Lighting / Sound

Audiovisuals is one of those things that isn’t fully appreciated until it’s gone. That isn’t to say that it’s overlooked, but that it’s tough to grasp just how important it is. If you have no audio or visual, then you don’t really have an event. The event landscape is constantly changing and the audiovisual technology even more so, as it slowly becomes more vital for events by the day, with inventions in event polling, new event apps that increase engagement and provide attendees with front-row sound no matter where they are in the crowd, and you can’t forget about virtual ...

The indicator of a well-run festival—whether large or small—is good sound. But each stage, each venue, each performing artist comes with their own set of requirements and challenges, and maintaining sound that is both pristine and huge is one of the most pivotal endeavors of a festival enterprise. Having good layout, stage design, mixers, and sound engineers is always important, but when it comes to sound at a festival, all eyes and ears are on the sound system. JBL? Mackie? Void? In the world of electronic music, there is one brand that outranks them all: Funktion One. The ominous angular ...

Production While lineups have stayed largely stagnant in many areas of the scene, the production standards have been continuously growing and evolving, transforming the look, feel and vibe of festivals. EDM’s meteoric rise imposed levels of terrifying grandiosity on the audience. These days people are yearning to see something more organic and human. The Do LaB’s iconic stage at Coachella—not to mention their flagship festival Lightning in a Bottle—has been one of the major production projects that has pushed organizers to change their approach. Look at Boom in Portugal, Lost Paradise in Australia, Wonderfruit in Thailand for examples of festivals ...

Anyone that has ever come through the tunnel and onto the Las Vegas Speedway during Electric Daisy Carnival will attest, there’s no festival in the world that can match it for decadence. With twelve stages, eighteen fairground rides, and about 450,000 people, it’s one of the world’s biggest dance music festivals and celebrated its 21st year in suitably mind-blowing fashion by improving almost every area of the event. The logistics nerds would do well to travel to EDC Las Vegas to get some insight into how this incredibly slick operation goes down. From light design to the management of crowd ...

It’s not enough to have a lineup and some beer anymore. People need to be blown away. The bar has continued to move higher over the last decade and one area that has accelerated, particularly in tandem with the rise of EDM, is lighting and stage production. Having led the lighting design and production for some of the biggest US festivals, founder of SJ Lighting Steve Lieberman is arguably the most influential figure behind this shift, boasting over 20 years of lighting design experience under his belt. From the flashy festival stages of Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival and Coachella to ...