Arcade Fire woke up the crowd by lighting up both the earth and the sky during the performance of their song “Wake Up.” A swarm of illuminated interactive balloons helped heighten the intensity of Arcade Fire’s April 16th Coachella Festival performance. The illuminated orbs fell from the sky and dispersed in the crowd, lighting up as they hit the crowd. This was a skillfully choreographed dance that necessarily involved elements of spontaneity.

Sponsored by The Creators Project and produced by Radical Media, this revolutionary experience was made possible thanks to Chris Milk and Moment Factory. In order to help make this visual performance memorable and interactive, these artists called upon ESKI and our PixMob technology.

Among other things, ESKI’s mandate involved:

• Creating and integrating PixMob LED pixels into some 1200 balloons designed by Tangible Interaction
• Choreographing and generating the lighting effects that followed the rhythm of the music and the movement of the balloons.

The technical prowess exhibited in this display, titled Summer Into Dust, was literally welcomed with open arms by the 80,000 festivalgoers in attendance: “For a few minutes, the audience pummeled and tossed them back and forth. From the stage, frontman Win Butler grinned, looking as though he was watching kids open presents on Christmas Day.” (Los Angeles Times)

And for those lucky crowd members who caught one of these reimagined beach balls, they can get in touch with each other on  The Creators Project website and follow up on the experience.

Product : interactive glowing balloons

Client : The Creators Project and Radical Media

Location : Coachella festival, Indio (USA)