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Ultra Music Festival photo by Ask Media

Ultra Music Festival Lights Up Miami

The 13th Ultra Music Festival drew 150,000 revelers to downtown Miami’s waterfront Bicentennial Park in late March, expanding for the first time to a three-day format. The event, which has developed a huge following among ravers, techno and electric music fans, featured more than 300 DJs and numerous bands performing on six stages.

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Cheap Trick photo by Ross Dettman

Neat Tricks for Cheap Trick

If you ever needed proof that good things come in small packages…

For a six-week, 12-show run at Potawatomi Bingo Casino’s Northern Lights Theater earlier this year, Cheap Trick put on a show that was anything but standard. The front half of the show re-created their Dream Police album aurally as well as visually (think white, think low lying haze). Plenty of musicians were on stage to augment the band: professionals from the Milwaukee Symphony sat in as the “Bombastic Symphonic Philharmonic with the Rhythmic Noise Mind Choir,” which allowed the recreation of album’s orchestral arrangements. The second half of the show pulled from hits from the band’s long career.

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Out of the Rabbit Hole

Are we still in an economic recession? I have asked that question to a number of people within the industry. Answers have been running the spectrum from “Yes” to “What recession?” We can sit here and debate whether or not we are, but the fact is, people are starting to spend money again. Tours and productions are going full tilt and requesting more and more production technology.

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That Championship Season photo by Joan Marcus

“That Championship Season:” Revival and Renewal

Despite the extensive experience one can have working on Broadway shows, there is always something new to learn, and sometimes the seemingly simplest things become the most difficult to tackle. Scenic designer Michael Yeargan has well over three decades of experience in theatre and opera, and when he began working on the current revival of That Championship Season in late 2010, the initial challenge seemed to be the quick turnaround that was needed.

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Celine Dion photo by Gerard Schachmes

Celine is Back at the Colosseum

After five years, over 700 performances and 3 million spectators packing the 4,000-seat Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Celine Dion triumphantly closed her show, A New Day, on December 15, 2007. Three years later — after a year and a half on tour, and giving birth to twins, Celine returned.

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Marnie Styles and Adrian Segeren, Ultratec Special Effects

Ultratec Special Effects

Our industry is very visual. We use light to help alter the beholder’s perception of what is going on right in front of them. A single shaft of light and a dark stage, stunning aerials bouncing across the stage — these examples are common practices of capturing the audience’s eye and intensifying their experience.

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Scenex Lighting LED Base4 Truss Toner

LED Base4 Truss Toner

German Light Products, long a world leader in innovative LED products, has built the first lighting fixture designed to actually work as a truss toner — the LED Base4 Truss Toner that’s marketed under GLP’s Scenex Lighting brand. The unique 8-inch-square-by-four-inch-deep body fits snugly into all 12-inch box truss and is designed with 12 individual tri-colored LEDs surrounding the outside of the 8-inch face plate.

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Media Servers: Features for Stand-Alone Operation

Media servers are popping up on a wide range of permanent and semi-permanent installations including airports, theme parks and public buildings these days. The demands of these applications require these systems to integrate and control media distribution, projection, lighting, sound and more. Controlling a range of elements in a project such as a moving set tracked by video projection all but requires a central remote control.

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