The centre’s two theatres, Centre Stage and Jewel Box, are using the disguise gx series, supplied by Barbizon Light of the Rockies in Denver.
The 130,000 square foot Mountain America Performing Arts Centre features the 900-seat, in-the-round Centre Stage Theatre with a custom-built, automated stage and a perimeter of LED video screens. The Jewel Box Theatre seats the 467 with a proscenium thrust stage for smaller, more intimate productions, both outfitted with TAIT’s entertainment automation platform, TAIT Navigator.
The Hale Centre evaluated several brands of media servers before choosing a disguise gx 2 for the Centre Stage and a gx 1 for the Jewel Box. Video and Projection Designer, Joshua Roberts, said: “Barbizon was fantastic about providing equipment and facilitating our learning about the system before our purchases.”
Joshua added, disguise’s ability to “talk to our TAIT Navigator system and to incorporate BlackTrax real-time tracking is also important for future productions.”
Barbizon’s Systems Integrator for Barbizon Light of the Rockies, Peter Maurelli, explained: “The gx server exceeds our expectations and handles every challenge quickly and easily. The team at disguise are a pleasure to work with from sales support to delivery and training.”
Centre Stage has already used its gx 2 on two productions, Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and Elton John’s and Tim Rice’s‘Aida.’“disguise allows us to take huge videos and play them seamlessly across six LED walls around the audience to create one cohesive scene,” said Joshua. “It’s invaluable in stitching the outputs together to make a giant 360º display. We can also build colour layers to overlay and blend, then tweak them on the fly as we work on the content in the space without affecting playback.”
The gx 1 in the Jewel Box arrived more recently and will be used on productions starting next season. The space is also rented for corporate events and conferences, and the media server is currently being used for those applications. “The gx 1 gives us a lot of flexibility for our rentals, each of which has different needs,” Joshua noted. “We can refocus for screens we set up without moving the projectors and accept many different sources for presentations. We’re good to go very quickly for clients.”
