Cool pre-game lighting at Chicago Blackhawks home opener

The Chicago Blackhawks produced a great pre-game show as part of the Stanley Cup banner raising on opening night last week.

The full-ice video projection was produced by Dangers Inc. out of Montreal, who worked with the Blackhawks in-house team to put together the moving video and graphics. Every member of the audience is wearing a remote-operated LED wristband called a Xyloband. Coldplay used these on their most recent tour. As you can see in the video they were able to program each section to flash little pins of light.

Nice job AJ & crew in Chicago to create a high-impact show and make the audience the "stars".

 

Renovations to St. Pete Times Forum include a new pipe organ and Tesla coils for lightning

Some notes from a TampaBay.com article about renovations to St. Pete Times Forum this summer:

• Fifty-four flatbeds worth of concrete were removed from two upper-deck end zone seating sections. Five-hundred seventy-four seats gave way to a pipe organ, which will have a bar on either side, a fixture Leiweke hopes becomes a staple of the arena, similar to the pirate ship in the Raymond James Stadium end zone.
• Another signature addition will be Tesla coils on either side of the scoreboard that will shoot lightning 25 feet.
• A new lighting system will add more brightness to the arena, which will enhance the experience for hockey fans at the game and watching on TV. Leiweke said the Forum was one of the darkest surfaces in the NHL. The improved lighting will now allow super slow-motion technology to be utilized.

Behind the scenes: The technology behind the Olympic opening ceremonies

Here's a really interesting article from Production, Lights and Staging News about the technology that powered the opening ceremonies at Vancouver's Winter Oympics. The article details some of the challenges in rigging and programing the massive show. To give you an idea, here's a partial list of the lighting and video gear used for the event:

Projection: (Solotech)

• 30 Christie 20K Roadster projector
• 24 Christie 18K Roadster projector
• 2 Christie 30K Roadster projector
• 4 Christie 10K Roadster projector
• 36 PIGI DDRA 7K Xenon projector
• 6 Only View Master unit
• 118 Only View Display unit
• 2 Only Cue Master
• 6km fiber optic cable
• Sony broadcast switcher and monitoring for all the creative staff

Lighting: (PRG)

• Fixtures:
• 192 Martin MAC 2000 Wash
• 64 Martin MAC 2000 Performance
• 19 PRG Bad Boy
• 70 PRG VL6C+ Spot
• 242 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot
• 165 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash
• 173 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spot
• 112 Vari*Lite VL2416 Wash
• 74 Vari*Lite VL1000 A/S
• 104 Vari*Lite VL5Arc Wash
• 50 Vari*Lite VL5 Wash
• 44 A&O Technology Falcon 6kW CMY
• 4 A&O Technology Falcon Flower 7kW
• 326 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 TR
• 44 Philips Color Kinetics iW Blast TR
• 33 Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove MX Powercore 12"
• 30 Philips Color Kinetics iW Profile
• 22 Coemar ParLite
• 386 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE 1 Meter
• 24 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE .5 Meter
• 5 Strong 3kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
• 11 Strong 4kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
• 2 Strong 2.5kW Xenon Gladiator II followspots
• 16 Lycian 2.5kW HMI M2 followspots
• 300 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal and Source Four PAR

Control:

• 6 PRG V676 consoles
• 1 PRG Virtuoso DX2 consoles
• 2 MA Lighting grandMA consoles
• 2 PRG Mbox Extreme v3 media servers
• 27 PRG Series 400 racks
• 162 S400 208V breaker modules
• 336 S400 208V break out boxes
• 4 S400 FOH modules
• 52 S400 Node Plus
• 45 S400 10 port switches
• 17,500 feet (3.3 miles) optical cable
• 77,745 feet (14.65 miles) S400 trunk cable
• 37,135 feet (7.03 miles) L6-20 cable
• 47,710 feet (9.04 miles) 5-Pin XLR DMX cable
• 21,925 feet (4.15 miles) 4/0 feeder cable

On-ice video projection demo

Here's a demo reel from Westbury National, one of the companies that rents & installs the projectors that power the "full ice video" effect for a lot of NHL teams.