PRG Supports Cincinnati’s Projection Mapping and Light Show Installations
BLINK®, Illuminated by ArtsWave, is the nation’s largest light, art, and projection mapping experience. On October 13 – 16, BLINK was back with their first event since 2019, using much of Cincinnati, OH and Covington, KY as a canvas. Run by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce (Chamber), BLINK was a four-day, 30 city block, outdoor art experience that unites projection mapping and light-based installations with street art. During the event, video and lighting installations turned the city’s landmark buildings into ‘a techno cityscape of the future’, bringing existing artworks and architecture to life via lighting and projection mapping.
The Chamber estimates over 2,000,000 people attended the multiday experiential event that united many artists—from local to international—with local and international visitors alike. Back for the its third time, production solutions supplier PRG has served as BLINK’s Technical Partner since 2017. PRG provided this year’s enormous event with video, lighting, and audio support as well as a massive crew of designers, technicians, and labor to realize the organizers and artists vision.
BLINK’s Executive Director was Justin Brookhart of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the Executive Creative Director was Andrew Salzbrun of The Agar Company, and the Content Director was Ben Nicholson, a freelance content producer and Assistant Teaching Professor for Emerging Technologies in Business and Design (ETBD) department at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Nicholson was brought in by the Chamber to work with PRG as a liaison between PRG and the artists. In his role, he helped to get all of the content guidelines from PRG to the artists, and then check that content as it came in so that it would be more efficient when loading it into the media servers.
Nicholson also worked with Miami University’s College of Creative Arts students from the ETBD department who for the Hanke Building, in the Over the Rhine zone, created a piece as part of their Immersive and Reactive class. This installation used two Hippotizer Montane V4+ servers which fed two Barco UDX projectors to project a mix of video mapped colors that traced its architecture and washed it with splashes of graphical content and color.
Solutions Provider
As creative director Salzbrun noted, “As BLINK strives toward our shared vision for a FUTURE CITY, it takes an incredible team to run after that vision. From our production partners, who worked tirelessly over the last few months, to our sponsors who believed in a vision and supported it generously, and our community who showed up and created the magic that is BLINK, we say ‘thank you.’”
Alongside BLINK and their creative partners, PRG engineered and specified nearly all the installations that took place during the event. In its role as Technical Partner, PRG supported 32 of the 35 total artist installations throughout the two cities. For each of those installations, PRG provided everything from technology (lighting, video, and control) to logistics support, to event personnel to load-in, operate, and load-out the equipment at each site.
Their goal was to deliver the appropriate technologies to best execute each artist’s vision. As a part of the company’s scope of work, they also provided freelance designers that PRG contracted for the lighting-only installations. Lighting and video playback/operations via the media servers was also contracted through PRG.
With a PRG crew of over 30 for the event, the PRG team included Director of Solutions Engineering, Francesco Roggio; Senior Solutions Engineer, Scott Inukai; VP National Product, Video, Bryan Besterfeldt, and Senior Production Manager, Matt Hohmann. Roggio and Inukai led the team on site, coordinating the logistics and solutions. To manage the massive amount of gear and support technology, the BLINK team had PRG working out of Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark where the Major League Baseball Reds play ball. That location acted as the hub to disperse the gear and crews out across the many different sites, zones, and locations over the two cities.
“Along with Scott Inukai and Matt Holman, we had to figure out all of the logistics and custom engineering for 32 of the locations at BLINK this year,” explains PRG’s Roggio. “For all of the projection locations we did all of the pixel maps, all of the calculations to figure out where everything needed to go, and how to best cover the building to the artist’s direction, as well as what would look best for the building we were trying to project on. For the lighting locations, we figured out the equipment to use to spread out across the city to give a varied experience from site to site.”
Besterfeldt handled the point-to-point air fiber for wireless control at some of the BLINK installs. They used it to connect two MA Lighting grandMA consoles at one location, and for control of disguise media servers at another. Colton Lamoreaux, a technical project manager for PRG, handled some of the Mbox media server programming.
Key Equipment
On the video projection side, PRG supplied six disguise vx 4 media servers and six Hippo Boreal+ media servers along with 17 of its PRG Mbox Designer software dongles to control the media. Projectors included nearly 90 projectors from Barco, Panasonic, and Christie. To weatherproof the projector scaffold towers—and to make them more aesthetically pleasing, PRG designed and deployed a range of Scaffold Covers that zipped onto the scaffolds. “This actually came out of BLINK 2019 when we recapped the show and decided we needed an idea that was better and faster to deploy, but also easier to open every day,” explains Roggio. “To do that, our team designed custom covers built out of canvas. Then we hired GT Canvas Works in Traverse City, MI to build those covers for us. These purpose-designed covers save time and labor as the team doesn’t need to stay late covering the equipment and arriving early to uncover the projectors. Also, the reusable covers are eco-friendly and better for the environment than the plastic sheeting that used to be used to cover the projectors, which is single use and ends up in the trash every day. These new covers significantly reduce the impact on landfills.”
For the lighting installations, PRG supplied a range of MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles—both full-size and light models—as well as some MA OnPC Command Wings and NPUs. For networking, the team deployed nine of the PRG Virtuoso Super Nodes. There were over 450 moving lights—including 36 of the brand new Vari-Lite VL3600 IP Profiles, PRG Best Boy Spot HP and Best Boy Wash units, Elation Proteus Maximus and Proteus Rayzors, and CHAUVET Rogue Outcast luminaires. The count for conventionals like ellipsoidals, Fresnels, strobes, and linear wash lights was over 130.
In terms of what was unique this year in terms of equipment, Roggio says, “We have a lot of IP65 rated fixtures that we haven’t had in years past. This was our first project with the new IP65 rated VL3600 Profiles and they worked great.” Lighting Designer Jonathan Garbarz used the VL3600s as a part of the design for the Kenton County Library in the BLINK Covington Zone. It’s an architecturally distinct building that provided a blank canvass for lighting effects. “On the projection side, we are all laser projection this year, which we were not in years past,” adds Roggio. In keeping with BLINK’s mission to reduce the event’s carbon footprint, PRG provided LED fixtures and laser projectors with lower power consumption.
Production Challenges
There are a number of technical challenges that need to be addressed and solved for an event like this. PRG’s Inukai speaks to some of these challenges they faced with this year’s BLINK. “Number one is that it’s outside and that always presents its own special challenges. When you build structures inside, you don’t have to factor in wind, you don’t have to factor in ambient light—like the lamp pole that’s 50’ down the road shining a light on your wall. These are all things that you don’t have to worry about when you’re doing things inside in a controlled environment. When you start taking things outside, that changes the equation for everything. Challenge number two is you’re projecting on the sides of buildings, so it’s not a flat projection surface. It’s kind of the ‘in’ thing now, so it’s obviously very popular and can be done, but it’s not a projection screen, so that has to be considered as well. Lastly, it’s the scale. BLINK was spread out over 30 city blocks in two cities.”
Projecting Lumens
One of the particularly challenging buildings this year, in terms of projection mapping, was the American Building in the Over the Rhine zone. 2D and 3D animation and VFX artist Sean Van Praage created the art piece entitled, To The Moon that would map the American Building. “The challenge was due to its size, its height, and its location in the city with a major road in front of it, a very narrow parking lot, and with no nearby buildings to use for projection,” Roggio comments. “The only place we could erect the structure was 140’ from the building, so we had to go with a shorter—35’ high—scaffolding than we would like to put projectors in. In order to get the structure where we needed it, we designed a custom structure to go in the scaffolding to tilt the projectors up to shoot the top of the building.”
Green Hippo’s US Sales Manager Tim Riley worked on four of the projection installations that used Hippotizer media servers. Alongside Tyler Roach of Chicago-based Eclipse Creativity, Riley helped source, set up, and program. “Tyler was instrumental in programming the Hippotizer servers for PRG,” says Riley. “As an owner-operator of a fleet of Hippotizers, Tyler is a long-standing provider to PRG and a real asset in regard to delivering the Hippotizers as a solution to this event. In addition, PRG had Bryan Besterfeldt on projection mapping engineering duties. Bryan has amazing capabilities and manages a myriad of challenges—not to mention the demands of working in a very public, city center space. The Green Hippo team is beyond proud to have been involved in the BLINK events, which immersed the streets in light and video, and we’d like to thank the teams involved and congratulate the artists on an incredible, memorable event.”
This year’s BLINK was the largest yet, growing ever larger each year. PRG was proud to be able to support BLINK, the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, and all of the artists. They were particularly pleased that this year they were able to expand their scope of providing the right equipment paired with the knowledgeable team and crew to support the various projection and lighting installations. “I think PRG’s unique approach to partnering with the client, as well as the artists, and then putting the right people on the job is what really lets us bring a unique aspect to BLINK,” sums up Roggio. “We have engineers and projection experts and lighting experts who can all consult with the artists and the client to benefit both of them and bring a total package to the party.”
The Executive Director of BLINK, Justin Brookhart, was very pleased with the results, stating, “What an incredible weekend for public art and community in the Cincinnati region. We are so honored to have shared BLINK with residents and visitors to Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. We want to thank the artists, partners, and sponsors who truly made BLINK possible. We are proud to have BLINK back at the quality and scale the region deserves and look forward to what’s next.”
PRG Team
- Director Solutions Engineering: Francesco Roggio
- Senior Solutions Engineer: Scott Inukai
- VP National Product, Video: Bryan Besterfeldt
- Senior Production Manager: Matt Hohmann
- Technical Directors: Mark Stanger, William Pile, Sayyid Baksh, Bob Nealy, Josh Alberts, Jim Shepard
- Projectionists: Francisco Hernandez, Rob DuPont, Richard Sands, Rob Altman
- Lighting Designers: Sean McGrath, Jonathan Garbarz, David Seitz, Cletus Karamon
- Production Electrician: Mike Mustica
- Electricians: Dave Harr, Phil Trusky, Eric Kasprisin
- Head Carpenter: Greg Zenz
- Carpenter: Walter Hoffman
- Media Server Programmers: Colton Lamoreaux, Keith Rose, Tyler Roach, Adam Fontana
- Production Coordinator: Luke Sorensen
Gear
Lighting
- 6 MA Lighting grandMA2 full size Console
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 light Console
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 OnPC Command Wing
- 1 MA Lighting grandMA2 NPU
- 9 PRG Virtuoso Super Node
- 136 PRG Best Boy Spot HP
- 131 PRG Best Boy Wash
- 36 Vari-Lite VL3600 Profile IP
- 36 Elation Proteus Maximus IP
- 36 Elation Proteus Rayzor 760 IP
- 34 Elation Volt Q5E IP
- 26 CHAUVET Rogue Outcast IP
- 18 Claypaky A.leda B-EYE K10
- 16 ARRI 10” 5K Fresnel
- 31 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal
- 8 Chroma-Q Color Force 12
- 4 Chroma-Q Color Force 48
- 49 Chroma-Q Color Force 72
- 19 TMB Solaris Flare
- 6 SGM P-1 Wash
Video
- 6 disguise vx 4 Media Server
- 6 Green Hippo Hippotizer Boreal V4+ Media Server
- 2 Green Hippo Hippotizer Montane V4+ Media Server
- 17 PRG Mbox Designer Software Dongle V4
- 57 Barco UDX-4K32 Laser Projector
- 8 Barco UDX-4K40 Laser Projector
- 1 Barco UDX-4K22 Laser Projector
- 5 Barco HDX-W20 Projector
- 3 Christie Boxer 4K30 Projector
- 12 Panasonic PT-RZ21K Projector
- 3 Panasonic PT-RZ970 Laser Projector
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