and the hall being used. The instant estimate gives you a price in a couple of minutes, or book a short call and we'll talk it through.
