Photo Credit: Dave Vann
As Phish’s highly-anticipated residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere rapidly approaches, the city is getting into the spirit to welcome the inimitable quartet. Yesterday, this escalating energy was manifested in a new dazzling attraction on Sin City’s strip, as the Rio Hotel & Casino took on a festive new shade courtesy of Phish lighting designer Chris “CK5” Kuroda and associate lighting designer Andrew “Gif” Giffin. A representative for the Rio divulged the intention and intricacies of this project, which parallels the band’s distinctly brilliant and improvisatory style in an interview with Las Vegas Weekly.
With more than three miles of programmable LEDs adorning the building’s facade, the artists programmed a vast and evolving luminary tableau, composed of a rotating array of distinct looks. “What we want is to put on a show,” share Marty Millman, vice president of construction and development services for Dreamscape Companies, the new owners of the Rio. It was Millman, who has been a Phishhead for “34 years or so,” who was inspired to call on Millman for the bold display; over the course of a week, Millman and Giffin ideated and programmed the expansive project.
“I think there’s about 60 looks. We’ve got 10-minute looks that are slow and evolving, and then every 10 minutes there’s something a little bit more exciting that happens fast and speeds up,” Millman details. “They also designed programming to randomize how that’s all selected, so no two nights are going to be the same.”
Glints of this new look may be glimpsed in the weeks ahead as the Rio continues to test the arrangement. To the Weekly, this design shift, coupled with the striking visage of Sphere, marks the outset of a new Las Vegas, in which the city’s iconic look will receive a technology-driven update. “We want authenticity,” Millman says, speaking to the guiding impulse in this revolution. “We want subtlety, to some degree. And we knew that he could program the lights from an artistic perspective, where it’s a gift to Las Vegas.”
Phish will present four nights at Sphere from April 18-21. Read more on this historic staging here.
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