EDC Las Vegas set records with their 2014 stage setup; the ‘Kinetic Cathedral’. The massive structure was 440 feet wide – almost 6 times larger than Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ stage, and double U2’s ‘360 Tour’ stage. In addition to its incredible length, the stage towered 80 feet in the air; about the size of a 7-story apartment building. A staircase from top-to-bottom would have about 140 stairs. Once the infrastructure was secured, there were 28 LED displays, 1,000 light fixtures, and 30 lasers, requiring 2.5 million Watts of power to operate. Having reached out to an EDC production team leader, I learned that the entire EDC environment takes upwards of 3 weeks and 100,000 man hours to create – the Kinetic Cathedral alone requires 7 days of construction.
In 2015, EDC tackles a new challenge; moving North America’s largest stage to Met Life Stadium in New Jersey for EDC New York. The team decided that the 140-yard-wide stage couldn’t practically be moved. Here’s what Insomniac production designer Alyxzander Bear said about his team’s solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem:
“Insomniac designers conceived kineticCATHEDRAL to be the largest, most awe-inspiring performance stage in North America for EDC Las Vegas 2014, and that task was achieved. However, the sheer size, materials and time needed to build this stage made it unrealistic to take on a worldwide tour. Subsequently, the Insomniac designers went back to the drawing board to reengineer the stage that made EDM history into a more functional touring stage.”
The redesigned Kinetic Cathedral has been scaled down to 240 feet, and build time has been reduced from a week, to just 2 days. The stage’s foundation requires 16 trucks to transport; 2 video production trucks, 4 lighting trucks, 5 scenery trucks, 2 sound equipment trucks, and 2 special effects equipment trucks. Remember opening a brand new Lego set and having everything nicely sorted into little plastic bags? It’s like that, but weighs 400,000 pounds.
Source: Insomniac