Live Nation approached Terraform to build a stage set for Insomniac Events’ Electric Daisy Carnival at Milton Keynes Bowl. EDC is one of the largest electronic music brands in the world, and its UK edition brought Insomniac’s very particular visual language to an English festival site for a single day in July 2014.
Three letters, six metres high
The centrepiece spelled out the festival’s initials. Each letter was built on a bespoke steel frame carrying the cubes, and each one was enormous: 6m high and 4.8m wide, with the D reaching 7.2m.
Letterforms are unforgiving. A cube grid reads as a grid, and the eye finds any misalignment instantly, so the frames had to hold the letters true across their full height while still breaking down for transport. The design also included an equipment table that mirrored the base of the D, so that what the audience saw was an unbroken form rather than a letter with working kit parked beside it.
Extending the set into the dance floor
A backdrop alone would have left the stage and the crowd as two separate places. Working closely with Insomniac’s own designers, we ran columns of varying heights sweeping around the dance floor and out past the sides of the stage.
That gave the space perspective. Rather than looking at a lit object, the audience stood inside one — the set continued past them instead of stopping at the stage edge.
Fitting a monument inside a big top
The whole installation sat under the canvas of the big top, and the tallest letter cleared it by very little. 104 cubes were used across the set.
Working inside a temporary structure removes most of the usual options: fixed rigging points, unlimited headroom, the ability to build upward when something does not fit. Everything had to be self-supporting, sized to the tent it stood in, and installed and struck inside a festival build schedule.
