Category: Theme Parks

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Liwa Village- Abu Dhabi

In late 2022 I joined the experimental marketing company Avantgarde as Head of Technical in charge of architectural and theatrical lighting, audio, video and IT for Liwa Village– a first time event created held in Liwa, south of Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The festival was conceived as cultural event and community gathering point for the nearby seasonal off road competition held at Moreeb Dune and featured live performances, an immersive dinner experience and F&B retail kiosks featuring the finest of local vendors.

The festival opened on 16 Dec 2022 and due to popular demand was extended till Sunday, 8th January 2023.

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Global Village Dubai- Carnaval 2020

Since August 2019, I have been consulting with the fine people at Global Village Dubai to create a new night-time lighting experience for the Carnaval Rides and Attractions area, in preparation for their 25th Anniversary Season and the millions of expected new visitors visiting the UAE next year for the upcoming Worlds Expo 2020.

The project scope included the networking of 120 dmx connections to 40 artnet devices placed in ticket booths and power rooms situated throughout the Carnaval area, in order to provide synchronized control of over 200 moving light and led fixtures.

Design elements also included an original pole canopy design to support a new skytracker position and protect the moving lights from rainfall and direct sunlight, the hardware specification and software programming for centralized lighting effect playback for a number of ride triggers, and the networking and programming of nearly a 1km of digital RGBW festoon strings.

Themed lighting programming was also created for major holidays, the weekly firework shows, and for scheduled daily park operations.

Many thanks go out to Sreetheran Karunanithy, Rishwan Sathik, Neil Dwyer and the other excellent people at Global Village, and to Moshin and the team at White Horizon for being such hard workers and great company on those long overnight shifts.

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CD+M Lighting Design Group at IMG World of Adventure Dubai

Once again Ted Ferreira and Bill Johnson at the CD+M Lighting Design Group presented me  with an amazing opportunity- this time to come and spend six months onsite as the lighting designer for rides and attractions at the “Worlds Largest Indoor Theme Park” in Dubai.   Lighting design and programming for attractions at  IMG Worlds of Adventure included Avengers Battle of Ultron, Hulk Epsilon Base 3D, Spider-Man Doc Ock’s Revenge, Thor Thunder Spin, The Velociraptor, Forbidden Territory, Adventure Time Ride of OOO w/ Finn and Jake, and the The Haunted Hotel.

Teresa outside w/ me on first day onsite
Me and Marceline the Vampire Queen
Me in the Gumball exit queue on my last day onsite
Avengers Exit
Forbidden Territory
Spider-man & Doc Ock’s Revenge
Spider-man Queue
Spider-man Queue
Spider-man Queue
Spider-man Queue
Spider-man Queue
Spider-man Queue
Haunted Hotel Queue Hallway
Mani, Jose, Joby and I in the Haunted Hotel
Me happy as can be at my desk in the Haunted Hotel

 

 

 

 

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VICTORY HILL EXHIBITIONS- AVENGERS S.T.A.T.I.O.N.

Marvel’s AVENGERS S.T.A.T.I.O.N. (Scientific Training and Tactical Intelligence Operative Network)

The Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. (Scientific Training and Tactical Intelligence Operative Network) is a completely immersive experience that brings visitors into the world of The Avengers. Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. is an interactive exhibit experience that allows visitors to participate in a simulated recruitment as if they were being trained as agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Visitors of all ages are granted S.H.I.E.L.D. access to the official S.T.A.T.I.O.N. headquarters and taken deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here they will have open access to a vast array of intelligence files, classified studies and experiments that explores the history and scientific origins of Marvel’s The Avengers. Visitors will also be given unprecedented access to some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most highly guarded artifacts such as Captain America’s Birth Pod, the Tesseract Portal Device, Loki’s Scepter, a hermetically sealed Chitauri and more, recovered after the Battle of New York.
NASA, the Science & Entertainment Exchange (a program of the National Academy of Sciences), Neuroverse, and Thwacke are all collaborating on the Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Exhibition visitors will get the chance to map out the stars to find Asgard, learn to operate Iron Man’s suit, witness the neurological effects of Bruce Banner’s transformation into the Hulk, and physically test themselves against Captain America.

VICTORY HILL EXHIBITIONS- AVENGERS S.T.A.T.I.O.N.
VICTORY HILL EXHIBITIONS- AVENGERS S.T.A.T.I.O.N. (2014)

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Great Forest Challenge- VIRSIX at the Great Wolf Lodge

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Many thanks to Eric Gradman and Christian Chaudhari at VIRSIX for having me to up to light the new Great Forest Challenge at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound WA.   Its an innovative and immersive take on the themed attraction- a sort of walking dark ride crossed with a full scale life-sized video game that was great fun to do.    I hope it’s a much of a success as it appears to be!      Congrats, all!

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CD+M Lighting & The Happy Magic Water Park at the Olympic Water Cube, Beijing China

cdmI was quite fortunate to be sent to the Beijing on behalf of Ted Ferreira and Patrick Yu at CD+M Design Group to focus and document the grand opening of the Happy Magic Water Park inside the Olympic Water Cube.   It was a distinct privilege and an honor to be involved in such a project, and I would again happily drop everything and head to Asia in a heartbeat if the possibility arose.  Thank you Sunny and Patrick for your kind hospitality and I hope to work with you both again in the future!