Though their roles might be pegged to running this spectacularly lighted and ever-energetic desert city, you can’t ignore the power hidden in complex control rooms — under buttons and switches.
From the volcano of the Mirage to the Bellagio’s fountains and the assembly lines of major slot manufacturers, buttons and switches play a vital role in keeping Las Vegas alive.
10 comments:
Although I'm sure there is a ton of gear and equipment between what the audience sees and the panels of buttons, it is very cool to see what everything ultimately boils down to. Even for installations of such magnitude, it all comes down to a bunch of control interfaces and computers!
However, it seems odd that the Experience canopy is so difficult to turn on and off. It would be interesting to hear some of the technical details as to why that is.
This was a cute article.
Las Vegas in many ways reminds me of theater set design because most of the hotels are built with a certain theme.
For instance, the Venetian is built to look like ... Venice (duh). And the inside of the hotel really gives you the feeling that your in Europe. Obviously these are all effects, smart architecture and creative use of materials.
I'm sure that each one of the hotels has a huge team of interior designers who really actually do a similar job to scenic designers.
When you think of Las Vegas you think big shiny lights and losing money, not that most of these systems are operated by a single button. It's impressive how things simply get turned from being a restaurant into a high in the sky spin top that allows you to see Vegas in a 360 degree turn with just the push of a hidden button. It concerns me that something's power source could get accidentally hit while on the tour and in order to fix it someone has to climb to the roof to get it back in working order. This seems problematic and may slow down some thing for the experience. I do think there probably is a very intricate wiring system somewhere behind the scenes that connects to this simple one button system. It seems illogical that a whole system would be controlled by one button that is somewhat accessible to the everyday person.
Having never been to Las Vegas before I found this article very interesting. However, I have very little background knowledge on all of these place. In fact, I am going to say that I didn't know anything about any of these places before reading this article (other than knowing that they existed in Las Vegas). With that being said, I wish that the article would have given a short background description on the location's function before going into the information about the buttons. This would allow readers like me to get more of an understanding on the impact of the function that is triggered by the pressing of the button. None the less, I will say that, after reading this article I would love to visit Las Vegas in person to see all of these places in action.
It is amazing how many things can happen with the push of a button! The various sizes of the buttons are interesting as well for the amount of wiring, engineering, and creativity that must go towards these Vegas attractions. I also think it is interesting the extent (or lack of) it takes to reach some of these buttons. Should they not be in a protected but easily accessible location so employees or managers can deal with dangerous situations as soon as possible?
Two words: Show Control. That's really what this photo essay was about, although the author probably didn't even realize it. When discussing show control theory, a major consideration is who the end user/operator is going to be. User interfaces need to be designed for the lowest common denominator, or multiple UI's need to be created to allow for simple, one button operation as well as more advanced troubleshooting and programming. The restaurant is an example of a system designed for ease of operation, as it is most likely a manger or other non-technical person initiating the motion. The Bellagio fountains and Mirage volcano, on the other hand, almost certainly have a more complex user interface, as the technicians operating them need to have more control and status information available to them.
Wow. I haven't really thought about everything that the buttons of our world do. I suppose buttons have a two-fold outcome. They are easy to operate for the most part, if you know their functions. At the same time, because they are so easy to operate, I feel like something could go terribly wrong if someone were to accidentally bump into a button. I suppose that is why there are safety locks, but still there is always a possibility. Anyway, I think the most impressive of the entries was the one about the light up street show. Memorizing a series of buttons for a long show is not small feat.
I love how this article talks about how quickly something can change from being pretty with huge flashing lights to becoming instantly shut down with a simple push of a button or a quick flick of a switch. When you think about Las Vegas, you picture all the fancy buildings with millions of shinning lights, but there needs to be maintenance behind all the inner workings of these structures and are also very important. The Volcano has a control room that can shoot fire balls and fire cannons or can instantly be stopped on demand when a button is pushed. I will defiantly have a close eye out for the controls that are involved in any amusement park place that contains tons of lights, animations, or movement.
Dan pretty much hits the nail on the head...there's not much to add there after his summation. The most intriguing part of this article for me though is that the Luxor Sky Beam is still controlled by a ca. '95...that's practically a dinosaur bt today's standards. I guess I would have expected them to upgrade at least once in the last 18 years, although then again there's that old saying - 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
I often think of the Strip as a 4-mile long theme park. Every theme park you visit has cabinets hidden underground, behind building facades, in parking lots, etc. that make all of the magic happen. Vegas is no different. There is a whole network of tunnels underneath the city, some of which have been mentioned here and are used by the casinos, and some of which have had people living in them for decades. What I love is that so much of the inner-workings of the attractions on the Strip are so hidden. Just like a theme-park needs to keep up the illusion of a different world, so does the Strip. You can see a lot of the inner-workings of the Strip if you drive behind it, of course, but on the Strip everything looks a little bit too good to be true. This article made me laugh a bit because it's funny to think about the range of jobs for technicians on the Strip. There are technicians working backstage on Cirque shows, working outside of the Treasure Island, and working in tunnels underneath the Mirage. How cool is that?
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