Live event support

Live performance events including theater, music, dance, opera, use production equipment and services such as staging, scenery, mechanicals, sound, lighting, video, special effects, transport, packaging, communications, costume and makeup to convince live audience members that there is no better place that they could be at the moment. This article provides information about many of the possible production support tools and services and how they relate to each other.

Live performance events have a long history of visual scenery, lighting, costume amplification and a shorter history of visual projection and sound amplification reinforcement. This article describes the technologies that have been used to amplify and reinforce live events. The sections of this article together explain how the tools needed to stage, amplify and reinforce live events are interconnected.

Live event visual amplification is the display of live and pre-recorded images as a part of a live stage event.

Visual amplification began when films, projected onto a stage, added characters or background information to a production. 35 mm motion picture projectors became available in 1910 - but which theatre or opera company first used a movie in a stage production is not known.

In 1935, less costly 16 mm film equipment allowed many other performance groups and school theaters to use motion pictures in productions.

In 1970, closed circuit video cameras and videocassette machines became available and Live Event Visual Amplification came of age. For the first time live closeups of stage performers could be displayed in real time. These systems also made it possible to show pre-recorded videos that added information & visual intensity to a live event.

One of the first video touring systems was created by video designer TJ McHose in 1975 for the rock band The Tubes using black and white television monitors.

In 1978, TJ McHose designed a touring color video system that enlarged performers at the Kool Jazz Festivals in sports stadiums across the United States.

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