Barack Obama Benefit Concert
Bryan Barancik had the pleasure of designing a concert featuring Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York to benefit Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
The event brought with it some unusual obstacles: a tight turnaround, a need to improvise around Obama’s un-choreographed appearance on stage, limited house lighting and equipment, and being a fundraiser, a severely restricted budget.
Bryan adapted the resources available to create numerous versatile looks for three completely different stars. Not only did the design manage to convey distinct moods and moments for each stage appearance, but also a cohesive look and feel was maintained throughout the production.
Lexus & Toyota Press Events
Selling a product well with strong lighting choices at a live press event is without question a refined skill set. Size, space, and time limitations are a given, as are heightened stress levels, from every party involved.
For the Lexus-Toyota Press Events in Detroit, Luxious Design was entrusted with lighting four different vehicles in the same ballroom, for four different press events within a single 24-hour period, all coordinated to an existing, pre-designed video and staging performance. Working within the severe restrictions imposed by the venue space, Luxious carefully chose positions, angles, specific lightweight fixtures, and custom gobos to achieve the maximum number of varied looks while keeping aesthetics and logistics cohesive.
The results thrilled the car designers and automotive executives: Luxious provided clean car reveals and photo ops with strong visual backgrounds, seamless transitions between events and an effortless link between the lighting system and the video and scenic production.
Hard Rock Casino "Wonder Wall"
The centerpiece of the expanded Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa is the WonderWall: a $2 million, interactive water fountain featuring a 24/7 constantly evolving video, light and water display.
To tackle this stunning display’s unique design challenges, Luxious Design employed eight projectors, all collage-blended within the waterfall’s cylindrical housing to produce one seamless, 270-degree image.
Key to the project’s success was that the WonderWall effectively encapsulated the Hard Rock ethos. Luxious tapped into a proprietary Hard Rock music video feed, manipulating the images it provided to create a distinctive program that syncs color and water flow with an ongoing variable video display.
OAR at Madison Square Garden
Concerts at Madison Square Garden always carry high audience expectations for an unforgettable experience and a performance at the legendary venue by band O.A.R. was no exception.
Dan Krygowski was tasked with adapting the band’s existing small-theater touring system for the massive arena and with elevating the concert production values to the grander scale that the performance required. Furthermore, the performance was being taped for DVD sale, and Dan needed to bridge the needs of HD video lighting with those of the live performance aesthetics.
With a calculated expansion of the lighting looks that reached every seat in the house, Dan maintained the intimate experience for which O.A.R.’s touring shows are famous. Coordinating live cueing for big changes and color combinations with the TV lighting crew allowed the power of the live performance to translate to the final DVD product.
