Designing sets for playing in large venues

I had some cool ideas for playing on stage. These are just the artistic renderings of those thoughts. You can click on all the images for a slightly larger image.

In this one, the lunch box will roll on stage and then open to reveal the band as they start to play. Note that the drummer is wearing a giant foam pickle. The other players might be a thermos and sandwich. I’m not sure yet. And yes, that is my sad attempt at duplicating a Lazer Tag lunchbox from the mid 1980’s. I should know. I owned one.
Lunch box closed
Lunch box open

Here, I thought it would be fun to have a medieval theme because I love D&D-like games and stories. I really like this one and it would require some sort of control surface from the back, where a tech could activate any one of the following “states” to go along with the music:

  • Night – brings up blue and purple lights, turns on the christmas lights in the rear, lights the moon, plays cricket sounds, and other things…
  • Day – brings up bright lights, and…. um….plays daytime sounds? wind? gulls? hahahahaha! that’s hilarious. I have no idea….
  • Siege – (during day or night) turn on fans behind tall grass to blow red/yellow/orange streamers up with backlighting and sound for a fire effect.

castle

This marionette one is a favorite. I had a fun time thinking about it. Basically, all the lights are on the puppets in front with the band playing music in the background. A system for the players to control the puppets would be crazy….right? So I think you would need puppeteers to do that work for you. Cool.
puppets

If you like these, and by some chance use these ideas, please take some photos and let me see it! That would be awesome. Or, if I ever build one of these I’ll post pictures here. Deal?

One Response to “Designing sets for playing in large venues”

  1. John Cheeseman says:

    Some weird stuff Joe! But let me know when you’ve actually built one of these. Love to see it in action.

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