Allentown’s Archer Music Hall Impresses In Inaugural Season With Cohesion PA Providing Sound

Archer Music Hall, located on bustling Hamilton Street in the heart of Allentown, offers a high-quality, intimate live music experience without the need to travel to larger cities. The 31,000-square-foot facility operated by Live Nation opened in March 2025 and hosts up to 1,600 in a well-appointed space that features luxe amenities, great sightlines to the stage, and a permanent Cohesion audio system for rich, all-over sound.

Clair Global Integration supplied the Cohesion PA and built all necessary racks for the venue. Officials have previously estimated that Archer Music Hall could host more than 200 shows in a variety of genres each year, totaling nearly a quarter-million ticket sales annually. The project was led by Live Nation Audiovisual and Technology Director Dustin Goen and is the first Live Nation venue of its size to feature a permanently installed Cohesion PA.

At a summer 2025 show headlined by Billy Corgan and the Machines of God, FOH Engineer Harley Zinker said, “I was thrilled to see the Cohesion install in Allentown. While this was different compared to my previous experience on Cohesion [mixing for Interpol at Mexico City’s central plaza in 2024], it showed its versatility across different sizes of venues and configurations. The mid-range has a presence and tonality that I enjoyed mixing on. I was able to get separation and definition between instruments in the same tonal range, and there was always plenty of headroom. It was easy to achieve a clear mix at the desired SPL.”

The main arrays of the PA consist of ten Cohesion CO10 left-right; the top six enclosures per side use 120° horizontal dispersion inserts for coverage on the second-floor mezzanine area, while the bottom four enclosures use 80° horizontal dispersion inserts for tighter coverage that focus on the general audience section without hitting the flanking bar areas.

Archer Music Hall features one of the first permanent installations of Cohesion CSB218i, eight of which are hidden under the stage. These subwoofers provide extremely high output and the same frequency response of the Cohesion CP218 II+ subwoofers used by many of the world’s top global tours at a fraction of the weight. The CSB218i uses remote rack-mounted amplifiers rather than power modules, which in permanent installations offers improved serviceability for venue owner-operators.

Archer Music Hall also showcases some of the first permanent installations of the CF Series of fill products. Seven Cohesion CF10 are mounted on yokes as under-balcony fill and four Cohesion CF28 are placed on stage as front fill.

The CF10 are positioned with two covering the bar area on either side of the stage and another three behind the FOH position to cover a raised platform that offers tables and chairs that overlook the GA section.

The CF28 carry the voicing of the CO10 arrays onto the ground for seamless, full-floor coverage, and their sleek form factor minimizes their silhouette on stage, maintaining precious sightlines for fans up front.

As Zinker expressed, “Cohesion allowed me to execute the vision of what the band’s songs should sound like. The set was dynamic and had quieter numbers along with big, loud ones, and the PA reacted well to both while staying tonally accurate. Sometimes, I hear a PA that sounds one way at a certain SPL but quite different at another. The install at Allentown was well-suited to the room and helped me achieve a sonic consistency.”

“More and more artists are recognizing the value of giving their fans a live experience that reflects the detail of their albums,” said Drew Harmon, Regional Vice President of Clair Global Integration. “This PA offers clarity and musicality with headroom to spare.”

The Billy Corgan and the Machines of God performance was packed with hundreds of spectators, and Zinker was pleased with how well the PA translated his mix to them: “The Cohesion system responded amazingly well to transients. I could hear subtle EQ changes I was making during the show on my Avid S6L, and I was very impressed with how responsive the system was to dynamic changes on my end. Engineers and fans are in for a great night at the Archer Music Hall.”

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