www.livedesignonline.com: Creative engineering specialist WIcreations has designed, developed and installed a unique, bespoke wireless laser-guided system to move eight enormous seating tribunes holding audiences watching Studio 100’s ground-breaking “40-45 Spektakle Musical” around the performance space.
4 comments:
While there were definitely intricate mechanical details described that I did not fully understand, this innovative piece of technology seems revolutionary in terms of audience participation and utilizing the entire performance space within a theatre. The connection between technology and theatre continues to astound me, and the fact that they have now managed to integrate large-scale audience movement into a piece is truly remarkable. I do imagine, as it was mentioned, that if this catches fire with other theatre companies as well, the rest of the design process will necessarily need to be re-imagined. Sightlines, rigging, sound design and perspective, etc. will need to be thought through in ways that incorporate a 360 degree, ever-changing, stage space. I can also imagine that this will require more focus on safety from Production Management: the close proximity of the audience banks at times, what happens during a malfunction, the egress and access measurements will need to be checked in each position, etc. However, even though this comes with many ways that we will need to reconceive theatrical designs in spaces that utilize audience movement, I still think that this is an exciting breakthrough in theatre and definitely to be explored.
This is nuts. Besides all of the technical concerns involved with engineering and coordinating all the automation, there must be some pretty hefty insurance and personnel expenses on every show. I have a lot of questions. How many people ride each stand? Why do they need to be silent if everyone is hearing the show through an RF headset? Why is the show playing through headsets? It is a little funny to me to read about this venue as the “Pop-Up Theatre,” since I generally associate pop-up theatres with small, community-oriented, lightweight productions. This show is none of those things. With what must have been an immense cost to produce, I would imagine that it is either going to run forever, or the ticket prices are eye-boggling, or both. Sure, there is a theatre in a warehouse space where there was nothing before...but it seems unlikely to pop up anywhere else.
This seems like a really interesting show with a lot of thought put into its automation design. Clearly a lot of work went into the management side of things- there’s obviously lots of risk inherent to literally putting the audience on a moving piece of machinery. We do insane amounts of work during the rehearsal process just to make sure ourselves and actors stay safe while doing the show, and the addition of a new group of people each night who will be riding automated pieces of machinery obviously needs extremely careful preparation. This would also require lots of work from a design standpoint as well- they would have to develop lights and a set that work in a 360 space with the audience moving around and the viewpoints always changing. From reading this, this feels like a one-of-a-kind experience rather than a process that would be incorporated by other theaters. However, the additions of the automated laser-guided wagons and panels of lights have interesting implications- that’s some technology I can see being used in many contexts.
This is amazing technology that I can’t wait to see implemented more throughout theater. I’m sure there is a little ways to go as far as perfecting the method, but it’s brilliant and innovative. We’re so used to traditional theater and even now with moving stages, we’ve seen it all done before. But moving the actual audience is far more interesting and challenging. There are tons of safety measure that you have to consider, as well as the preferences of the audience and dealing with motion sickness. However, this idea is so creative and I’m glad that someone finally created a system that can literally move the audience. The show itself seems like the perfect blend of video media design and technology. It really shows how theater can be, and is, incredibly interdisciplinary and progressive. I wonder if the moving audience technology will become popular in the near future, or if it still has a way to go to break into the mainstream theater model.
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