PHILADELPHIA – There were Spyders in the house at Budweiser’s Made In America Festival in Philadelphia on Labor Day weekend with 100,000 or so people turning out to hear Jay-Z and Pearl Jam. Austin, TX-based J3 Productions LLC selected Vista Spyders to pixel map LED content and handle live background media on the main stage during the two-day concert series.
More details from Vista Systems (http://www.vistasystems.net):
PHILADELPHIA – There were Spyders in the house at Budweiser’s Made In America Festival in Philadelphia on Labor Day weekend with 100,000 or so people turning out to hear Jay-Z and Pearl Jam. Austin, TX-based J3 Productions LLC selected Vista Spyders to pixel map LED content and handle live background media on the main stage during the two-day concert series on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Jay-Z headlined the first night of the Made In America festival performing for 90 minutes before a crowd estimated at nearly 50,000; Pearl Jam led off the second night with a two-hour set for fans. The festival benefited United Way.
A long-time Spyder user, J3 didn’t think twice before choosing the system for the media-rich main stage. “Spyder is the most powerful and versatile high-resolution pixel mapping system on the market today,” says J3 applications engineer John Mims III. “We have been using Spyder since 2006 and have been on the cutting edge of this technology evolution.”
J3 deployed three Spyder X20 1608 systems running in parallel to meet the challenge of mapping more than 1,700 LED panels that formed the backdrop for the main concert stage and to handle the live background media displayed. “Spyder was a great choice for its mapping and live control abilities,” says Mims. “By running the three systems in parallel we could map the outputs to LED processors to create one virtual image. A total of 12 media servers were used to stream content through the Spyders to paint one large contiguous image at 11520×2160 resolution.”
The LED panels were configured as a pair of tall vertical panels that flanked the stage and sprouted upswept wings evoking the iconic symbol of America – and the beer brand’s logo. A thin ribbon of LED panels also ran across the top of the stage. The LEDs displayed IMAG and other graphical images that lit up the night and supported the musical performances on stage.
