The Great Saltair

The Great Saltair is a concert and events venue on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Magna, Utah, around 15 miles west of Salt Lake City. The present building is the third major pavilion to carry the Saltair name. The original resort opened on 8 June 1893 and became one of Utah’s most popular recreational destinations, with a vast Moorish-inspired pavilion built over the lake, a dance hall, bathing facilities, amusement rides and other attractions. After the original pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1925, Saltair II was constructed at the same site but struggled with fires, the Great Depression and increasingly unpredictable lake levels before closing in 1958 and being destroyed by arson in 1970. The present Saltair III was built in 1981 approximately a mile west of the original location, using a relocated aircraft hangar as the structural core and adding a façade inspired by the earlier Moorish buildings. Rising waters flooded the new pavilion during the 1980s, at one point leaving its main floor beneath several feet of water. After the lake receded, the property was purchased and restored, reopening as a concert venue on 8 June 1993, exactly one hundred years after the first Saltair opened.

The Great Saltair has appeared in Neon City (1991), Josh and S.A.M. (1993) and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005). The present Saltair III building has represented a fortified post-apocalyptic settlement, an abandoned roadside landmark and part of a fictional reservation community. It should not be confused with Saltair II, the earlier pavilion used extensively in Carnival of Souls (1962), which was destroyed by fire in 1970.

In Neon City (1991), The Great Saltair becomes Jericho, a fortified human outpost in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of 2053. Bounty hunter Harry Stark arrives there with Reno, a fugitive he has captured, and meets his former commanding officer Captain Raymond. Raymond explains that Stark must transport Reno to Neon City before he can collect the bounty and asks him to accompany a group travelling there aboard an armoured transport. The Saltair III pavilion provides the striking exterior of Jericho, its isolated position beside the Great Salt Lake and unusual Moorish-inspired façade fitting naturally into the film’s ruined future landscape. Much of the first section of the film is set at the outpost as the principal travellers are introduced before departing across the wasteland. The building was still in a neglected condition when filming took place in early 1991, roughly two years before it reopened as a concert venue, which meant relatively little alteration was needed to make it appear as a battered settlement surviving after ecological collapse.

In Josh and S.A.M. (1993), The Great Saltair appears during the Utah section of the brothers’ cross-country journey towards Canada. Josh and his younger brother Sam have run away after becoming convinced that they are in serious trouble and are travelling with teenage hitchhiker Alison. The then largely neglected Saltair III is used as a prominent landmark as the story passes through the area west of Salt Lake City, with the production showing both the exterior and the cavernous interior of the pavilion. At the time of filming in 1992, Saltair had not yet undergone the restoration that would reopen it as a concert venue the following year, so the building appears considerably more deserted and run-down than it does today. Contemporary coverage of Josh and S.A.M. (1993) specifically singled out Saltair as one of the film’s prominent Utah locations, and Thomas Newman’s score even contains a piece titled “Saltwater Palace” associated with this part of the journey.

In The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005), The Great Saltair was used for several substantial sequences in the fictional reservation town of Lake Ravasu. The film follows ex-convict Jimmy Cuervo, who is murdered together with his girlfriend Lily by Luc Crash and his Satanic gang before being resurrected by the supernatural Crow. Saltair’s vast event space and isolated position beside the Great Salt Lake were incorporated into material surrounding Rave-N Fest and the planned Raven Aztec Casino, one of the central gathering places in the community. Jimmy eventually arrives at Rave-N Fest while pursuing Luc’s gang, kills Famine and confronts Luc, who shoots the crow and temporarily strips Jimmy of his supernatural protection. Tanner then confronts Jimmy over Lily’s murder before Jimmy forces him to see what really happened. Local records of filmmaking in Magna describe The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005) as containing several lengthy sequences at Saltair, making it a considerably more extensive use of the current building than its appearance in Josh and S.A.M. (1993).

---