Media servers from HIVE provide power to Dragonfly at Glastonbury Festival, enabling the renowned event's stage operations.
At this year's Glastonbury Festival, the Dragonfly installation, a collaborative project between Arcadia, Cucumber Productions, Video Illusions, Astral Projekt, and HIVE, captivated audiences with its stunning visuals. The centrepiece of the spectacle was a 13m-wide sculpture built around a repurposed military helicopter, featuring LED "eyes" and intricate facial illumination.
HIVE, a leading media control manufacturer, provided the software and media servers for the Dragonfly installation. The company's Beeblade Nexus media engines played a pivotal role in overcoming the challenges posed by the helicopter's highly irregular projection surface.
The Beeblade Nexus units replaced a traditional rack-based system, offering a lightweight, energy-efficient solution that was significantly more affordable. Six Beeblade Nexus units were housed in three ruggedized Nucleus enclosures, providing the power necessary to handle the complex projection mapping requirements.
The system managed the synchronisation of projection, lighting, and real-time visuals, including the LED "eyes" and face illumination. The Obj Map tool from HIVE was used to map content onto the hexagonal LED "eyes", while the Warp Grid tool was deployed for real-time warping and projection mapping onto the fuselage and tail of the Dragonfly.
HIVE's Timecode feature was utilised to tie the Dragonfly's 10-minute programmed sequence together, playing back pre-rendered animation to the LED "eyes" and all projection surfaces. This allowed for video layering and transparency effects necessary to manage real-time feeds created by Astral Projekt.
The addition of LED "eyes" and face illumination demanded tight synchronisation between projection, lighting, and real-time visuals. These were distributed across projection towers on either side of the structure and within the Dragonfly's head.
Dave Green, CTO of HIVE, stated that the company's system replaced an energy-hungry server stack with compact players that delivered the same, if not more, capability while using far less power and at around a fifth of the cost. According to Cyrus Bozorgmehr, head of creative comms at Arcadia, the HIVE system ran content seamlessly to eight double-stacked projectors, keeping everything precisely mapped and aligned in a busy 360-degree environment.
Dave Green and Nigel Sadler from HIVE were praised for their work on the Dragonfly project by Cyrus Bozorgmehr. A report on some of the AV tech deployed at this year's Glastonbury will be available in the July/August edition of Installation, and a full report on the Dragonfly is coming soon.
- HIVE's Beeblade Nexus media engines played a crucial role in the Dragonfly installation at the Glastonbury Festival, handling the complex projection mapping requirements on the helicopter's irregular surface.
- The collaboration between HIVE, Arcadia, Cucumber Productions, Video Illusions, Astral Projekt, and HIVE resulted in an entertainment spectacle, featuring synchronised projection, lighting, and real-time visuals, such as the LED "eyes" and face illumination on the Dragonfly.
- The utilization of HIVE's Timecode feature and other tools like Obj Map and Warp Grid provided a more energy-efficient and affordable solution for controlling the content playback and synchronization on the Dragonfly, contributing to the overall lifestyle and entertainment experience of the Glastonbury Festival.
