ARLINGTON, TX – Las Vegas to Wyoming to Nashville, GoVision, based here, has been busy of late, crisscrossing the country in support of more than 20 events. GoVision constructed and suspended four massive LED screens beneath the 60-yard-long video screens at AT&T Stadium’s (a.k.a. Cowboys Stadium) to let fans seated courtside at the 2014 NCAA’s Final Four basketball championships watch replays and see the scoreboard.
NEW ORLEANS – Jestin Quiett, technical director of City Church, based here, credited the new video wall that serves as a backdrop for church services for a wide variety of looks and effects. Ray Ziegler of RZI Lighting New Orleans provided the PVP S7 LED panels from Chauvet Professional that make up the 6 by 30 foot (HxW) video wall.
ORLANDO, FL — From March 5-7, Absen’s Orlando showroom was turned into a classroom as 26 technicians from 17 rental and staging companies participated in the inaugural Absen Certified Engineer (ACE) Training Program, the first program of its kind in the U.S. sponsored by a Chinese LED manufacturer. A second ACE training program will take place later this year.
NASHVILLE — Casting Crowns production manager Carter Hassebroek and LD Chris Lighthall worked with Peter Streiff at a PixelFlex rental partner Elite Multimedia Productions (EMP) on a 24 by 32 foot (WxH) 20mm LED curtain display for the Christian band’s Thrive tour. The six-by-four panel display (WxH) uses custom rigging hardware to extend the panels’ upward reach.
CLEVELAND, OH — The Cleveland Cavaliers honored the career of former player Zydrunas “The Z” Ilgauskas, retiring his #11 during a March 8, 2014 ceremony at the Quicken Loans Arena here. Quince Imaging worked with the Cavs’ QTV team and Think Media. The project involved mapped projections and a 3600×1878 pixel space using 16 HD projectors. The creative team used Pandoras Box v5.5 and the latest version of Warper. Fans could live-tweet comments to two 16-by-28-foot projection screens hanging high atop the arena.
LONDON – For a recent tour of U.K. arenas, LDs Cate Carter and Pablo Beckett of Bryte Design expanded their video-centered set design to include some of XL Video’s newer LED products – the Radiant MC-18 Hybrid, Radiant MC-7T, Radiant MC-18T and Pixled F-12 screens. XL Video also supplied cameras, a Catalyst media server for playback and PPU and crew for the tour, which brought Goulding’s ongoing Halcyon Days trek from the earlier theatre-sized production to a larger version for arena-sized venues.
WILTSHIRE, U.K. – An installation at Stonehenge’s visitor center got an AV assist from Electrosonic to help newcomers experience the ancient stone formation. One of the main highlights is the ‘Standing in the Stones’ exhibit, a 360-degree virtual experience. Installed by Electrosonic, the exhibit lets visitors stand in a virtual Stonehenge as it is today and in the past. The three-minute film, based on state-of-the-art laser scan images of the stone circle, transports viewers back in time, experiencing the summer and winter solstices of long ago.
LONDON – For Wayne McGregor’s Tetractys: The Art of Fugue, a ballet for 12 dancers set to Bach that was performed at London’s Royal Opera House in February, set and costume designer Tauba Auerbach worked with programmer Florian Baeumler and the venue’s newly-acquired Hippotizer Rackoon for an assist with the visual design, which paired live performers with geometric graphics.
DALLAS – A new and improved Big Tex was back welcoming guests to the State Fair of Texas last year. The iconic giant cowboy figure, which had been greeting fairgoers since 1952, was destroyed by fire near the end of last year’s State Fair. The rebuilt Big Tex is even bigger, and enhanced this time around by SRO Associates and Texas Scenic and their use of Alcorn McBride’s V4 Pro frame-accurate controller and AM4 Digital Audio Machine.