THE FUTURE OF STAGE DESIGN POST COVID

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world, this is les in the road ahead. Today I have two amazing guests I have Gary Wichansky. He is the CEO Head of Creative for Hotopp. Welcome, Gary and I also have Tony Castrigno and he is the CEO and Head of Creative for Design Contact. Guys welcome to the show. Hey we have two of the most experienced, smartest design guys in the industry that have been doing this a very long time. So I'm excited that the subject today is about design, set design, show design and how the world is going to change if it's going to change as we come back to return to live events. So we're going to talk about this, and I'm going to throw the first question to Tony, and Tony, you know, we're getting ready to go back to live events. And the schedules are starting and people are confirming and they're they're kind of tackling this. And and I just want to know what will they look like. You know. And will they be the same. Will they be different. What are your thoughts. Thanks, Les. And hey, Gary, I don't think it's going to be the same at all. The question is, I don't think anybody knows what the different thing will actually look like. I think there's a lot of ranges of what it can be. I'm confronted with folks that have designed two and three times before they finally press the go button on the format that they want it to look like. I do believe that there'll be I don't love the word social distancing, but I think there'll be COVID responsible staging and audience considerations that have to be made. There are going to be different forms of how we do seating. I think that one of the things that I'd be curious is Gary's thoughts on is when you look at the stage, the picture will be for the 1000 lenses in the audience, plus the cameras now in a new way. How people interact will be different, because I think a lot of them will be taught us remotely and in the room at the same time. I think it's going to be a new skill set for a lot of presenters. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think it's a it's a yes end situation where it's not going back, but it's not changing to something completely different. I think it's an evolution. And like Tony said, like all those things you have to consider for audiences, that's going to be with us, I think for a long time, you know, and it's just going to be another one of those factors is in design a lot of times is really problem solving. And depending on what state you're doing and event in and what's going on that month, you know, being fluid and coming up with solutions that are COVID compliant. And it's not just COVID compliance, but audience comfort level, I think are going to be something we're dealing with for the foreseeable future. You know, and and I think in terms of designing for the camera and the live room, I think that too is not going away. I think people the virtual is out of the box. And even as people go back to more in-person events, we're still going to be dealing with the eyeballs that are not in the space for sure. Well, well, cool. That brings me to my next question, and I'll go back to Tony on this one is so when you think about a design and so far you guys really broached upon maybe the audience and the seating and the layout, but will potentially will the set physically look different or, you know, will the the elements of the set? Maybe you could take me through the elements of design for a show and which might be the same and which would be different, or is anything ever going to be the same? I think the question what's going to be the same is, is kind of moot, because I think there's little comparison. Even if you did the same elements, they're going to serve different purposes. I think one of the things that I'm seeing, you know, we made the big move to big video, unless I know you've been to events where there's 10,000 people in the audience and the screen is 20ft high and 70, 80, 100, 200ft wide, we live for those moments. That's a we live for those, I know, but they're going to they're going, I think designing those big LED screens, please don't stop. Let's just say they'll be probably be more complex LED screens, maybe not as big. The desire to put 15 people packed into a room is going to be slow to return. But what I'm seeing is we're designing almost mini television sets, sitting on the stage with active LED backgrounds accompanying large format screens left and right of that, so that when you go for the shot and you're in. I have an active background with context for me, because I don't want to be standing six inches tall in a room with 30ft screen on camera. So I need a specific background for myself or my team on camera versus what the what's happening in the room. I think that's going to be pretty consistent consideration. You know what's interesting? When you put a person in front of an LED screen, there needs to be a little bit of distance or what happens is they're so close to the screen they can get that meringue thing in some instances. But it sounds really interesting what you said. So you said that there's going to be this presentation, you know, production environment in the center with an LED backdrop with big visual displays on the sides for the live audience. Okay, Gary, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think all that is true. I think that context matters. I think for our clients, we're seeing that they want to make the return to live matter. You know, there's got to be a reason. So I think they're looking for a differentiator in the events that they're creating that's going to help motivate people to want to go and sit in that room instead of looking at the box. So I, you know, I think trying to use technology in a unique way to create a context that you can't get on a flat screen over the internet, I think is is so both in the show design kind of how you do that layout like Tony's talking about, and also things that are ancillary, like immersions and brand activations and all the things that are more immersive, for lack of a better word. Even though that word I think gets overused, I think are going to become kind of part of events. I think in a bigger way. You know, I think that mashup, because you got to make it worthwhile, because if you can just deliver your PowerPoint across, you know, Zoom, you're going to do that, I think because of the cost efficiency. But if you really can make event special or meaningful for people, give them a reason to go there and walk away going, wow, that was really cool. You know, that's something that I'm so glad I got on a plane and came here. I think the stakes are higher in terms of the bar for that kind of thing. Now, you know, that's super interesting that you have to make showing up meaningful. You got to make it worthwhile, you know, because it's very easy. And if you're just delivering straight up content, you can do that. You know, it's not the same. You don't get the networking, etc.. But, you know, I think I think it's those other things where we're becoming more popular when we were doing them, you know, the more dynamic ways to engage audiences. But I feel like now you really have to push in that direction, and you'll still have once you have everybody there, you still have your beating or, you know, whatever, you're doing your concert. But I think the the those things that we're kind of thought of as optional, like maybe we're going to do this other cool thing suddenly are now, I think, going to be the focus for a lot of people. Okay. That transitions me to to Tony on the idea of so designing for virtual and I don't know what your experience has been and how do you integrate that virtual design into the main design. And you kind of touched on it a little bit, but some people are talking about having a separate virtual, we'll call it either a studio or an environment in the same space, and then going back and forth between the general session and having a special virtual production. How does the virtual tie into the main stage in a meaningful way, whether they're let's just say they're doing what you described before the broadcast environment was on the main stage, and that's the shot. Or what if they do a separate virtual experience, which is backstage, and how do you coordinate those designs? Well, interestingly, I'm not seeing anybody trying to do those in the same location, okay. I'm seeing them doing them in live and a virtual set across the country or in another location. The challenge is how many people are willing and able to travel. Everyone's got a new mindset as to what's worth getting on a plane for, but they want to participate in the meeting. So. So bringing somebody in from a virtual environment to a real environment in combination with what's what's going into the world is an interesting concept, the coordination and the. We use Unreal Engine as our virtual tool, and we can go right from AutoCAD to 3D Max to Unreal Engine kind of seamlessly. So we we can build the virtual world that the that in our operation depends on AutoCAD to be able to do drafting to to build the thing. And then 3D Max is the visual bridge. And then Unreal Engine takes it into the virtual world pretty simply. So it's easy to coordinate the look and feel across all the platforms. I think it's even easier now some. I don't know what Gary's experience is. Sometimes you do something a video for a client, they can't tell whether or not it's virtual, real animation. It's so smooth and slick at this point, it's indistinguishable. Yeah, I would say we definitely have have that same experience. I think for us so far we've kind of been doing a one or the other. I mean, I've done a fair amount of live television events where we're dealing with the camera and the room at the same time, but so far in sort of meeting land, mostly we've done one or the other. And it's been interesting. I mean, I've found when we've designed virtual environments, it's kind of fun because of how freeing it is. You don't have to worry about gravity or physics or any of those things, you know, and then but like an astronaut. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's nice. You can just kind of do the thing that's the blue sky concept and say, oh, this is this is what it is. Because you can you can make it anything. And but I don't think it would be hard to pull in design motifs from that sort of thing if you did have to come back and create physical world that was going on at the same time. But, you know, I think it is true that, you know, the physical context. You know, it's funny you say, like, you can't tell the difference in a render or in an animation. Although once you get to the live, I do think maybe I'm just a purist, but having like analog physical things that you can touch in a room make a difference even for the performer, you know, as opposed to they're not just standing in a virtual environment, but like having actual architecture or, you know, something in the space. You know, I know in the early 2000, we thought all our studios scenic work was going to get replaced by green screen, and it just didn't happen because you need that. There's just something about having an analog space, especially if there's an audience that will never you can fool the eye on, you can fully eye on the camera and, you know, to the audience. But I think to the participants it's not the same. And it shows, you know, I agree because I agree because the the increased resolution in the LEDs and the issue with more notwithstanding, even putting somebody in an LED environment to do it virtually, they have content, they have the few objects that can physically be in front of them, but they also have context in their environment. They can turn and see their graphics and not pretend that they're looking at a sales chart. They can see it if they want. Do you know, we have done a lot of green screen AR stuff and the right talent you can make it look amazing with, especially with the Unreal Engine. Oh my goodness, the sky is the limit. But you need the right kind of presenter that feels comfortable in that environment. It's very much like doing the weather on the green screen and you're pointing at that computer graphic imaging. Okay, I'm going to shift this conversation. And this question is to Gary, how do you know a design is working in a show? You've created this design, the audience is there and you know, you just kind of know it's working. What are the signs you get when you you sit there and you're next to the producer and their in their going, wow Gary, this design was awesome. It worked. How do you know what are the what are the signs that it works. You know it's really hard. Like I feel like a lot of what we do is sort of subliminal. Like the, the impact of good design is I don't think the audience is necessarily aware of it. You know, the things that I will walk into. But my God, this is terrible. We made all this mistakes. You know, I always tell people, you're not the audience, like, you don't know what they're seeing. And I think if you ask the audience, they can't articulate it like, why was this good? So it's very difficult, like to read a room as far as that goes. And I also think it's holistic. You can have the best design in the world if the content is terrible, you know, the, the you're you're not going to you know, you're not going to make an impact. You're not going to. It'll look cool. But that by itself is sort of an empty an empty experience. So, you know, I think it's the same thing of anything like a good movie or a good play. I think there's a focus. There's a there's a intent, there's an energy that people get when they're engaged in something that you can that is visceral, you can feel it. I think a lot of the, you know, the more obvious signs of those wow moments, if you have a big reveal or when people walk in, I always like walk in because you can hear the hubbub of people like, wow, this is cool as they enter an environment. So, you know, I don't know, be interested in what Tony thinks. For me, I think it's really a nuance and it's hard to say without like literal feedback. And it's really something I think that it's very vibey as far as whether you made that impact, then of course there is. You know, when you do a lot of the work we do, you get direct feedback. If you're working on corporate stuff, you know, those clients want to know. They're surveying the audience. They're asking. And of course, the magic thing is, do they hire you again next year to do it again? But that doesn't tell you anything when you're when you're in the room, you know. So, Tony, what do you think? How do you know your design is working? Well, you certainly have a sense that the room feels right. And I think that the audience reaction as they walk in is a big part of that feeling. I think Gary's got that right. Exactly. There's also is very subtle, you know, a lot of for years, a lot of the shows we designed ended up being largely video. Right. And I know I know less that you think that's the cat's meow. I think that's awesome. Gary, I have been trying to thank you for years doing those big video designs with lots of the screens, but the projectors have seemed to have been reduced, but you've replaced them with LED screens, so I'm pretty happy. Yeah, yeah, we do like sound and audio and lighting as well too. But yeah, but the difference is I spent I won't reveal the but I spent probably six weeks determining the correct size and curve of a video screen for a project. And when they came into the room, they looked at and said, wow, the curve made all the difference how the room felt. So instead of it being that big flat image at the end of the room, that feels like your TV screen. It just had the right amount of embrace in the space and just the right amount of seating pitch in the audience. So spending six weeks on the layout of a screen and seating seems a little bit excessive. But when it pays off in the room, everybody thinks that's good design. And and and it is. And of course, if the Gary's perfectly right in this, if the content doesn't work against the space that you put it in, it's meaningless. What how how good a job you felt you did and it's completely meaningless. Yeah. I mean, it's really holistic and you can't, you know, nobody can tell you, like, why they like going in the Apple Store. They just do. It feels right when you go in there, you know? And that's just good design sort of hitting you in the face whether you whether you know it or not, you know, you can definitely I think you feel it and you feel it. My favorite is when you're in the middle of a loading and you're like, oh my God, we made these. We made a terrible mistake. This is awful because it's halfway done. And then when you get to the end and when everything's there, you're like, oh no, we were okay. It's okay. But I have that a lot where you're like, when you're mid loading and you're seeing it come together. That's where a lot of the doubt creeps in for me, because it's not it's not complete. And you think you maybe made something huge that you shouldn't have or something like that. And then when it all comes together at the end, usually you can say, and you know, and a lot of that is thanks to the modeling tools and the things that we have at our disposal that you can. Okay, you know, the pressure's off, but that halfway through loading part is always the that's always the cliffhanger for me. You can't taste the cake when it's only been in the oven like half the baking time. Yeah. Taste right. It won't look right. You know, you need some time to let it marinate or rise or bake or whatever, but that's what I always worry about. It is halfway and halfway in. Okay, that's that's the break time. Halfway in. Okay, guys, this is a completely different direction. I'm going and I'm throwing this to Tony. Where do you draw inspiration? Where do you kind of find the you know, when you when someone talks to you about a project and you need to be inspired, how do you get inspired to design a great show? I think it comes very distinctly from the intention of that event. If you're doing a highly an event for a tightly branded company, your inspiration has to come from the way they see themselves. It has to come from their product. It has to come either from their messaging. I'm curious, you know, to what Gary's answer to this is going to be. I recently worked with a client that's hyper hyper focused on design in physical space, not unlike Apple. It's not Apple, but not unlike Apple, where the store you walk in, you know where you are. They wanted to translate that to a room, and it doesn't translate exactly the same way. Big, flat, clean lighting with very carefully textured or selected materials and surfaces doesn't work the same way in a ballroom as it does in a retail environment. It's simply, do you have to find a new way to express the brand in that space? And so the inspiration comes from what they did, perhaps in their retail environment or how they treat their corporate headquarters. And then you'll you'll take that and do your job in interpreting it for the, for the space. Other times it's clearly the that they want to shout out. And so you're going to to be inspired by that and look to things that have the same quality, the same excitement, the look and feel if they want to be. This is pretty fundamental. But if they want to be intimate and colloquial and warm, you're going to look to sort of living room environments and things that that that are home based feels feel comforting and embracing. And so you'll start that's where you'll begin your your journey. Other times it's the big splashy screen because it's going to be all about the visuals. So you want to make sure that everything that you do has impact. If it's 15,000 people, that has impacted the back of the room. So inspiration comes from a lot of places. A lot of places. Okay, Gary, your turn. Tell me about inspiration. Well, I mean, I think a lot of the same is true. And sometimes you get a lot from a client and sometimes you get very little. And, you know, I think there's a fine line between inspiration and direction. Like, sometimes they know what they want, you know, and they're saying it's this kind of thing or that kind of thing that you can go from there and you still have to look for brand cues, or sometimes you're doing a event or a production that has a real message to it, so you know where to begin. And other times you don't, and you have to find it for yourself. I mean, for me, I sort of have had many times where I feel like there's these moments where you go, oh, that was such serendipitous that this was going on, the serendipity that this was going on in my life. And then it gave me this idea for this thing. And really, I don't I think it's just it's like I've always felt like, you can't you can't do this work if you're not living, you're not doing things and you're not exposed to travel and art and, you know, popular culture and all the things that are going on around you. And I tend to be a sponge for those things and sometimes get excited about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the work and then bring it in to what I'm doing. So, you know, I think in in those cases, especially when there isn't a lot to go on, you know, having something that is that you're engaged in and it could be almost anything I think will bleed in. And for us, that also depends on how much control we have over the creative, which sometimes is a lot, and sometimes it's very little. You know, sometimes we want this and then you have to decipher that code for a client. And inspiration isn't really part of the equation, I guess. But you know, we try to avoid that. But it definitely happens. And other times it's a total blank slate. And then you can be like, oh, you know, I was at a little game with my kid and I had this conversation and it made me think of this. And I think it's just you just have to be aware and keep your eyes open. I think all the time for things that that stick with you and then you, then you find a way to get them into the projects, you know, you know, with 2022 coming and so 2021 only has like seven months left and 2022 feels like a clean slate. It feels like, you know, COVID's going to kind of go away. It's starting that process. And will we revert to, you know, the pre-COVID world or will we continue to enact all these things you guys are discussing? You know, when COVID restrictions relax and we have full ballrooms, will we start going back to we'll say the way we've done it for so many years using all the tools or will do you think this, whether it's social distancing or all the pieces that are going to be added to the events as they come back, will they retain in our designs going forward into the future, or do you feel like a year from now we're going to be going, now we're back to normal and we're going to do it the old fashioned way, the way we've always done it, or all the tools we've always used. So, Gary, what are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, I think we touched on a little before. I think it's all additive. I think that, you know, there is no going back to what it was before, and it'll be something different. It won't be exactly like it is now. But I think that, you know, people's eyes have open to new ways of doing things and they're they're going to stick, I think, and they make sense. There's a lot of times where, where I think I don't, I think that that, that it is it is an advantage to do both. We did a Christmas attraction last year that at the last minute had to switch to all virtual. And, you know, it worked great. It abled the client to reach a much larger audience. And this year they're going to bring it back and we're going to do the physical thing we meant to do in the first place, and we're going to do the virtual. And I think that's that's kind of the that's the buzz is, is is it's both, at least in most of the worlds where I'm playing these days. So, Tony, it's 2022, maybe it's May in 2022 and we're going to be talking about doing a big technology conference or a big, you know, one of our crazy conferences that we work on will, will it be what we've always done or will be very much a new version? What are your thoughts? It's going to be it's going to be a it's going to be a new version. And you know, Gary and I come from the same sort of legacy of exposure to a broad range of creative. We're talking corporate today. I'm producing two musicals. Those musicals are being one of them is being done as an audio only musical. It will be staged live. There is a cast album. It was done under a completely different set of contracts than we do for a typical musical. So all those things are happening at one time. Where in the past would be first get successful, then do this, then do this, then do this. So Gary's right. It's like nobody can see me weaving my fingers together and your audio podcast, but I'm weaving my fingers together because everything's going to be interwoven. Yeah, yeah. Is my belief. So your big audio, your big tech conference is going to have a very special set of experiences for the people who get there live because they value being there live. They're willing to get on a plane, give up their time in the office and get there or escape Zoom. Some people will do for that reason alone, and others will say, you know, I bet I can get most of what I need from this conference remotely because everybody stepped up their game. I can now do a hybrid event where it's actually meaningful to the audience at home, and I think people will start coming back and making selections this year. I'll go next year, I don't need to, etc. and everybody I think in the corporate world who's listening is going to have to step up the game for what happens, live in the room to keep it purposeful. I think, too, I've been thinking about a lot of what we've just been through, but we talk about it as a pivot and a big change. I feel like it's less of that as it was a catalyst. You know, it took something that was happening already very slowly and it just supercharged it. And it happened really fast. And, you know, both in terms of the amalgamation of technology and platforms, I've been thinking for a long time, and it used to be network television was one thing, and a streaming video or a webcast was another. And now all those lines are blurred. Nobody cares. Like a platform is sort of irrelevant. And I think the same thing has happened with live events where it's you can't really put it in a box, which is good for people like Tony and I. The way he's talking about it, who are a little bit of generalists, right? You know, we don't just do the corporate meetings, we do these other things. And you are used to using television and working for camera and those things that used to 20 years ago be very separate industries. It's kind of one big mushy bucket. And the same thing is happening with technology. And it's just gotten that, that, that bleeding of the lines has just really sped up. And I think that's where we are. And for me, I think that's cool. I think it makes it more fun. You can't you just can't put what is this in a box as much as you used to. You know, Gary, your comment was the bleeding of the lines and Tony's comment was everybody's got to step up their game. What a good way to end our great discussion. I don't want to thank you, Tony and Gary, for joining me today. What consummate professionals and great designers. And I think your wisdom is is greatly going to be appreciated. For our listeners, this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Guys, thank you for joining. Good job. You're welcome. Thank you.