High rollers ring in the New Year with a visual feast at Bellagio Las Vegas.
How do you impress some of the world’s wealthiest VIPs in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve? You throw one major party, and you spare no expense. The Bellagio knows how to throw just such a party and in a big way.
Designer J.J. Wulf, who has designed lighting systems for these parties at the Bellagio for the last six years, assembled a dream list of equipment for this once-a-year extravaganza thrown just for the Bellagio Resort’s favorite guests. J.J., fellow lighting programmer Tim Grivas and myself worked together to create an environment that would entice the eye and please the senses. Everywhere you looked, your eye was bombarded with lush images and rich colors, and even the backs of the chairs were illuminated with LEDs to capture this year’s theme, “Glo.”
Video Walls
The DL.2 fixtures were the primary source of video imagery in the room. There were four main video walls around the room, and the DL.2s were arranged in two groups of nine and two groups of four to create grids of 3 x 3 and 2 x 2. The collage generator in the DL.2 fixture played a very important role for the overall look of the show, and it was used throughout the evening, alternating images of abstract graphics, realistic images like fire and water, and sensual images of shadow dancers. As the evening progressed toward midnight, the imagery became more adult and highlighted the dance performances that were choreographed to themes titled “The Glo of Love,” “The Glo of Lust” and “The Glo of Life.”
In addition to the DL.2 video walls, HD LED screens mounted on each end of eight video “chandeliers” provided additional video sources and served as the evening’s countdown to midnight. Each “chandelier” consisted of dozens of Color Blast LED fixtures running the length of two sides, with multiple Versa Tubes along the bottom. A High End Systems Axon media server provided the video signal for these LED fixtures, and the signal was mapped to match pixel resolution across the two different sources via the Pixel Mad system. A single image was mapped to all three sides of the rectangular cubed chandeliers through the careful alignment of each pixel and the appropriate scaling of each layer, which was not an easy task considering the difference in the resolution between Color Blast LEDs and Versa Tubes.
Room Elements
J.J. Wulf’s vision also included a way to light the entire room from indirect sources, and it involved mounting 170 Color Blast LEDS inside of semi-opaque square cubes and stacking them in asymmetrical heights around the perimeter of the room. When these scenic elements were illuminated, the entire roomed glowed, and the mood was altered according to the action in the room at the time. J.J.’s goal was to capture the attention of the audience every time the cubes changed color, so we programmed a series of warm-cool-warm-cool alternating cues, purposefully matching the colors to the video images being projected by the DL.2s on the video walls. To add additional energy to the dance party and high-powered production numbers of the evening, we also created pulsing chases and intensity effects with the Color Blasts and used them to create a room full of dynamic energy in every possible cubic inch of the space.
If you read the gear list, you will notice there were not many “conventional” automated lighting fixtures in the rig. In fact, the ones that were in the rig were mainly utility fixtures used to add movement and energy in the audience and on the stage, while the Color Blast cubes and DL.2 video walls carried the majority of responsibility for the look of the show. However, the room did present many opportunities to paint the walls with color and gobos; in fact, the primary function of the MAC 2000 Performances was just for lighting large pieces of fabric and steel that were used to decorate the room. The framing shutters and the animation effects wheel of the 2000 Performances worked well on the abstract scenic pieces, adding dimension and contrast to the abundance of video imagery in the room.
This show presented a unique opportunity to work with many of the latest types of digital lighting and lighting/video equipment available in our industry at the same time. The task was not without many obstacles, such as managing the sheer amount of DMX channels and data required to make it all work. However, in spite of the complicated networking involved, the long hours spent programming the collages and keystrokes involved in building the dozens of LED chases, the event was a success, and everyone in the room partied like it was 1999…or 2007.
Vickie Claiborne (www.vickieclaiborne.com) is a freelance programmer and training consultant. She can be contacted at vclaiborne@plsn.com.
