Highly esteemed DJ and Producer Eric Prydz has more than often created ripples through the Dance music fraternity causing waves of amendments and trend-setting-modifications, whether it be his music productions or his revolutionary stage setups. Always setting standards and uprooting benchmarks, the Eric Prydz Concert experience will leave audiences in awe and reverent admiration as besides the soul churning melodies unleashed on them, they experience a visual spectacle like no other. Whether it was EPIC  1.0 (Eric Prydz In Concert) or EPIC 2.0, the mammoth production experience leaves a memorable mark on the Electronic Music lover’s mind. And it seems, the Prydz team is further pushing their limits with the upcoming Ultra Music Festival experience, as they look to introduce HOLO – which promises to bring the largest Hologram ever!

One might recall how the EPIC 2.0 tour featured an enormous set incorporating LED screens rather than projection surfaces, lasers, holograms, smoke machines and other visual effects. Influenced by Immersive‘s creative director John Munro‘s passion for brutalist and minimalist architecture, the set situated Prydz in a giant structure that overlapped the audience, made from LED screens onto which visual content was displayed. Besides the architectural theme, Munro drew from a visual concept, The Manmade In Nature in parallel with How Nature Influences the Manmade, to create the sublimely striking, dark images that accompanied the show.

Alongwith John Munro, lead animator Mark Calvert (also of Immersive), Visuals expert Liam Tomaszewski and Prydz’s manager Michael Sershall, spoke to The Creators Project about their journey this far, seeing the fruits of conceptualization to execution and their plans for the ambitious HOLO project and what to expect! Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Recounting from the beginning, John explained the early vision for the EPIC tours and what all was intended through the musical experience.

Eric and Mick [Sershall] approached us to make a show which was going to be different from anything else at the time. We created this structure for projection..It revolved around the man-made and nature. All of the animators were given this brief, and encouraged to work in a more experimental manner with 2D and 3D software, as well as camera moves, textures, rotoscope footage, hand-drawn footage, and a combination of old techniques with new delivery methods.

EPIC 1.0 was a complicated, large, original metal and foam structure, which we had designed and fabricated for the show…For EPIC 2.0, we went back to the drawing board. It’s a much-simplified shape so that we can deal with off-the-shelve LED screens.

One always wonders, how much of the concert is pre-conceived and pre-meditated. John and Mark Calvert cleared some doubts as he illustrated an example of a last minute improvised sketch based on a Pryda tune that sprung to life.

The visuals are constantly evolving. I render visuals before shows. Eric will come to me with an idea, and he’ll say, “Listen to this track I’ve made.” So, then I’ll make something that fits to that tune…One of the things we did for 2.0 is introduce an intro. We always had a start for the show, but we liked to keep the hologram as a subtle fixture in the show.

The team then discussed the birth of the HOLO idea and the vision of incorporating a Hologram projection!

It was a very simple beginning, really. The only people we knew who’d done it before were the Gorillaz…We play with the depth of the structure. So, on the hologram itself we’re not just using the hologram at any one time, but we’re using the whole structure to give the effect a lot more depth and three-dimensional illusion.We want to give fans something new and different to look at it.

Having embraced all technological advances in software, hardware and mapping technology, the team plans to venture into unchartered territory as they look to create an intense and dramatic experience through the setup. Speaking on how far they’ve gone from EPIC 2.0, this is what the team had to say.

HOLO isn’t just EPIC 2.0 on an even grander scale, but we’ve created loads of incredible new content specifically for the show. We’ve increased the size of the hologram dramatically, so it will be the largest hologram ever staged at a dance festival.

When we knew we were going to have a hologram at such a tremendous scale, it completely opened up what we’re able to do with it in terms of content. With HOLO, we’re able to create these vast, serene holograms that, given their scale, will have a far greater impact than if they had been used for EPIC 2.0…We’re using a wide array of software across the spectrum of CGI, animation, and compositing paradigms, from 3ds Max to Maya to Nuke, to other more unfamiliar physics and particle simulation software like Krakatoa and Thinking Particles. Creating holograms that look great aesthetically, compliment the music, engage the crowd, and work with the rest of the show (i.e lights, external structures), really is an art form in itself.

With so much buildup to the iconic performance (let’s not forget the prospects of Pryda vs Mau5trap), the stage is set for a musical revolution to take place come end of March at Miami! You can check out the complete interview here. Stay tuned as we bring you the latest on this story!