Audiences are craving immersive experiences more than ever before, and event-focused audio-technology company Polygon is delivering big time — its unique 360-degree, 3D audio and lighting environment was on display at MDLBEAST Soundstorm in Saudi Arabia this past weekend, and fans will have another chance to experience it at Wonderfruit in Thailand, which kicks off on December 15th.
Polygon was born out of its founders’ passion for high quality sound and the sound experience at music events. As audio technology continued to improve and L-Acoustics eventually came out with their L-ISA processor, the seeds for Polygon were planted when its founders experienced and were inspired by the tech.
“It’s one of the most advanced 3D, hyperreal sound technologies that exist,” says Polygon co-founder and CEO Nico Elliott. “We approached them [L-Acoustics] to see if it could be setup in a full circle, and the answer was very much a yes. They could do it in a circle and put speakers over the top, which provides huge control over the sound objects and the ability to position them anywhere within that sphere. That was the moment at which we decided there was something to do here.”
Polygon was officially founded in 2018 following a basic trial run at Wonderfruit the year prior. Using its trademark circular truss and sound system powered by the L-ISA processor, it creates a fully immersive soundscape — complete with synchronized lighting effects and pyrotechnics — that aims to blur the boundaries between artists and fans. The audience is essentially in the middle of the sound as opposed to simply standing in front of it, and the speakers are placed at various heights to further add to the 3D effect.
“The feedback was very positive,” shares Elliott. “The artists were really inspired by the potential of the technology, and we've been building and learning and developing ever since.” When prepping for a show, he explains that the Polygon team aims to spend a day or two in the studio with the artist to get their tracks ready for Polygon’s spatial audio setup and make the experience as exciting as possible.
“In the studio, the artists tend to quickly realize that there is so much more that can be done,” says Elliott. “On a stereo setup, you can only add so many layers before it starts sounding quite messy, but when you can position sounds on an array of 80-85 speakers, you can put noises in certain speakers or move noises around certain areas and add many different layers, which makes the artist think differently about how to compose a track.”
Beyond the innovative audio setup, the second essential component that goes into these performances is lighting, for which Polygon works with another team called Visual System. The Visual System team leverages their proprietary software to project images on LED tubing installed over the stage and synchronize everything with the sound, making for a unique and engaging show.
In addition to lighting and sound, Polygon has incorporated a third sensory element to its immersive shows: scent. Artists can add scent dispersions throughout their sets to add to the fans’ experience, which Polygon produces in-house thanks to another founding partner, COO Adam Nicholas, who does advanced scent extractions of plant material.
“We use a technique called sonication,” explains Elliott, “which extracts very high concentrations of the properties that you're looking for from plant material. He's been extracting scent from frankincense, myrrh, wild sage, mint, and all sorts of cool stuff. It’s really amazing.”
For now, Nicholas manages the whole scent production and dispersion process, but Elliott notes that the next step will be to provide a control panel to the DJ so that they can control the release of the scent during their performance, which is currently in development.
Following Polygon’s showcase at this year’s edition of Wonderfruit, the team is looking forward to bringing its innovative technology to more fans and artists around the world. “We hope to inspire artists to take on this technology and work with it, and we’re excited about doing this at more festivals and giving people an extraordinary experience,” shares Elliott.
“We're very happy to share what we're doing with other people. We think it's a really exciting format to experience music in, and we would love everyone to take it on and adopt it. We’re also going to keep pushing our technology — there's so much more that can be done, we're just continuing to scratch the surface. We're always ears to the ground for any other technology we can incorporate to make it more of an immersive, unique experience.”