Main Stage

It's growing on me. Took me the whole night to take it in and form an opinion, but I really like it now that it's been up the whole night. Wasn't sure at first, but I'm an old jaded bastard.

Last year blew my mind, and I've worked with some of today's DJ's as a video tech since then, so I think my expectations were pretty high, but I really like what they've done with it...given the budgets. Last year was still a high water mark that I'm not sure they repeated, but if that's the only problem then STFU and enjoy the show, right? I think they did the best they could with what they have. Most people have no idea how much work goes into this stuff, and would laugh if we told you how much it cost.

Mainstage is a tricky stage, because a lot of the DJ's have custom visual content, and there has to be a clear way to display that. You can't take some of the risks on mainstage you can take on side stages where DJ's haven't got big animation budgets on display.

As a tech, this stage seemed easy to deal with, and it showed off the content really clearly. No weird shapes, and pretty standard resolutions (https://instagram.com/p/0rB25kwZQ_/). It would have been easy to program, and it's very flexible/programmable. It's an intelligent layout, and it's a great stage. I love the curved LED screens (SO SEXY), and at night it's really easy to see the bird/nest design they were going for. It's very creative, and reflects the importance that original DJ video content plays in modern EDM.

But honestly I think the Carl Cox stage is the best environment I've seen so far this year. Absolutely amazing. If I was there, I'd never leave that stage. Great job everyone involved in that stage, you're the stars so far this year for me. Massive respect. Love it. The aerial adagio and video walls all over totally got me. Amazing space.

/r/UMF Thread