ESSENCE 15TH ANNIVERSARY

Project: Essence Music Festival 15TH Anniversary

Location: Mercedes Benz Superdome. New Orleans. UA

Clients: Essence Communications Inc. & Rehage Entertainment

EVENT BACKGROUND: In 1995 Essence Communication created the Essence Music Festival to celebrate Essence Magazine’s 25th anniversary.  Since it has become the nation's largest annual gathering of African-American music and culture, taking place in New Orleans over three days during July 4th weekend, the biggest names in R&B, Hip Hop and Soul perform on five stages in the Mercedes Superdome.  Free empowerment seminars, sponsor activities and a massive art market run daily in four halls at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

EXECUTION: To modernize the event and give it a fresh attitude Beese was hired in 2008 to handle all aspects of Superdome and Convention Center Production Design and its Sponsor Activations. Managing Execution of design execution, onsite creative direction during event production.

The 2009 event was the festival’s 15th anniversary; the design was an abstract reflection of a celebration and timeline, to show the significance of this recurrent festival with celebratory imagery, like fireworks, in a digital time tracing format.

The challenge was programming the light to travel through the Versa Tubes continuously, with the additional element of creating a digital texture of “fillings” in between these lines on the MiTtrix screens. Like the pulsating comets of light racing through the circuit board, these effects could shrink, grow, and disappear.

We created vignettes for artists by finding specific elements to emphasize the individual style of that particular musician (such as digital rain backdrop for Ne-Yo and candlelight atmosphere for John Legend). The aim was to achieve your own festival identity and overall look without taking away from the individual character of the artists.

The circuit-board design was also transferred over into the VIP lounge, giving the feeling of not only being part of the performances but on the actual stage. Light tape was installed onto the makeshift floor, creating multiple lit paths. These complimented the lines on the main stage.

RETROSPECTIVE: The Production Design for the Essence Music festival 2009 won The Live Design & Music Design Awards and was nominated Best Set Designer at the Parnelli Awards and featured among others in Spectacular Stage Design, Stage Design: Concerts, Events, Ceremonies and Theater, Live Design Magazine and Lighting & Sound America.