EPIC Holosphere created for Eric Prydz
- Details
The production was the latest in Prydz’s EPIC (Eric Prydz In Concert) series of visual spectaculars, realised by dream team, long term collaborators Liam Tomaszewski (Punkette), Ross Chapple (RCLD), Mark Calvert and Dave Green (RES) and Bryn Williams (Light Initiative) with the eight-metre-high Holosphere forming the centrepiece of the new design.
“EPIC 6.0 has been two years in the making, starting with conceptual sketches, through to putting together exactly the right team with the skills, know-how and passion to get the project off the ground, and now successfully delivering the show at Tomorrowland,” says Calvert, who has been working with Eric Prydz on the EPIC shows for more than a decade as executive show producer, production manager and co-show designer. “When our team presented the concept to Michiel Beers and Jan Herinckx at Tomorrowland, they were extremely supportive and excited to co-produce the show with us.
“We are very grateful for their faith in this production and equally to our chosen technical fabrication team, Light Initiative. We believe the show takes the core elements of dance music, LED technology, creativity, engineering, lighting and video control to the next level.”
To deliver Tomaszewski’s holographic imagery, Light Initiative designed and manufactured a lightweight structural and cladding system that provided high transparency. Applied to their structure, Light Initiative developed a miniature LED strip and video distribution system, bringing the total weight of the sphere to a mere 4.6 tonnes.
806,000 LED pixels were applied across the inner and outer surfaces, equalling 276m2 of LED screen surface displaying bright, custom mapped animations. With a uniform 16mm pixel pitch, the sphere achieves an impressive 64% transparency, revealing Prydz at the centre of the action.
Bryn Williams says: “One of the biggest challenges set by the Mark and Liam was to achieve a high level of transparency while not compromising the logistical demands of festival productions. To achieve this, the Holosphere was designed so that the structure and panels fit with millimetre precision and pack down into just two trucks.
“We designed the individual elements of the Holosphere to be modular and repetitive, so if a component fails - be that electronics, LED or PSU - that component can be rapidly replaced. This adds a further level of robustness and flexibility, which is great when you’re transporting such an intricate yet mammoth object to a festival scenario.”
Ross Chapple, lighting director for the EPIC shows, says: “Once we had come up with the Holosphere as the central show concept, it was my responsibility to work out how we would light Eric as he performed. My design aimed to emphasise the form of the sphere and give it some spread into the arena, bringing extra energy and big motion right out into the audience.”
Mark Calvert concludes: “The EPIC shows get more and more ambitious every time. It’s as exciting as it is satisfying to see the hard work of so many talented people come together for a truly awesome experience.”
(Jim Evans)
