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Ultra DesignCopyright Lighting&Sound America July 2013 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

ltra Music Festival, the Miami-based celebra-tion of electronic dance music, this year fea-tured a highly original and eye-catching pro-duction design for its main outdoor stage,

designed by James Klein and Bruce Rodgers, with lightingby Richard Neville.

One of the major dates on the world’s EDM calendar,Ultra Music Festival (UMF) unfolded throughout six daysduring two weekends in March, with 330,000 people inattendance. It was viewed live online by more than10,000,000 people via UMF-TV's webcast.

Ultra featured a starry lineup of DJs that included DavidGuetta, DeadMau5, Kaskade, Afrojack, Armin Van Buuren,Tiesto, Avicii, and many more, with a memorable finale sup-plied by Swedish House Mafia in what was apparently its P

Klein, an Australian, whose company, James KleinEvents, is based in New York, teamed up with BruceRodgers, of the design firm Tribe (and a regular presence inthese pages), to create a design for their first UMF mainstage that would make a big statement. “We spoke on the

phone for three hours and went down a number of differentdesign paths,” Klein recalls. Among the points taken intoconsideration, he says, “It was important to feature the UMFlogo because this was the festival’s 15th anniversary; wealso talked about automation and various other stageeffects. After that, we finalized the design together.”

Speed was of the essence, as the time frame wasextremely short. “From the time Bruce and I were con-firmed, we had six weeks,” notes Klein. The time was espe-cially short because of the project’s size: “The stage was200' wide and 105' high,” says Klein. “A key need wassourcing the large amount of high-tech, quality lighting,video, automation, and LED equipment with the techni-cal expertise required to pull off such a spectacular. Forthat, we turned to VER and TAIT Towers.

“The set was made up of 176 aluminum pyramids cus-tom-built by Tait,” Klein continues. “Each pyramid was 7'-by-7' and 4' deep and lined with Tait’s LED Pixel Tablets, thesame product that was used at the London Olympics lastsummer. We used 6,500 Pixel Tablets. The scenic pyramids

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An inside look at the audacious main stage design at Ultra Music Festival

By: David Barbour

U

More than 12,000 shots of pyro and arrays of willows and fountains were used over the six days of the festival.

created the illusion of supporting the 50'-by-50' UMF logo,which was built for us by Mountain Productions in additionto the stage’s infrastructure. The logo incorporated VER’sLinx 30mm LED video screen and was surrounded by 65LED Solaris Flares from VER. These color-changing LEDlights offer incredible brightness and impact. Ultra was oneof the first productions to use them on this scale in theworld.” The latter product, which is new to these pages, canfunction as both a color wash and a strobe, and it comeswith a pixel-mapping feature. Also lining the logo were 25Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 72 and 30 ColorBlaze 48LED strips.

Built into the set design at stage right and stage left were20'-by-13' WinVision 12mm video screens, used for IMAG.At stage center was another WinVision 8mm screen, 26'-by-13', which opened to reveal a series of different looks. “Onelook had a 4'-by-27' WinVision 18mm screen; this would getloaded out to be replaced by other systems, depending onwho was headlining,” explains Klein. “Also, four 10'-by-6'robot screens made up of VER 9mm video. We designed thefirst dynamically changing DJ booth, which used the Taitvideo matrix lifts [also seen on the recent Madonna MDNATour]. These consisted of 32 individual lifts that can rise up8' from the stage deck and transform into different configu-rations.” (Tait also supplied 10 programmable water foun-tains.)

Jason Rudolph, who managed the video technical systemdesign, says, “For Ultra Music Festival, we had a number ofvideo design challenges to overcome. First, we had a num-ber of uniquely shaped screens that needed fairly complicat-ed mapping to make them look correct. Second, we neededa huge variety of systems to incorporate the content ofartists who have their own VJs. Therefore, we engineered asystem that incorporated a large DVI router, an array of

image processors, and 12 Green Hippo Hippotizer mediaservers. Using DVI capture cards in the Hippos, we wereable to remap incoming signals from the various sources sothat they would look correct on the screens. At the sametime, we could bypass the Hippos completely, or only forcertain sources if the signals provided could be mapped cor-rectly for the various screen surfaces utilizing a touch-screeninterface for the router to trigger the servers. We could take asingle feed from either the stage or a VJ setup at the front ofhouse and map it onto all of the surfaces, or we could havesomeone show up with an individual feed for each screen.We basically had to handle every possible scenario and han-dle it quickly, as some artists’ video departments showed uponly minutes before the set.”

Screen content was created by Vello Virkhaus, of VSquared Labs, with additional content from RobertMontenegro, of New York-based Guy Smith Productions.UMF branding, live VJ performances, and set change lookswere created by the team at V Squared Labs and directed byVirkhaus. “V Squared Labs also VJ’d for any artists that didnot have their own production teams, improvising and bring-ing the stage to life using their generative visual technology,”says Klein.

Among the many special effects, the stage featuredtwelve 30W RGB lasers provided by Wood Dale, Illinois-based Strictly FX. “I have nothing but respect for Strictly FXand the work they do—the use and programming of thelasers was an amazing addition to our production, and I wasvery pleased to have them on board our team,” notesSwedish House Mafia production manager Robin Scott. Thelasers, which were programmed by Grant Sellers and DavidKennedy of Strictly FX, were an integral component of thesecond half of the band’s set, including the colorful visualonslaughts present in the songs “In My Mind,” “Quasar-

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The flame system included four high output liquid flame unitscapable of shooting flames 100' high.

The pyrotechnics also include 20 liquid flame heads and fivesunshine five-way flame units.

Spectrum-Insomnia”, and “Knas.” “The band was gutsy intaking the amount of lasers to the show that they did,” saysStrictly FX visuals director and partner Ted Maccabee.

Klein adds that throughout the six days there were morethan “12,000 shots of pyro and multiple arrays of willows,fountains, and other effects.” The system, designed byFarmingdale, New York-based Pyro Engineering, also usedmultiple styles of stadium mines, comets, gerbs, and flaresto create astonishing moments on the stage. Twenty-fourCO2 jets with more than 800 tanks of CO2 were used acrossthe two weekends. The flame system included four high-out-put liquid flame units capable of shooting flames 100' high,20 additional liquid flame heads, and five sunshine five-wayflame units. Twelve confetti blowers used more than 1,000lbof confetti, while 12 Big Shot double barrel streamer can-nons combined with six Stadium Shot streamer cannonsalso lined the stage structure. The final touch were 12Bubble Masters bubble machines with UV bubble fluid.

LightingLighting was designed by Richard Neville, of Sydney,Australia-based Mandylights “James and I started workingwhen we were teenagers in Sydney together,” he says,adding that he studied Klein and Rodgers’ design and sug-gested placing a lighting unit inside each pyramid, choos-ing the Robe LEDBeam 100 for the job. Another new prod-uct, the LEDBeam 100 is a moving unit with three LEDzones that allow the creation of various color chases and a7° beam angle that can be amplified with fast strobing; theunit is also lightweight, a feature that really mattered here.

Video Equipment Rentals (VER) supplied the lighting gear.“The 100s were located in the center of each pyramid,”

Neville says. “They weigh almost nothing, and Taitdesigned a custom slot-and-lock mechanism with oneremovable pin, which made it easy to install and servicethem. Out of 176 fixtures, we swapped only three—andthey were outside in the dust and the rain; to have that kindof reliability was incredible.”

“The Robes were the workhorses,” Neville adds. “It wasan incredibly imposing structure during the day, and thechallenge at night was to maintain the shape of the stage.Ultra invested a lot of money in the stage design, and wedesigned the lighting to make sure everyone saw how coolthe structure looked, even in the dark. The LEDBeam 100sare ridiculously fast, and they’ve got white, which means youcan do color mixing with very little in the way of shadows.With all these 1,500W fixtures, the LED moving light was thestar of the show.”

Also crucial in outlining the stage were Clay PakySharpys. “We lined the perimeter of the structure with 58 ofthem,” says Neville. “To be able to use them for big fan looksallowed us to keep the profile of the pyramid at night. Wealso had a smattering of them on the stage, with chrome fin-ishes that looked fantastic.”

For stage lighting, Neville says, “I designed a basic set offive trusses in the roof setup with some vertical towers; theidea was to have as many units in positions to be used in asmany ways as possible. We have 30 [Philips Vari*Lite]VL3000s inside the stage and a further 94 across the rest ofthe stage structure. In addition, there were 16 VL3500 WashP

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Robe LEDBeam 100s were placed in the center of each pyramid, chosen because of their light weight and a custom slot-and-lockinstallation mechanism designed by Tait.

FX and 16 VL3000 Spots for front light. We were trying tokeep the fixture types to a minimum; we used [89] Robe 600LEDWashes and [26] 1200 LEDWashes because the colorsand parameters were the same. The 600s were placed invertical columns on the stage deck, where they could shootup color between the pyramids. We also had two verticaltowers of Robe 1200s, which filled a gap in the structure. Inaddition to the [87] Solaris Flares from VER, which wereamazing, we also had six Super Nova space flowers, foradditional effects.” Additional gear included 67 MartinAtomic strobes, 60 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 RGBs, 63CK iWhite LEDs, 40 Elements KR25 panels, 27 four-wayMolefays, three Strong Gladiator followspots, four TheONEhazers from MDG, and eight Martin Jem foggers.

Overall, Neville says his approach was to make thedesign as user-friendly as possible. “We put in big blocks offixtures to make it easy for other LDs to put their showsacross; we had 1,000 moving lights, and it was a case ofhow could we make it accessible to others. We wanted toavoid having them use only 10 or 20% of the rig.” One wayinvolved the use of a visualization suite, fitted out with theLightConverse 3-D Show Platform, also provided by VER.“We’ve been using it for about a year now,” he says. “Itallowed us to put in an almost complete geometry of thestage—every pyramid, every door control, and automation.A designer could work with it and have a realistic idea ofhow it would look.” The suite was fitted out with two MALighting grandMA consoles. Available controllers includedsix grandMA2s plus 12 NPUs, two High End Systems RoadHog Full Boars (for Deadmau5), and one ChamSys (for

Tiesto). “It was exciting to see how various lighting andvideo designers brought their own vision to this very flexiblestage interpreting it in their own unique way,” adds Klein.

With an event like this, there is no rehearsal, and if anact didn’t bring along an LD, the job fell to Neville, whoprepped himself as best he could. “I spent three monthsbefore listening to podcasts of artists to get an idea oftheir music,” he says. “Especially when you get into theevening hours, when lighting is playing a bigger role, it’svital to know the music and the artists.” He was assistedby Alex Grierson, his associate LD.

EDM relies on the creation of visual interest, Nevilleadds. “At the end of the day, it’s a DJ standing behind hisdecks. It’s really important to create a spectacle. It’s alsoimportant for the bigger EDM events to have a strong visu-al identity. Living as far from Miami as you can get, I nev-ertheless grew up with Ultra because they have alwaysplaced an importance on being visually spectacular.

“With so many fixture types and so many possible com-binations, managing the programming and operation was ahuge task. You have 1,000 moving lights, and there are somany different looks and effects that you can make. Withthat kind of fixture count, things can look very busy and verymessy. For the programming, I put a lot of thought intomanaging the fixtures. We could have done another twoweeks of festival and still produced new looks. There werelights that we didn’t use until the last two days because partof James and Bruce’s vision was that the stage would berevealed in parts, and I always had to have new tricks. Itwas great to have that many tricks up my sleeve.”

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The audio system, supplied by Miami-based Beach Sound, consisted of d&b audiotechnik J-Series and V-Series boxes, plus L-Acoustics KARA and sb18 units. Consoles included a DiGiCO SD5, Midas PRO9, Avid VENUE Profile, and Soundcraft vi4.