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EDC’s Circuit Grounds Stage Comes Alive with SJ Lighting and AG Production Services

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LAS VEGAS, NV – The Electric Daisy Carnival, (EDC) produced by Insomniac, returned to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to celebrate its 20th year of providing high energy dance music in a community of love, respect, and togetherness. EDC took over the infield of the speedway June 17-19, 2016, with attendees taking in 300 DJs from sunset to sunrise each day. Producer  Pasquale Rotella of Insomniac once again put together another visual spectacle that spanned the vast grounds and was enjoyed by the huge crowds in attendance.

More details from AG Production (www.ag.tc):

For the seventh year, AG Production Services helped light up the Electric Sky for EDC.  Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting was the production and lighting designer tasked with bringing the Circuit Grounds Stage to life. “For this year’s design, I had two goals: First, the grounds needed to accommodate twice as many people as last year. Second, I wanted to create a 360-degree environment that surrounded the crowd and made them a part of the experience,” says Lieberman.

A pillar of the EDC community is togetherness and a sense of unity. Lieberman accentuated that philosophy by creating an environment where everyone comes together as one. “The design was meant to feel like you are walking into something monolithic, almost like walking into the Colosseum. The grand scale made individuals feel small, but as a collective, they experienced the music as one,” adds Lieberman.

Structure

AG Production Services provided the entire structure, staging, lighting, and video for the massive 240,000 square foot arena-style stage and surrounding structures. The main stage alone measured 240’ wide with the center stage structure peaking at 88’ above the ground. Eight curved truss bridges spanning 98’ loomed over the audience and encircled the stage grounds. They connected to eight, 75’ high towers on either side of the audience grounds.

Video

The upstage wall was made up of 10 video panels of various sized screens, all using over 7400 square feet of AG 8mm video panels. Facing the front of the DJ booth were 201 square feet of AG 5mm video panels. Each of the eight towers in the house used a total of 6,800 square feet of AG 37mm video panels, with two screens per tower. The backbone of the video network relied on three Analog Way Ascender 48 units to distribute and manage the two, 4K pixel maps and video content inputs from the various guest VJs and house VJ, Vello Virkhaus.

Lighting

Lighting is a key element to providing an immersive environment for any production. “For the Circuit Ground Stage, I took full advantage of the surrounding structure. Lighting was placed on almost every available space throughout the entire grounds,” notes Lieberman. “All of the linear LED fixtures, strobes, and blinders were placed in a way that helped highlight and accentuate the shapes of the environment while also creating symmetrical looks and movement in the 360-degree space.”

Upstage and directly behind the DJ, Lieberman included an 8×3 panel wall of Edison 25 light fixtures from Doug Fleenor Design. The Edison wall consisted of 600, 25 watt tungsten lamps that produced low res content to highlight and define the DJ.

Each of the video walls throughout the entire space was lined with Elation Color Chorus 72 LED stripes, Elation CUEPIX 2 lite blinders, and Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes. All of the towers within the house included an alternating pattern of Robe Robin BMFL Spots and Robe Robin Pointes. This setup was replicated on the bridges connecting each of the towers, plus the Vari-lite VL3500 Wash.

On stage, the vertical trusses between the video panels included Robe Robin Pointes and Robe Robin BMFL WashBeams. Each of the four onstage audio towers were hung with 8 Vari-Lite VL 3500 Washes.

Controlling the 99 universes of lighting were two MA Lighting grandMA2 Full Size and 13 MA Lighting NPUs. The backbone of the entire network ran over fiber optic to ensure fast connection speeds and quick response times for programming changes.

“It takes a small army to execute a project of such scale,” says Andrew Gumper, president of AG Production Services. “It was an all hands on deck approach that made it possible to bring Steve’s unique vision to life,” adds Gumper. “I’ve worked with Andrew and his crew for years,“ says Lieberman. “They know what I expect and deliver every time.”

Plots and Rendering Courtesy of AG Production Services

All Photo Credits: Adam Kaplan, ASK Media Productions

Crew

Producer – Pasquale Rotella – Insomniac

Production & Lighting Designer – Steve Lieberman – SJ Lighting

SJ Lighting Associates – Maxwell Robin, Ben Rehm

Account Rep – Andrew Gumper

Production Manager – Koen De Puysseleir

Front of House Management – James Watral, Justin Lang, Andrzej Lubaszka

Master Electricians – Paul Cottrell Jr., Kyle Cottrell

Lighting Crew – Jeramy Morin, Chris Wright, Todd Babcock, Michael Gallagher, Chris “Blanche” Harshfield

Riggers: Shaun Davila, Chung “Mitsubishi” Kuo, Javier Medina Ballesteros, Christian Burdette, Patrick Roll

House VJ – Vello Virkhaus

Video Lead – Andrew Sclafani, Sandra Pozan, Robert Allen Jones Jr.

Video Techs – Alessandro Parayuelos , Shawn Shannon, Patrick Hartung, Jenn Wolfe, Matt Lake

Labor Company – James Thomas Productions

Engineering – Tim Franklin- Theta Consulting

Gear List

Lighting

2          MA Lighting grandMA2 Full Size

1          MA Lighting grandMA2 Light

13        MA Lighting NPU

88        Robe Robin BMFL Spot

38        Robe Robin BMFL WashBeam

212      Robe Robin Pointe

64        Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash

292      Elation ColorChorus 72

398      Elation Opti Tri 30

156      Elation CUEPIX Blinder WW2

156      Martin Atomic 3000

122      Chauvet COLORband PiX

4          Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330

32        Element Krypton KR-25

28        Element Krypton KR-10

24        Doug Fleenor Design Edison 5×5 Tungsten Panel

12        Antari M10 Fogger

6          Base Hazer

Video

3          Analogy Way Ascender 48-4k

4          Analogy Way Vio4k

8          Analogy Way TeraVio

1          Analogy Way AW Shotbox

5000’   Fiber Optic Cable

201sqft            AG 5mm Video Panel (DJ Booth)

7400sqft          AG 8mm Video Panel (On Stage)

465sqft            AG 10mm Video Panel (Front of House)

6800sqft          AG 37mm Video Panel (House Towers)

Structure & Staging

3,568’  20.5 x 20.5 Truss

7,250’  12”x12” Truss

3,500,000 lbs  Concrete Ballast

156      1 Ton CM Loadstar motor

50        ½ Ton CM Loadstar Motor