hollywood billionaire

Chapter 312 An unprecedented real-life stage (Part )

"The original sign in Griffith Park, each letter was 30 feet wide and 50 feet high. Our reproduction of the nine letters, which are 6 feet wide and 10 feet high, is five times smaller, but stands on this man-made hill Up there, it still looks spectacular.”

"Indeed." Han Yi agreed. On a hillside about ten meters high, there are nine signs with a height of three meters and a total length of 18 meters. It is certainly a spectacular sight. If you ignore the Stratosphere Tower behind the stage, it will even feel like you are actually at the Griffith Observatory and looking at the Hollywood sign up close.

"What are they doing?" Zhao Youzhen noticed several workers hanging safety ropes and working hard next to the last letter sign of "HOLLYWOOD". Their bright yellow construction vests have a huge umbrella-shaped IATSE logo printed on them. There is no doubt that these workers are from the Local 720 chapter of the International Union of Theatrical Stage Employees in Las Vegas. "If I read correctly, they are...installing light bulbs?"

"You read that right, You Zhen." Ori folded his hands in front of him, smiled slightly, and looked very proud, "The original Hollywood sign has 4000 light bulbs, and we have installed here - each The logo is surrounded by a hundred light bulbs, and when all the stage lights come on during the rehearsal, you will know how shocking it is."

"But on the previous draft..."

"I know that there was no lighting component in the previous draft, but I asked them to add it. In the last preparation meeting, you went to pick up Bi Li's performance and did not participate." Han Yi tilted his head slightly and explained to Zhao Youzhen , "Without the light bulbs, the feeling of the city of lights will be lost, which will be in sharp contrast with the neon lights in the 'Manhattan' area on the right."

"These replicas of high-rise buildings are also equipped with light bulbs?"

Youzhen took two steps forward, raising his head at a wider angle. In fact, you don’t have to go forward to see clearly the New York high-rise buildings on the right that are no less impressive than the artificial red clay hills. But standing in the first row of the dance floor area demarcated by explosion-proof metal mesh fence, this kind of thing seems real. The sense of time and space being transported to the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street becomes even more apparent.

On the Las Vegas Strip, there is a similarly creative New York City Hotel and Casino, which is made up of scaled-down replicas of various Manhattan city landmarks. The Statue of Liberty, the Chrysler Building, and a replica of the Empire State Building, which at 529 feet was once the tallest building in Nevada.

It can be said that local residents of Las Vegas, as well as all tourists who have visited the casino, have long been accustomed to this kind of real-life New York landscape.

Therefore, in terms of stage design, Hanscene put forward very strict requirements for the design team they hired - while restoring the Manhattan skyline to the greatest extent, they also had to make a difference from New York casino hotels, so as not to make people feel that this The stage replicates the hotel not far away. A replica of a replica is not a nice name.

However, this kind of request was not a problem at all for the two landscaping masters provided by Hanscene for Mad City - Simon Carroll and Ace Devlin. The former comes from Bristol, UK, and serves as the design director of Temple Design Studio. Since 2014, he has designed more than ten stages and art installations for the Glastonbury Music Festival, making him famous in the British music industry. The latter is even more remarkable. He is a kinetic sculptor, a light and shadow artist, an installation artist, and one of the most famous stage designers in the world.

Born in 1971, the 45-year-old female designer Ace Devlin is from England like Simon Carroll. A graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, she is known for her stunning dynamic structural designs. These designs, combined with lighting and visual effects, continue to take the audience's breath away in theaters, fashion shows and stage performances. She designed the stage sets for many concerts and award shows by Kanye West, Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Miley Cyrus.

Due to the tight preparation time for this music festival, Hanscene did not go through the normal bidding process when it came to selecting the stage design team. Instead, internal executives directly recommended several teams for pitch competition. Simon Carroll was recommended by Ben Molson, the person in charge of the London branch of Renyu Management. The reason why Han Yi prefers him is because Carroll and his team understand the actual needs of Mad City very well - the first session, the camp In a situation where the revenue and risks are unclear, Han Site hopes to control costs as much as possible and improve cost performance, so that the stage construction can become the highlight of the event without becoming an obstacle to the balance of payments.

When it comes to cost control, among so many famous stage designers, no one dares to say that they are better at this than Simon Carroll. Because the Glastonbury Music Festival he has been in charge of for the past three years is a classic case of saving budgets in all aspects to the extreme.

In 2014, Glastonbury Festival's revenue exceeded £3730 million, but its profit was only £8.6. This is because Glastonbury has so many stages. Even EDC only has ten stages, and one of them is a tour bus. Glastonbury actually increased the number of stages to three digits. Every year, more than 100 artists perform on more than 18 stages for audiences. You don’t need to calculate to know that such a large, bright but bloated and redundant artist lineup will greatly damage the brand’s profitability.

But Glastonbury is world-famous for its music expo-like lineup. Reducing the number of artists also cuts off Glastonbury’s core attraction. Therefore, the organizers can only focus on other aspects. One of the ways to reduce costs is to start with a stage budget. Being able to gain the trust of dairy farmer Michael Eavis and help him plan the blueprint for the park for three consecutive years shows Simon Carroll's ability to maneuver in small spaces.

He and his Temple Design Studio are mainly responsible for the hardware design, structural design and engineering supervision of the Mad City Music Festival stage this time, ensuring that Han Yi's wild ideas can be implemented smoothly.

As for Ace Devlin, her joining is another story. Without anyone's recommendation, she is the "dream realizer" hand-picked by Han Yi. Her only task is to make this three-in-one real-life stage still produce heart-stirring art while the budget is strictly controlled. Brilliance.

Why choose her?

In 2011, she performed on the Gotham City stage of the Batman Theater World Arena Tour.

She did the overall stage design for the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

She did it on the mountain stage of Kanye West's Yeezus tour in 2013.

In 2015, she created the container stage for the Royal Opera House's political satirical opera "The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny".

She made the holographic projection stage for U2016 band Innocence & Experience in 2.

There are also fashion week shows of Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and other big brands, as well as the British Pavilion at the 2020 Dubai World Expo, which has not yet become a reality in this time and space, and the 2022th Super Bowl halftime show in 56, all of which she has left behind. A visual feast for this world and this era.

It can be said that in the field of live stage, there is no master with more famous reputation and more exquisite skills than Ace Devlin.

So, over the next month or so, Carroll and Devlin's teams formed a very interesting joint working group. Devlin was responsible for coming up with all kinds of fanciful plans, while Carroll was responsible for vetoing them. Based on the overall structure proposed by Han Yi, which combines the three elements of Hollywood, Broadway and gangster streets into one, the design team revised several drafts and finally formed the final version currently presented in front of everyone.

The Hollywood Hills on the left are an original reproduction that is completely faithful to the real environment, while the Manhattan skyline on the right is infused with Ess Devlin's strong personal style - dynamic geometric shapes and searchlights visible to the naked eye. Combined with neon lights, with a slight sci-fi feel, the tough and grand overall lines, the New York on the right side of the Mad City stage is not the old New York in the Art Deco style built in the 9s in the New York Casino Hotel, but after the 11· incident. , a new New York with numerous postmodernist buildings.

Ace Devlin did not put the Empire State Building in position C, but replaced it with Building 432 of the New World Trade Center. In addition, 8 Park Avenue, the Bank of America Building, New York Times Square Building, Spruce Street No. 57, and even One, where Han Yi lives, were placed before the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building by Devlin.

Not only that, Devlin also painted these temporary wonders with her most famous cement gray color, whether they are made of marble or glass curtain walls in reality, on the stage of Mad City , these skyscrapers have become what they looked like in the space opera era in science fiction movies. Of course, Carroll did not forget to attach LED screens to the exterior walls of the building, so that when the performance is in progress, Devlin's New York can loop through the visual materials prepared by the artists.

In order to naturally combine the natural mountains on the left and the artificial jungle on the right, the two designers also designed two blocks on the left and right closer to the bottom of the stage. On the left are the two birthplaces of rap music, the fusion of Compton, Los Angeles and the Bronx, New York, representing the foundation of East and West Coast rap, while on the right are the two distribution centers of modern pop music, West Hollywood, Los Angeles and New York Broadway street scene mashup.

Han Yi's original idea was to directly create three stages with completely different styles and put them together roughly. Artists of different styles would perform on stages of different styles, avoiding the time of changing stages and allowing the audience to have more novel experiences. experience. But after many careful discussions, in order to prevent the event from overspending—because as long as the design continues according to the original concept, Es Devlin will definitely make the actual cost of the stage higher than the budget—Han Site finally decided to Integrating three styles into one, it becomes a true three-in-one stage. The West Coast, the East Coast, and the American streets that connect them together, in the center of the art installation, is a semi-circular arc concave giant screen stage composed of hundreds of high-precision LED screens. Even the floor under your feet is It is covered with LED screens that can play visual materials, and there are searchlights every few steps.

This is also one of the important concepts that Han Yi insists on realizing in every preparatory meeting.

The muse of this inspiration is naturally the Las Vegas Sphere, which was built in 2018 and opened in 2023. It is jointly built by Madison Square Garden Company and Las Vegas Sands and is located in the Venetian Resort. pavilion.

In this life, Han Yi plans to directly copy this plan. After acquiring Circus Circus, he will transform the hotel's spherical adventure park into a better, more complete, lower transformation cost, and more profitable place in this time and space. Las Vegas Sphere.

The first Mad City stage was the first trailer he released to the world.

"Light bulbs, neon lights, LEDs, searchlights, laser rays... Excuse me, we have installed tens of thousands of light sources in places where you can't see them. There are not as many lights as the Eiffel Tower, but they are definitely brighter than the lights of the Eiffel Tower." Lee Blistan pointed to the row of white rectangles on the right side of the stage and said with a smile, "Two 27-kilowatt generators are used for musical instrument amplifiers and other accessories, and four 90-kilowatt generators are used for the LED screen in the center of the stage. Seven 210-kilowatt generators are reserved for audio equipment, and three 275-kilowatt generators are responsible for powering other links... In addition, there are six 365-kilowatt XQ400s reserved only for the lighting matrix and video equipment at the set. .”

"Each one is a diesel generator provided by Caterpillar. We are expected to burn almost 42000 gallons of diesel here in three days, and we have to pay more than US dollars just for gas... For this, I still have Not counting the electricity needs of the dining area and VIPs.”

"It better be worth it."

Han Yi looked at the LED screens in the center of the stage that lit up one after another and then went out gradually, and said with a smile. IATSE's union employees are conducting a final comprehensive inspection of each screen. After confirming that everything is correct, the Mad City Music Festival will begin its first rehearsal.

"I hope the final effect can reach half of what I expected...that's enough. Otherwise, we might as well use the money to treat each of the 21 viewers to an In-N-Out."

"You don't have to worry about this, boss." Ori Blistan crossed his arms and said confidently, "Last night we did a stress test on the lighting and visual matrix. I have to say, I have done that I’ve been to many music festivals, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

"What scene?"

"It's like Disneyland in Los Angeles and Disneyland in Orlando..." Ori Blistan opened his palms and suddenly put them together, "The scene of lighting up on New Year's Eve...and it's the combination of the two. Together."

"Is it so great?" Han Yi opened his mouth, a little surprised.

"I may be exaggerating... It may not be as powerful as the two combined, but taken alone, it is definitely not inferior to any theme park, or large music festival, or any... luminous event in the world. ." Ori breathed a long sigh of relief, "Crazy City is really special, really crazy."

"Hearing what you say, I can't wait to see how the rehearsal turns out."

"Me too, boss... let me tell you, whoever is the first artist to stand on this stage is going to feel very lucky."     "I should've known, Maddie."

Forty minutes later, Ori Blistan, who was standing at the FOH console at the venue, put on the Sennheiser HD800S handed to him by his assistant, put the SR314 microphone in his hand to his mouth, and looked up at the stage where he was standing. Central's Madison-Beal.

"Should've known what?" Hearing the voice coming from the speakers in front of her, Madison took off the Shure SE846 in-ear monitors she had just adjusted and frowned in confusion.

"I should have known that in Mad City, Maddie would be the one to kick off the show."

"Ah." Madison shook her index finger and showed a smile of realization. The homophonic meme is not humorous, but it does fit the occasion. "I am the first in the formal performance, and I will definitely compete for the first in the rehearsal."

"This is the spirit we need." There were hundreds of people waiting in the venue for him, as the on-site commander, to give orders. Naturally, Ori's greetings were only superficial. He flipped through the activity manual that was thicker than a dictionary in front of him, licked his lips, glanced around at the colleagues behind him who were surrounding the main console, and then continued: "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mad City The scene of the first live rehearsal!”

With the sudden rise of Oli Blistan's voice, thunderous applause and cheers erupted in the Las Vegas festival venue. Occasionally, one or two screams and shouts with unclear meaning could be heard.

Although the music festival has not yet started, for Mad City's production team, especially the construction team, the most arduous task has been completed. The milestone that has been built day and night over the past two weeks is finally completed at this moment.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as we stand here today, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to each of you. For the past three months in our offices, and in our meetings over the past two weeks, your Dedication, hard work and creativity turned our infancy into a reality that no one outside of this venue could have imagined - our Mad City Music Festival."

“Your tireless efforts behind the scenes, those long nights and unwavering commitment have not gone unnoticed and combined will create an experience that the 21 people who attend will remember for a lifetime. The experience of recalling.”

“Together we built a stage, a show, and each of you played a vital role in making that vision a reality, and for that, I’m incredibly proud and grateful. Because I know that together we conceived This baby will not only be a Halloween carnival, but will also become a milestone in the history of live music."

At this point, Ori covered his chest with one hand and allowed himself to take deep breaths several times before he could barely suppress the choking emotions that filled his heart.

"Don't worry, I won't waste too much time on the speech. I know we still have a lot of work to do. The celebration should wait until after this Sunday to plan slowly... But, McGrady."

"Yes, Ori." Madison responded softly, standing on tiptoes with a sweet smile.

"As the last team member to join us and the most important part of this show, before the rehearsal begins, please allow me to introduce to you the partners who will fight side by side with you on and off the stage the day after tomorrow. .”

"Of course." Madison looked at the musicians behind her calmly, "I'm looking forward to meeting all of your talented new friends."

"Okay, so, let's start with the person standing on the stage with you...Jonas Blue, your DJ, I think this person you should know."

"Not only do we know each other." Madison smiled and greeted Jonas on the DJ stage, then turned to sell to the staff off the stage, "We also collaborated on a song, next year...oh , can’t you say yes? Okay, Yuzhen, I’ll shut up.”

Seeing Zhao Youzhen's gesture of wiping his neck in front of the main console, Madison grinned and looked cute and embarrassed when he put down the microphone, which caused a burst of laughter in the audience.

"If you promote your new single here, we will charge a promotion fee... However, I heard that you are currently preparing for your first studio album. If you need to record real instruments, you can consider it. Senior musicians around.”

"Grammy Award-winning drummer Tony Mora from Nashville."

"One of the best studio bassists in Hollywood, Sean Hurley, who has recorded music for John Mayer, Lana Del Rey and Jason Mayez."

"Electric guitarist and trusted touring partner of Chris Brown, Justin Bieber and Travis Scott, Sheldon Ferguson."

"My favorite pianist...I have collaborated with him too many times, so I won't praise him. Anyway, his level is relatively average...Isamu McGregor, the big guy."

"Fuck you dude." Isamu raised his middle finger and laughed.

"Wow, this kind of vicious language cannot appear on our Mad City stage!" Ori Blistan raised his little finger, pretending to be offended, "Except for you, Tracy McGrady, you can use dirty words. , you can also sing bad words. We have prepared a special fund to pay fines."

Ori's words are half ridicule and half true, because in Las Vegas, there is really a law against swearing in public. Pursuant to Municipal Ordinance 10.40.030, no person may speak any vile, obscene or profane words on any of the city's public streets, alleys or highways, including open spaces, whether public or private.

Luckily, this law hasn't been enforced for decades, so you don't have to worry about police arrest if you accidentally say something bad while in Sin City.

"It would be nice if there were swear words in my songs...it's a pity that I'm a character in a PG movie." Madison responded with a playful wink.

As the fame grew, so did the announcements. Her performance experience is getting richer, and she is about to pass all late-night talk shows. At the end of 2016, Madison is much more mature than she was when she panicked and ran away from Diplo's recording studio half a year ago.

Fame and wealth are the best catalyst for a person.

She was able to pick up any conversation with ease and responded wittyly, once again winning the good-natured laughter in the venue.

"Okay, then we will be the teapot and lamp beside you."

Ori Blistan is also a quick-thinking, fast-talking person. In other words, all gay people who have achieved success in their careers seem to have this personality. After using the story of "Beauty and the Beast" to both joke and secretly praise Madison, Ori continued to introduce her with a smile.

"These people I just introduced are all outstanding musicians who will perform for Han Music's signed artists at this music festival... In addition, there is also our visual art director, the legend of Burning Man, Android Jones With his team. Lighting Artistic Director, the soul of Coachella and EDC, Steve Lieberman. Sound Artistic Director, our closest ally at Han Music, 19-time Grammy Award winner, Serbon Garner. Of course, there are also countless elites in front of and behind the scenes who are so outstanding that they are rare in the industry. They spent two weeks creating a key to the greatest music festival of this era, and now..."

Ory Blistan deliberately drawled his voice for dramatic effect.

"Are you ready to be the first person to use this key to lead everyone to the crazy city?"

"Um……"

Madison followed suit and deliberately thought for a few seconds before putting his lips close to the microphone.

"Fuck yeah."

"Okay, the first money from the swearing fund has been spent."

As the audience burst into laughter again, Ori Blistan sniffed and gave a thumbs up to sound director Serbon Garner sitting next to him.

"So, let's get started."

"The first melody of Mad City."

“Melodies, let’s go.”

"A one two, a one two three four!"

(End of this chapter)