Princess Cruises plans on captivating its audience.
If you have ever thought about taking a cruise in the Mediterranean, now might be the best time to start planning for it. Why? Because Princess Cruises’ new flagship, the Emerald Princess, recently set sail from Rome, Italy, and in the process launched a new era in cruise ship entertainment production.
The 113,000-ton Emerald Princess provides many entertainment venues for its 3500 passengers, including a state-of-the-art production theatre, two discos, one cabaret and multiple lounges located throughout various locations on the nineteen decks. All of these entertainment options mean that passengers get to see a wide variety of performers and shows. And the main theatre, named the Princess Theatre, is a groundbreaking step for Princess Cruises. With this ship, Princess Cruises’ Entertainment Department design staff decided to try a few new things and incorporate some of the latest video technoogy into the theatre.
On each ship in the Princess Cruises line, a standard multipurpose lighting package is specified for maximum flexibility and to provide options for many different types of shows that are staged in the main theatre. This lighting package already includes a large assortment of automated and conventional lighting fixtures such as High End Systems Wholehog III, Cyberlights, Studio Colors, x.Spots, Color Pros, Catalyst, two orbital mirror heads, Martin Wizards, MA Lighting grandMA console with grandMA media and rack controller, Mainlight Soft LED curtain and ETC Expression 3 console. As each new ship that is built grows in size, so does the theatre, and the lighting package gets refined and updated as necessary. With the Emerald Princess, Princess Cruises’ entertainment staff decided to add a variety of video sources into the already substantial lighting rig to provide many new options for staging three brand new shows amid several shows being imported from other ships in the Princess line. This variety in the rig provides tremendous flexibility for the staging of the different production shows as well as for the numerous individual guest performances that occur during a cruise.
Several new productions will be making their debut in the Princess Theatre, including I Got the Music and the video heavy Boogie Shoes, a first for Princess Cruises’ productions. Boogie Shoes is a full-on Broadway-style production centered around shoes, and it covers the subject matter thoroughly through the choice of songs (Goody Two Shoes, Boogie Shoes, Shine on Your Shoes, to name a few), costumes (shoes and costumes range from tap shoes to ballet shoes to KISS-style rock’n’roll boots) and the use of custom video content. Each number in the show is distinctive, and its mood is established through the use of video imagery incorporated into an otherwise simple and clean set. Three large oval-shaped projection screens, along with three drops, a scrim, a soft LED curtain and a performer’s dress are used as projection surfaces at various times during the 51-minute show. This new level of production quality showcases Princess Cruises’ dedication to providing its passengers with shows that rival similar style productions they might see in a place like Las Vegas.
Club Fusion and Skywalkers Nightclub, the two discos on the Emerald Princess, are no less technologically impressive. Both feature a substantial lighting rig of Technobeams, Wizards, LEDs and Atomics strobes, but the atmosphere in these clubs is enhanced through the use of video content being controlled via two Hippotizers from Green Hippo. By using media servers in these public spaces, the operator is able to play back content ranging from abstract atmospheric clips to the day’s drink specials on no less than 20 plasma screens located throughout each of the venues. Princess Cruises’ use of media servers in the nightclubs is a flexible method of changing the environment daily as well as an ingenious way of keeping the passengers informed of promotions and announcements.
As Princess Cruises’ fleet of ships continues to grow, it is refreshing to note that the staff of production personnel behind the scenes continues to look for ways to provide their customers with fun, enjoyable and creative productions while they continue to make improvements in the production quality of these shows. The audience may be a captive one on a cruise ship, but they are no less demanding, and their expectations are just as high as to what they enjoy seeing. It is the theatres and cabaret stages on these cruise ships that provide the guests with many of the memories they take home with them. And thanks to the forward thinking of the entertainment staff at Princess Cruises, the venues onboard the Emerald Princess will be making sure that those memories are happy ones.
Vickie Claiborne is a freelance lighting director, programmer and trainer. She can be reached at vclaiborne@plsn.com.
