Paris Opéra Ballet Simulcast at Chicago Millennium Park

“For many years we’ve been looking for the perfect large format screen system to bring our outdoor audiences an experience of added dimension, through both live and recorded presentations, day or night,” says Donna LaPietra, Chairman of Millennium Park. “Lighthouse VideoBlades™ delivers that product. Images are bright, clear and refined from the front row seats to the very back of the lawn 600 feet (183 metres) away, from high noon to moonlight.”

VideoBlades™ is a revolutionary large-scale LED video display technology that straddles the worlds of video and lighting in the entertainment, events and architectural markets. VideoBlades™ 12, used for the Giselle simulcast, provides a 12.5mm pixel pitch, modular LED video screen that delivers superb image quality both indoors and outdoors.

VideoBlades™ comes in two formats, SkyRoll™ and GroundRoll™, which can be deployed by rolling up or down from its patented rotating structure, just like a window shade. The modular format allows for the seamless formation of large-scale screens limited in size only by a customer’s needs. For the Paris Opera Ballet simulcast.

Lighthouse used Groundroll for the Millennium Park event, which deploys up from the floor, resulting in the lowest possible rigged weight. GroundRoll screens can be simply and seamlessly joined together to produce displays of unlimited width. Here, four separate Groundrolls produced a state-of-the-art screen measuring 32.5 feet wide by 16.5 feet high (9.906m by 5.029m).

“It was exciting to be part of an important cultural event such as the Paris Opéra Ballet,” says Ed Whitaker, Lighthouse N.A.S.A. director of sales. “Simulcasting the event presented an opportunity to not only showcase our VideoBlades™ display, but to give back to the community.”

The capacity crowd of 11,000 watched Giselle performed by the world famous Paris Opéra Ballet, the oldest ballet company in the world, which dates back to 1669. The performance marked the launch of the Paris Opéra Ballet’s 2012 North American tour, and was the first-ever free outdoor simulcast of a live performance by an international ballet company at Millennium Park.

“The VideoBlades™ screen Lighthouse provided performed far beyond every possible expectation,” says Michael Tiknis, President and Managing Director of the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. “It helped make the Millennium Park simulcast a world-class event.”

Lighthouse Technologies Limited is a global leader in advanced LED display technology for indoor and outdoor applications. The multi-award winning company develops, manufactures and markets LED video display solutions for media and entertainment events and sports arenas across the globe.  Founded in 1998, Lighthouse has won many international awards for its innovative technology and built a global reputation for its high quality standards. With regional offices in Europe, North and South America, Asia Pacific and China, the company offers advanced technology, high-quality manufacturing facilities, and world-class, round-the-clock technical support to customers worldwide.