The Sirens of Treasure Island

If you've traveled to Las Vegas in the past decade chances are you witnessed the outdoor sea battle at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, the Battle of Buccaneer Bay, as you strolled down The Strip. After playing to an estimated 35 million people over 10 years, the popular free performance was retired to make way for an updated, sexier show–The Sirens of Treasure Island.

With a fresh new storyline and music, the show is now a musical-meets-action spectacular that features an exhilarating clash between a group of beautiful, tempting sirens and a band of renegade pirates. It contains all the elements certain to keep Treasure Island at the top of visitors' list–music, dance, excitement, and seduction.

Lighting the tropical city façade is a new Martin color-changing system of Exterior 600, Exterior 600 Compact, and Atomic strobe fixtures supplied by Fourth Phase. Set in a far away cove, the buildings of the seaside village are bathed in a cool moonlit wash while a ghostly bleached ship with tattered sails sits nearby.

Roy Bennet designed the lighting with programming and assistant lighting design by Troy Eckerman. Bennet flooded the façade of the buildings with the Exterior 600s "to get as much coverage as possible, and they also work on both boats," he comments. He placed six fixtures behind the boat, and with their 100-degree lenses they give enough coverage "to pull the boat away from the wall of the city to give it some depth." Bennet chose the 600, because he believe that "in that genre of light they're the most reliable."

The Exteriors surround the cove with blues, pinks and purples. Because the show includes both intense fighting scenes and more subtle elements, the fixtures are used for a variety of looks. "The majority of the fixtures were placed low on front of the dock, on the dockside only a couple of feet above the water, and on the walkway shining across the water onto the city façade," Troy Eckerman says.

"They also light the face of the ship when it comes around the cove and are also used for effects in the lightning scene of the show," Eckerman adds.

Strobing effects from the Exterior 600s are used to simulate a steadily growing storm and then to replicate a huge bolt of lightning that illuminates the mainsail. A static look provides illumination between shows with incandescent lighting taking over after midnight. The show lighting is run on SMPTE by a WholeHog III console.

Some 64 Atomic 3000 strobes are also incorporated into the show for lightning effect and uplighting purposes. Mounted in groups of two, 34 Atomics are mounted on the roof to light palm trees and buildings; 28 are located around the dock, aimed downward into the water producing a reflection effect which also uplights the buildings; and a pair are uplighting the Siren boat itself.

Free performances of The Sirens of Treasure Island can be seen nightly in Sirens' Cove at the front of Treasure Island, the centerpiece of the resort's ongoing evolution.

Roy Bennet: Lighting Designer

Troy Eckerman: Lighting Programmer and Assistant Lighting Designer

Brent Hageman: Head Lighting Technician (Sirens of Treasure Island)