The “Ahh-some!”truth Aquatic Design
Technotainment spectacles just keep getting bigger and better, but as Dan McEwen quickly discovered, their success has more to do with creativity than technology
START talking about those big, flashy special effects shows audiences love so much and right away the conversation turns technical. Just listen to Paul McCloskey, CEO of Australia’s Laservision, describing Wonder Full, the eye- popping aquatainment spectacular his company recently developed for Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s toniest new resort. “The project ... involved integrating multiple mediums,
Image courtesy of Laservision
including floating fountains, water screens, aqua cannons, flame systems, search lights, moving head projectors, HD video projectors, customised floating projection pontoons, thousands of LED lights, high-powered Stella-Ray and Light- Ray lasers and a Special FX, 7.1 surround audio system ... synchronised to 1/1000 of a second,” he reveals.
Engineering (ADE) installed an 8,000 sq. m, multi-level fountain
boasting 2,100 LED lights at Abu Dhabi’s Ferrari
World (Image courtesy of Aquatic Design Engineering)
Or give a listen to Dominique Formhals of Aquatique
Show International, in Strasbourg, France, observing how “The first question clients usually ask is ‘What’s new’? Everyone is looking for a new technology which will enable him to be different from his competitors.” Indeed, the race to develop The Next Big Thing in live
show hardware has meant that “new technologies are emerging faster than actual projects can be delivered,” according to John Kristich of Nevada’s W. A. Richardson Builders, a veteran designer of light and fountain shows at casinos around the world. “Often new technology is not new by the time we can implement or integrate it into an actual project that a guest can experience.” So you can see why it would be tempting to make this
article a review of the latest in “Gee-Whizz!”- generating gizmos. But it’s not, largely because these same people will also tell you that success in their business is never simply a matter of having all the latest bells and whistles. As Aquatique’s Formhals so nicely puts it: “Technology is at the service of the dream, not the contrary.” And what dreams they are. In 1992, Disney’s famous imagineers dreamed up
Fantasmic, a night-time light and water show that history records featured the first use of a water screen. It debuted at Disneyland, California, mesmerising record crowds and
46 InterPark September–October 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60