Erik Anderson and Gordon Droitcour, co-founders of Cour Design, had a packed schedule booked for spring 2020. But when events started delaying (before ultimately canceling) due to the pandemic, they took the reprieve as an opportunity to brainstorm a new form of live event altogether.
“As a creative in the industry, this has actually been a really exciting as well as challenging time because it's always fun to have the parameters shifted on what we do and ask how do we make something new,” says Anderson. “We focused on three different elements that seemed unique to the moment. 1. There’s never before been so much production gear just sitting on shelves. 2. We've never had such access to an incredible talent pool of readily available people on both the technical and the creative side to accomplish something on a large scale. 3. We've never before had the opportunity to debut an experience with virtually no competition for entertainment outside the home.”
The dynamic duo devised three plans, which were all full-time occupations. They decided to divide and conquer while remaining partners for feedback and support. Anderson’s project is called EAMOTION, a new live event production company that creates first-of-their-kind, pandemic-proof entertainment experiences. Its inaugural show, Tempo, will debut September 18-22 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway in Tennessee.
The two-mile immersive outdoor course will feature otherworldly sensory displays using over 8,000 pieces of lighting, video, audio, and special effects. “At any point in the course, you can see all kinds of elements in the distance and directly around you, and everything is perfectly synchronized to the music,” explains Anderson. With transmission over FM radio, the course can function as both a driving and walking experience, seamlessly transitioning from night to night or even within the same night. “The point was to make something that was zero contact but also something that as things open up, you're able to expand on the idea,” he adds. “It felt like an experience that people would want to have even when everything was back to normal.”
The zero-contact event features timed entry and contactless ticketing, which keep both cars and people safely distanced. The course could host up to 2,500 cars and up to 10,000 guests over the course of an evening. “Since there's no artist performing on stage, there's no incentive to crowd up towards a single thing,” notes Anderson. “The entire incentive is to keep moving through the space to see what comes next.”
With over 200 people involved in the large-scale build and at least 70 people working behind the scenes onsite, health and safety procedures within production had to be established to maintain social distancing in addition to mask-wearing. Crew members were split into small working pods, and each position has an alternate on standby. “If anyone within that pod displays signs of sickness, we're able to quarantine the whole pod and send in a second one until tests come back. We split the whole site build into different zones to keep different pods from working in certain zones at the same time,” explains Anderson.
Tempo is a collaborative effort between ten different vendors. “We wanted to do something that was on the scale that it required lots of different vendors, even competitors, to work together and become collaborators,” says Anderson. “Instead of formerly trying to outbid each other, they're communicating with one another, covering different gear, and even combining trucks.” The full inventory is massive, featuring over 5,000 video panels, 400' of projection surfaces, 41 projectors, and 30 high wattage lasers. The prime spectacle of the course is a 53' tall pyramid, completely tiled on all four sides with over 2,000 video panels and a 360° laser setup at its pinnacle to cover the entire site with liquid-light lasers.
“The whole point was to build something that was modular and can tour to many markets, to get as many people back to work as possible, and to give people something to do that is exciting and gets them out of the house,” concludes Anderson, who notes that this event does not have to be run strictly through Cour Design. While they have laid the groundwork for the concept, Anderson defines it as “open source” and welcomes creative adaptations and expansions, either as a standalone experience or a companion to live events. “We want to get it out there and show that it can work, and then I can't wait to see what all the creative minds come up with in how they can take this style of event and make it something where there is room for it in the future.”
EAMOTION has set the goal to bring its pandemic-proof entertainment experiences to ten markets before the end of 2020.
Tempo Vendors
- Gallagher Staging - Site Build / Staging
- PRG - Video/Networking
- LMG - Automation/Lighting
- 4Wall - Lighting
- PGP - Lighting
- Morris - Lighting
- Clair Global - Audio
- Stonewolf Studios - Laser FX
- Rogue Servers - Media Servers
- Exato - Automation Programming