It’s Motown meets Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre where “Motown: The Musical” charts the amazing journey of Berry Gordy from featherweight boxer to heavyweight music mogul responsible for launching the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and more. Accompanying the iconic musical numbers in the show are bold video and graphic effects, which required a unique automation-tracking solution by WorldStage.

The new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications Inc., WorldStage provided “Motown: The Musical” with two Christie Roadster HD18K projectors, two Dataton WATCHOUT quad-output Display computers, two Dataton Watchout Production computers, and two control computers each running an instance of Coolux Widget Designer PRO. The hybrid system enables extremely accurate positioning of the video imagery on a variety of moving stage elements and set pieces.

“We were tasked with supplying a cost-effective technology that could accurately track up to 26 axes of automation system movement. That’s a considerable number, which included simultaneous x, y, and z axis tracking on multiple surfaces on multiple planes,” notes WorldStage account executive Lars Pedersen. “We’ve successfully done similar jobs using other systems in the past, but nothing to the extent of what we had to manage for this job.”

Since the designer, Daniel Brodie is very familiar with the Watchout graphics platform, WorldStage decided to move forward with a Watchout-based system, even though it hasn’t been used for automation tracking on a Broadway production. “Although we’re quite versed in the inherent capabilities and feature set of Watchout, this would be the first time we’ve used it to facilitate automation tracking,” Pedersen explains. “Regardless, we knew we had the expertise and we were confident we could make it work.”

Working closely with the team from Hudson Scenic, the decision was made to implement a “software” solution to facilitate direct communications between the automation and the video systems. The star component in the system was the Coolux Widget Designer PRO software, which enabled the Watchout computers to interpolate and manage the position information being output from the automation computers.

Dual-converged Christie Roadster HD18K projectors were selected for brightness and redundancy purposes. In fact, Projection Designer Daniel Brodie of brodiegraphics explains that the projectors are primarily used as a lighting source, which track the movement of the set pieces. “We can track more accurately with the projectors than we can with lighting instruments. We worked with lighting designer Natasha Katz to project color to match the lighting design, whether naturalistic or abstract.”

Brodie also maps animation and video to the set pieces. “Some content is purely evocative: flashing colors and video – psychedelic or kaleidoscopic – to support a musical number. Sometimes we play back a scene from ‘Lady Sings The Blues’ that we reshot with our actors; we also display documentary footage of 1968 events to accompany the song ‘Ball of Confusion.’ And sometimes we use just standard projection design for dates, names and titles.”

The show scored another first in taking advantage of WATCHOUT’s built-in stereoscopic 3D capabilities to align the projectors on multiple planes. “We discovered that we could do 3D effects during shop prep at WorldStage, and they’ve worked perfectly,” Brodie reports.

Daniel Brodie concludes, “I continue to be amazed, but not surprised at the level of ingenuity that WorldStage brings to the table.”

The WATCHOUT programmer for the show is Patrick Southern and the animators are Gabriel Aronson and Allison Pottasch. At WorldStage TJ Donoghue is the Project Manager, while Michael Kohler, Technology Specialist at WorldStage, was the Widget Designer PRO programmer. Sean Kelly was the projectionist.

WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.

When Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex near Orlando, Florida, reconfigured the entry area into the park, Electrosonic was charged with providing the audio-visual design, infrastructure, equipment and programming for the background music, audio messaging and video signage for ticketing and guest relations services.

The project was the first from Electrosonic to implement QSC’s Q-Sys Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit, which is billed as a powerful yet simple solution for audio processing, control and management. The Q-Sys CORE 3000 128×128 provides multi-channel audio playback park-wide.

“Q-Sys offers a number of advantages to the Visitor Complex,” according to Electrosonic commissioning engineer Tony Peugh. “With Q-Sys, you no longer need separate devices to play back the audio, eliminating the need for multiple CD players and solid-state audio playback machines, and minimizing the equipment footprint in the rack room.” In fact, Electrosonic combined two EER rooms into one smaller space.

“With this new configuration, 128 channels of audio are available, so you can tailor soundtracks to certain zones in the park by creating audio players in the software,” Peugh explains. Q-Sys communicates over a network with Q-LAN “so any device can share audio, functions or information. As the park expands and upgrades, more audio can be added just by providing a network connection. It’s very simple and reliable, and could very well be the next big thing.”

“The new system also has green credentials,” says Electrosonic project manager Gary Barnes. “It uses a lot less power than racks full of devices, so people concerned about LEED certification find Q-Sys a useful option.”

Electrosonic’s Design Consulting team was involved at the very start of the project, serving as the AV consultant to architects PGAV. Electrosonic’s Yiannis Cabolis was the designer of record.

Electrosonic outfitted the retail building, Voyagers, with 11 QSC speakers and a subwoofer connected to amplifiers in the EER. Twelve QSC speakers were also installed in the entry/exit turn-style area, another dozen in the self-service ticketing kiosk area, and four, including two subwoofers, in the fountain area. In all cases, the audio sources for the speakers came from Q-Sys.

Digital signage is prominent in several areas. The ticket stations and information area each feature two 32-inch high brightness, outdoor-rated LCD displays for graphics and information about tour packages and special events. Four QSC speakers and a paging station are included. The Welcome Center features an identical configuration and the ticket booths boast four LCD displays and eight speakers.

In all cases, the displays are fed by a video player located in the EER via fiber with HDMI/DVI video and serial control. Audio is fed from the player to channels of DSPs and amps. Media is controlled by a media server application running on a PC in the EER; the displays’ start and end of day routines are controlled by the system controller running on the Medialon Show Control Machine.

A covered, outdoor patio adjacent to the Rocket Garden featuring a new restaurant, the Rocket Garden Café, with counter service, has two 32-inch high brightness, outdoor-rated LCDs forming part of the scenic wall treatment. They display historical rocket and pop culture images from the 1960s.

Electrosonic was brought on board the project by Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts, which operates Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on behalf of NASA. Whiting-Turner Construction built the new entry area and worked closely with Electrosonic.

About Electrosonic

Electrosonic is an international audio-visual company that creates tailored, state-of-the-art solutions for a wide range of markets including theme parks, museums, control rooms, and corporate meeting rooms. Since its founding in 1964, Electrosonic has built a strong reputation for working on complex projects, both large and small, and has developed lasting partnerships with customers and suppliers. Beyond complete integrated systems, Electrosonic provides a comprehensive scope of services including technical design, projector lamp sales, maintenance and operational support.

Learn more about Electrosonic. Visit http://www.electrosonic.com

About Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex brings to life the epic story of the U.S. space program, offering a full day or more of fun and educational activities, including the Kennedy Space Center Tour featuring the Saturn V Center with an actual Saturn V moon rocket, the new Angry Birds(tm) Space Encounter, Shuttle Launch Experience, 3D IMAX(r) space films, Astronaut Encounter, Exploration Space: Explorers Wanted and many other interactive exhibits. The new $100 million home for Space Shuttle Atlantis opens June 29, 2013. Admission also includes the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame(r), featuring historic spacecraft and the world’s largest collection of personal astronaut memorabilia, which opens daily at noon and closing times vary by season. Only 45 minutes from Orlando, Fla., Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opens daily at 9 a.m. with closing times varying by season. Admission is $50 + tax for adults and $40 + tax for children ages 3-11. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Commander’s Club Annual Pass is $63 + tax for adults and $53 + tax for children ages 3-11. For more information, call 877-313-2610 or visit www.KennedySpaceCenter.com.

The NBA’s Indiana Pacers have unveiled a new center-hung video board at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse designed to deliver an experience fans just can’t get at home – and a Spyder is a big part of it.

ANC Sports Enterprises, LLC of Purchase, New York, an industry leader in providing integrated signage, design and marketing solutions for sports and commercial facilities, integrated the Vista Systems Spyder X20 with ANC’s VisionSOFT control system to feed the huge new displays with entertaining and informative content for Pacers fans.

The Pacers display is more than five times larger than the previous video board in Bankers Life Fieldhouse. ANC Sports designed the new installation with slightly curving, twin sideline-facing 6mm LED HD screens each measuring 50′ wide x 21′ high and featuring 2560 x 1060 pixels.

They are bookended by a pair of baseline-facing 6mm LED video displays each measuring 25′ wide x 14′ high with 1280 x 736 pixels. In addition, two LED matrix displays, measuring 23′ wide x 10′ high, are mounted above the upper deck at either end of the venue where they show stats, replays and other game-related information.

“What’s really unique about the Pacers’ installation is being able receive and display two side-by-side 720p feeds, while still including a lower third for scoring and statistical information,” explains Chris Mascatello, executive vice president, technology sales for ANC Sports.

“Vista Systems’ Spyder plays an instrumental role in the display system. Working jointly with VisionSOFT, the Spyder enables us to feed the best resolution across the entire display system.”

ANC Sports also directed the overhaul of the arena’s video control room, which drives content to the massive displays. “It’s a full 1080p control room with 3G infrastructure and one of the most advanced in the world,” says Mascatello.

The addition of the Bankers Life Fieldhouse continues Vista Spyder’s tradition of supporting the largest sports displays in their respective categories including hockey for the Tampa Bay Lighting, NASCAR at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the NFL’s Tennessee Titans’ LP Field.

About Vista Systems
Vista Systems’ switchers have become the industry standard for live multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching with real-time windowing and composition. For more information on Vista Systems, visit their website at www.vistasystems.net.

In the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, the Tom Hunt Energy Hall’s 4D Theater experience, “Shale Voyager,” is controlled by Alcorn McBride’s V4 Pro show controller and 8-channel Digital Binloop HD player.

The $185 million museum opened December 1 near downtown Dallas and is a hands-on destination for discovery featuring five floors of public space with 11 permanent exhibit halls. The Tom Hunt Energy Hall, funded by a gift from Hunt Petroleum Corp., features a small theater, dubbed “Shale Voyager,” which provides a virtual experience that educates participants about the process of hydraulic fracturing. Video and motion chairs give visitors the sense of what it would be like to shrink to the size of a grape, travel vertically down a 6,500-foot borehole, come out horizontally through the black rock of North Texas’s Barnett Shale and whoosh back to the surface when the gas is released.

“Shale Voyager was designed as a cylindrical theater with a spherical top,” explains Paul Bernhard of Paul Bernhard Exhibit Design and Consulting who designed, built and programmed the theater. “Three platforms hold seven people each in a semi-circle. Six screens are in the ceiling; three represent portholes. Another screen is in the floor. The screens show visitors what they’re seeing on their virtual voyage to the Barnett Shale.”

Bernhard chose Alcorn McBride’s Digital Binloop HD to play the show’s video and the V4 Pro to control the show, including the doors and seats.

The Digital Binloop HD provides up to 8 channels of HD video in a compact, economical and highly-reliable package designed for continuous daily use with no maintenance. Video clips are stored on Compact Flash media so there are no moving parts to wear out; each card can hold hours of media.

The V4 Pro is a versatile, frame-accurate controller for serial and network devices. It features 16 optically isolated inputs, 16 discrete outputs with self-restoring fuses, video frame sync and a realtime clock/calendar. It’s capable of running every day for years, without ever requiring reboots, software updates or maintenance of any kind.

“Everything is working very nicely; the synchronization is great,” Bernhard reports. “Alcorn McBride has a reputation as the go-to company for complex show control – they’re one of the leaders. Our set up has been very reliable, and visitors are really enjoying the show.”

About Alcorn McBride:
Founded in 1986, Alcorn McBride is the leading manufacturer of show control, audio and video equipment for the themed entertainment industry, and a rapidly growing provider of audio and video systems for retail environments and transportation applications. Staffed by some of the industry’s best engineers and backed by outstanding customer support, the company has demonstrated great agility in bringing new designs to market. A hallmark of Alcorn McBride products is their durable, zero maintenance design. The company’s products provide consistent, reliable operation for audio and video playback applications worldwide. For more information, visit www.alcorn.com.

About the Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a nonprofit educational organization located in Dallas, Texas, with campuses in Victory Park and Fair Park. In support of its mission to inspire minds through nature and science, the Perot Museum delivers exciting, engaging and innovative visitor and outreach experiences through its education, exhibition, and research and collections programming for children, students, teachers, families and life-long learners. The $185 million Victory Park museum, designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects, opened to the public December 1, 2012. The Perot Museum is named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot, the result of a $50 million gift made by their five adult children. To learn more about the Perot Museum, please visit perotmuseum.org.

Country artists Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley have Locked and Reloaded and grandMA2s along for the ride. Their 33-show national Locked and Reloaded Tour uses two grandMA2 light consoles to control about a hundred moving lights on a complex, multi-level set. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor for MA Lighting in North America.

“We wanted the production design to give us the opportunity to create different moods,” says Chris Lisle, Nashville-based production designer for the tour. “We have a lot of moving pieces. There’s a big wall of light for punch for the rock sets and some circular trusses for the moodier songs.”

Lisle had wanted to use grandMA2s “for years,” and programmer Scott Chmielewski suggested he try them for the tour. “It’s a very user friendly and functional console, yet it does so much,” says Lisle. “It’s very deep; it has so many layers, and you can get really detailed with it. One of the things I love is its ease of networking. I’ve had problems with that on other consoles.

“The grandMA2s effects engine is also amazing,” he adds. “There are so many things you can do so easily. It’s mind blowing! I had no idea we could do so many effects so simply.”

Lisle notes that Chimeleski uses the consoles for DMX merging. “There are so many functions, and some of the macros we’ve created are amazing. You can create the console you want, lay it out the way you need it to be. It was a great opportunity for me to be able to sit down with a programmer like Scott who knows the board so well. It was super easy to learn, but there’s so much more I can learn going forward.”

Lisle is impressed with the grandMA2s performance and robustness on the Locked and Reloaded Tour. “It’s a fantastic piece of equipment that’s also very reliable,” he attests.

About A.C.T Lighting

A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its clients.

For more information call 818-707-0884.

Corporate event production company Riverview Systems Group Inc. of Milpitas, California has become the first company to utilize UDC Timecode, a new feature in the Protocol Translation portion of High Resolution Systems’ UDC Pro Plus package. UDC Timecode enables users of the popular UDC (Universal Device Controller) software to sync with external timecode or turn UDC in to a timecode generator itself.

Riverview often needs to automate video and lighting cues simultaneously at clients’ tradeshow booths. “A couple of systems would allow us to do that, but they required complicated programming and required significant resources to implement,” says Derek Ytreeide, technology specialist with Riverview Systems Group.

“We had worked with Drew and Mike Taylor at High Resolution before and became familiar with UDC,” he continues. “We had a client who needed a big video playback system at a tradeshow. We figured UDC would work perfectly to trigger the video, but we had to go further – we needed to trigger the lighting cues, too. We could stripe timecode on the video roll or use an external timecode generator. But UDC had an internal timecode generator already, so High Resolution explored programming UDC to send out a timecode signal, while using a Kiss-Box transceiver in between. Once High Resolution wrote the code, we tested the new UDC Timecode feature and decided to use it at the show.”

UDC Timecode made its debut at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco for Riverview’s client, Symantec. “Conference goers walked into the theater within the Symantec booth where three 90-inch and eight 40-inch displays played individual videos which were all synchronized simultaneously from five playback machines,” Ytreeide explains. “We needed to trigger a library of three videos and an interstitial loop simultaneously from Playback Pro, combined with six lighting cues from our grandMA2 system.”

An additional complication emerged when Symantec wanted to tailor the videos displayed on the screens to specific clients that walked into the theater. The videos would not play in a scheduled or random order.

“A lot of systems are timeline-based with scheduled events; few are cue-based using commands which are independent of each other,” Ytreeide notes. “UDC Timecode proved to be an amazing solution for us, allowing us to do what Symantec required.”

Riverview was so pleased with UDC Timecode that it decided to implement the software at the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) conference in Chicago for their client Zimmer.

“UDC Timecode will act as central control software performing two different functions: generating timecode to control the grandMA2 lighting console in the main theater and generate timecode for two sub-theaters where videos are shown, but not on a set schedule,” he explains. “We’ll have absolute control of the house lights and videos and can trigger the videowall to funnel people from the theater to a hands-on demo experience.”

UDC Timecode is available now for customers who have a Protocol Translation license on UDC Pro Plus.

About High Resolution Systems
High Resolution Systems, a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers is a company with a strong systems engineering and applications background. Its founders have decades of experience in the audiovisual rental and staging industry, broadcast applications, A/V installations and system design. This combined experience allows them to provide the highest possible quality solutions to its customers in the most efficient manner. For more information, visit www.hrscontrol.com.

For important presentations by Adobe, the dominant image software company, image quality may not be the only thing, but it is certainly is one of the most important parts of the experience. This was the case during the Adobe Summit: The Digital Marketing Conference, where WorldStage supported keynote presentations, helping make them a memorable experience for some 5,000 attendees.

Adobe Summit was held at Salt Lake City’s Salt Palace Convention Center, March 5-8 to provide insight and vision into the new technologies that are reshaping the digital marketing landscape. The event also showcased the new release of CQ 5.6 and the Adobe Experience Manager platform.

The Kenwood Group hired WorldStage, the new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, Inc., to provide Adobe with a full complement of audio and video services for the Keynote Room. There, four “acts,� each 90-120 minutes long, played out with attention-grabbing visuals on mammoth screens supporting a roster of speakers and a number of different product demos.

The Keynote Room featured two overlapping, curved main screens with a nine-foot offset to allow presenter egress to the stage, while maintaining a continuous image across 234 feet of screen area. The curved screen at house left measured 124 feet wide and the curved screen at house right 110 feet with the total video area comprising 4,500 square feet and 14,515, 200 pixels.

“The projection combined with the content made for an extremely impressive sight,â€� says WorldStage account executive & VP of Prod. Services Richard Bevan. “Since the screens were so wide, the speaker support content was 3840×1080 and was pip’d on each of the wide screens. We used Pandora’s Box media servers for playback and had seven streams of HD content going to the wide screens via two Vista System Spyder X20s in expanded mode. Pandora’s Box supplied full screen playback and the backgrounds and animations for content appearing in windows within the screens and the IMAG windows as well.â€�

Sources included Mac towers for widescreen graphics and Apple iPads, Apple iPhones, Mac towers and robotic cameras, which created user-interactive experiences.

In addition to the main screens, three 16×9 delay screens were positioned in the audience. Cabling to the projectors, including six projectors dedicated to the delay screens, totaled 5.1 miles. WorldStage installed all of the projectors and cabling in 16 hours, which included unloading time, to be ready for the first tech run-through at midday on the second day of load in.

WorldStage also furnished the event’s audio equipment providing nine clusters of JBL VERTEC and VRX line array clusters for the Keynote Room with an audience of 6,000.

“Our WorldStage crew has worked together so long that even when things were super-intense we just nodded to each other and knew what needed to be done,� says projectionist Terry Nakamura. “The show was so complex and the time to install it was basically only one day, but our team remained very mellow.

“WorldStage and The Kenwood Group worked so closely together that we acted as one big company to pull off a difficult assignment,� he adds.

At The Kenwood Group Web Burrell was the senior producer, Daniel Pinkham the senior creative director and Wayne Leonard the executive producer.

At WorldStage Jack Dussault was the project manager, Neal Gass the EIC, Jason Spencer the Spyder operator, Terry Nakamura and Bryan Dominick the projectionists, Geof Gibson the A2 and Alex Bright the Pandora programmer. Freelancer Stan Dickerson served as A1.

For more information on this project, please visit:
Video: http://www.worldstage.com/adobe-digital-marketing-summit-video/
Images: http://www.worldstage.com/2013-adobe-digital-marketing-summit/
Press Release: http://www.worldstage.com/corporate-staging-adobe-summit/

WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.

Vista Systems’ Spyders have joined the Navy and are instrumental in two installations featuring the same 4K digital cinema technology used in the entertainment industry.

IGI (Immersion Graphics, Inc.), which is headquartered in Detroit, included Spyder X20 video processors with 16 inputs (8 DVI, 8 video/HDSDI) and 8 outputs for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, Rhode Island and the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Doral, Florida. Their new installations now offer the highest resolution single display visualization solution used by the US Navy.

At NUWC 4K technology is deployed for education, information, training and collaboration with other naval sites, such as the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Before the upgrade visualization was done with a three-panel screen, three low-resolution projectors and analog RGB sources.

Now, a 50-seat PowerWall Room with a dedicated media support staff boasts a custom 25×14.7-foot rear-projection screen and a Sony T-110 SXRD 11,000 lumen 4K projector. Sources include an IGI Visualization Workstation outputting 4K (4096×2160) signals and a 7th Sense Delta Media Server capable of playing uncompressed image sequences at 4K resolution. . IGI wrote custom software, which enables users to manipulate multiple windows on a 55-inch multi-touch panel and implement Spyder to display those windows on the PowerWall.

“Users can pick sources from the multi-touch panel, drag and drop them onto the screen, and resize and reposition them by dragging their fingers along the panel,” explains Matt Lamb, Engineering Manager at IGI. “Using this gestural interface they can enlarge an image, arrange images in pre-set windows or create custom arrangements. Spyder and our software allow them to do that.”

The PowerWall operates in two modes. Cinema Mode projects the image onto the full width of the PowerWall. Critical Viewing Mode brings the projector closer to the PowerWall and tightens the pixel density for detailed high-resolution viewing. Legacy Mode is still offered for the three-panel screen as well.

“IGI has worked with Vista for a long time, and Spyder is known for its reliability and quality,” says Lamb. “Spyder handles multiple 4K windows seamlessly; it’s superior to many products on the market. It’s been performing flawlessly at NUWC.”

Spyder is similarly configured at SOUTHCOM, where it performs more operations-based functions. SOUTHCOM is one of nine unified Combatant Commands in the Department of Defense and is responsible for providing contingency planning, operations and security cooperation for Central and South America and the Caribbean.

“Spyder is also rock solid at SOUTHCOM,” Lamb reports. “It’s in use at least 10 hours a day with people looking at very high-resolution intelligence data.”

Pat Hernandez is the president of IGI and provided the mechanical design for the projection systems at NUWC and SOUTHCOM.

About Vista Systems
Vista Systems’ switchers have become the industry standard for live multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching with real-time windowing and composition. For more information on Vista Systems, visit their website at www.vistasystems.net.

Electrosonic is pleased to announce its Technology Day for Control Rooms, a free event slated for April 17th at its Burbank headquarters.

Attendees will have the opportunity to experience the latest technologies for control rooms, and discuss custom solutions with Electrosonic’s expert staff and some of the leading products manufacturers in the field. Technology Day will showcase the latest developments in simulation training, collaboration, networks, content streaming and distribution, and display technology.

“Attendees will view the latest technologies, expand their knowledge and network with other professionals in the arena,” says Todd Miller, VP of Control Rooms at Electrosonic. “Electrosonic has successfully hosted Technology Days for several years. We’re excited to be focusing this month’s event specifically on control room applications.”

Those attending Technology Day will see hands-on product demos by top manufacturers and be a part of in-depth discussions on the newest innovations in command and control rooms products and solutions. Participants include Barco, Christie, Crestron, Extron, Jupiter, Planar and RGB Spectrum.

Technology Day is scheduled for 12 to 9 pm on April 17, and features an evening cocktail reception with raffle giveaways. Attendees may RSVP by email at info@electrosonic.com or register online by visiting the event page at electrosonic.com/tech-day-burbank More information about the event is also available from the Electrosonic Control Rooms team at 1-855-333-3601.

Clay Paky lighting and grandMA got rave reviews at the 15th annual Ultra Music Festival (UMF) in Miami’s Bayfront Park where they added to the pulsating excitement generated by fans, DJs and electronic musicians under the tent-like Carl Cox Mega Structure. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of both grandMA and Clay Paky fixtures in North America.

This year’s UMF was the first two-weekend, six-day event in festival history and the most successful to date drawing over 330,000 electronic dance music fans. Over 200 DJs and electronic musicians and emerging artists performed each weekend. “This years UMF was incredible! We designed and built some amazingly complex and overwhelming environments that truly tested the limitations of technology,” comments Stephen Lieberman of SJ Lighting. “The Carl Cox arena / Megastructure took things to a whole new level. We are extremely hard on equipment at these show for 12 hours a day – 6 days of events.”

UMF also scored another first with the public debut of the Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330 in the U.S. Fifty Sharpy Wash fixtures were featured in the innovative Cox Mega Structure, which was purpose-built for the high-energy festival to showcase DJs and artists on stage and shelter legions of dancing fans.

Clay Paky’s Sharpy Wash 330 is a compact, lightweight 330W washlight, with the luminous efficiency, graphic and optical performance of a 1000W fixture. It is extremely silent and quick and is fitted with a complete CMY color system, special colors, 6.5°-48° zoom, mechanical dimmer, beam shaping filter and motorized top-hat. It is an eco-friendly light, allowing considerable running and consumption cost savings.

“My challenge as a designer is to match products with my designs that add balance to the system, adds Lieberman. “With the Sharpy’s incredible output, this has not been an easy task to accomplish. 1500 watt fixtures have to run at full throttle to keep up. The new Sharpy Wash 330 has definitely met the challenge. I was extremely impressed with its output. The color mixing system worked flawlessly, giving me everything I demanded of it throughout the event – from the deep saturations to great, subtle hues. It was also quick enough to handle big color mixing effects, where lesser fixtures would have stalled. The small size of the Sharpy makes life significantly easier for the electricians to and it also makes for quite a fast pan and tilt.”

The Sharpy Wash fixtures joined a complement of Clay Paky Sharpys, Alpha Spot HPE 1500s and Beam 1500s mounted in the Mega Structure’s lighting system. The truss pods were controlled by 54 CyberHoist motors; lighting was controlled on a grandMA2 full-size console.

“Stephen creates a truly immersive environment not found anyplace else in a live music festival. Clay Paky’s drive to create high output fixtures in a compact form lends itself to such an environment. The truss pods containing the Sharpy Wash moved to within 10′ of the audience creating a highly dynamic effect. It was a perfect match for the Sharpy Wash,” comments A.C.T Lighting’s VP of Sales, Brian Dowd.