Live Design: In the 20 years since its fabled beginnings in a Los Angeles warehouse, Nocturnal Wonderland has grown from an underground phenomenon into an annual mainstream spectacle. To honor Nocturnal’s 20th anniversary, Insomniac, the festival organizer and promoter, extended the usual two-day event to three days. Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting, longtime designer for Insomniac’s events, was the production designer for the Queen’s Grounds stage and Sunken Garden stage.
5 comments:
I've always wanted to experience these festival in person. Besides the fans dressing up and well known DJ artists performing, I really want to experience these festivals for the technical aspect. These shows go all out for a 2-3 period. From what I've seen in videos, these performances are crazy. The scenic elements are huge and the media and lighting seems to really grab the attention of the crowd. I feel these events are meant to be a spectacle and to make sure the audience has a good time. Since this is Wonderland's 20th anniversary is seems that their continuously being successful. I hope after college or during a break I can take the time to see one of these performances. Rumor has it, a lot of CMU alumni work on these shows. Maybe they could get people backstage to see the set up. I would love to know how many lights and projectors are used for the show and how long it takes to set up.
I don’t really hear too often of an event that contains nothing but lighting. Unless of couse it is a lighting conference like ETC, or I’m sure USITT has something that deals with lighting. To have a festival for it, is something entirely different. With the technology for lighting changing often, and making advancements as to what its capabilities are. Soon I’m sure we will be able to get powerful lighting instruments, but also perhaps be able to make them a little more lightweight as well. Browsing through the images and reading the captions below them. They definitely didn’t have a shortage of lighting instruments, but to be able to consolidate the amount of weight everything took, I’m sure it must have been one heck of an engineering design to support the weight. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to sit back and enjoy the light show. It is almost like just going to a firework show, you are there to see the spectacle, and that’s just what they got.
Sharpy’s. Sharpy’s everywhere. That seems to be the mantra for big festival or rock shows these days. Its not a bad thing, they are awesome fixtures and I don’t think that there is a better tiny beam fixture on the market today, but it does seem like there could be at least a little variation. I really like the use of media in these shows, I think, at least in its current form, this is were media really is the most useful. It is now a vital part of the scenic and effects based atmosphere that we expect today, but it really shouldn’t be its own department in the way that it is at CMU some of the time. Media is currently in a place where is would make much more sense for it to be a subset of lighting or scenic design. It seems silly that the media designer has as much creative input on building the world as the scenic designer. If we want to build the world out of media, then we should have a media designer. But it shouldn’t be assumed to be a part of theater lighting, scenic and costumes are.
I have never attended a big EDM music festival (only small alt-rock ones) but I have wanted to for a long time. The difficulty is finding the time and the cash! I have a friend who attends several festivals every year, and even works at some. As some other comments have mentioned, being able to see behind the scenes would be really awesome – I would definitely love to be able to work at one of these festivals. There is a lot of thought and planning that goes into these events and the huge structures assembled for them. So much goes into these huge events and I think it would be really interesting to get to experience all of that commotion. There’s something special about huge events like this, so many people coming together. I think it’d be so cool to be a part of that, and you’d also be learning a lot about these sorts of events at the same time!
Every year, I am struck by what the EDM scene comes up with in terms of fresh new lighting and media designs. The fact that you can see just about any picture form any festival, regardless of your taste in music, and still say "Wow" is something that I hope to be able to encapsulate in the lighting world. The fact that we are looking at lighting on 32 spanner trusses blows my mind, and makes me hope one day to have a budget so limitless that I too can have that much truss, and all the lights my heart desires to fill it. The hub and spoke design of the lighting and media is something that, while it may seem ingenious, is something that is more common than you would think in the lighting world. It is easy to concentrate all your lights in a hotspot, and branch out from there. That being said, such a simple concept is used to stunning effect at this festival, with each picture being more breathtaking than the last. Also, as Chris said, Sharpys everywhere. I think that, for the price, they are the things that people will like the most right away, but that's neither here nor there.
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