Medialon Manager is the centerpiece of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee’s new Black Bear Jamboree dinner and show where it provides show control for extensive audio, video and lighting systems.
The Black Bear Jamboree is a $10 million musical dinner revue featuring state-of-the-art lighting, lasers and surround sound. It tells the story of the legendary annual gathering where all the black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains meet in a secret cave to celebrate with food, dance and song.
Installed by Clair Brothers Systems, Medialon Manager meets the Jamboree’s need for a user-friendly control system with consistent and simplified operation. “Medialon coordinates everything for the show,” reports Marshall L. Whaley of Fee Hedrick Inc. who serves as the show’s director of technical services. “There are six time lines which start at different times, each representing a segment of the show. The show has a total of four segments with music, dancers, lights and six animatronic bears. An Alesis HD24 audio track player sends MIDI time code to Medialon which synchs the time code with the time line to control an array of equipment and trigger the bears.”
Among the gear controlled by Medialon Manager is a Medialon MIP player, Yamaha PM1D, Martin Maxxyz lighting console, a pair of Sanyo projectors, two Da Lite screens, and a Panasonic MX70 video mixer. Also, a second Manager (panel edition) is running on a tablet PC as a show remote control.
"With only three days on site, the schedule was very tight, particularly as the shows were running in early morning and all evening. Fortunately, there was no need to recompile our project to test any modifications. Medialon Manager is operational immediately after any changes. And most of the corrections and adjustments can be done in real time, while project is actually running. That saves lots of time, “ comments Stephane Villet, technical manager at Medialon.
“The Medialon system is great,” Whaley says. “It’s always dependable. We do a Christmas show as well, and Medialon makes that an easy transition for us.”