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Revolving Emotions

LOBO creates a multimedial world of experiences for the Europa-Park, Germany's leading theme park.

E Motional Szene2 Stadt

The Europa-Park Rust, situated near the German city Freiburg, not far away from the Swiss and French border, is Germany's largest theme park. The park has been built by the Mack KG, one of the world's major players in the development of new attractions for leisure facilities and the construction of mind-blowing roller coasters. The park is famous for the unique and authentic style of its theme areas, which consist mostly of reconstructions of original buildings. Right in the middle of the park a 40m-high glass cone houses a new attraction called "E-Motional". E-Motional is a cylindrical multimedia theater with a diameter of approx. 30 meters being divided up into 6 sectors. The spectators are sitting on a movable ring, looking towards 6 fixed stages in the center of the theater. That way, it is possible to transport the whole audience within seconds into totally new technical setups. The capacity of the E-Motional is 2,000 spectators per hour – in this respect, it outdoes any other attraction in the park.

 

The Tech:

The overall technical concept, its implementation and the show programming was executed by LOBO electronic. In addition to 6 video projectors, 40 slide projectors, 6 stage lifts, 8 Water Screens, about 40 conventional screens and various special effects, the installation includes 5 adjustment- and maintenance-free fiber projectors being fed by one central laser system. One laser projector is installed on the arm of an industrial robot, a second is swivel-mounted, and a third projector, using LOBO's Grating Box, is mounted on a pneumatic cylinder. This sophisticated layout of the technical equipment makes it possible to rearrange the content of the show simply by swapping the software.

 

The Show:

The visitor enters the installation through a dark, mystical tunnel, ending up inside the control room of an alien spacecraft: the aliens are approaching Earth in order to scrutinize the human species and its technological capabilities. Only insiders will recognize that the entirety of the multimedia control setup, as well as the laser system, have been artfully integrated into the animatronics-laden space ship scenery.

The ride continues with a computer-animated trip through space, directly into a pulsating world of technology, in which human beings are merely a small cog in our modern society. Two minutes later, the visitor can see how technology follows them from birth to death as a central component of our everyday culture. Through a subway tunnel, the visitor leaves the world of technology and suddenly finds themself in the Alps. Here they can witness how mankind has tapped into natural resources through tools and machines, and pit itself against the elemental forces of nature.

LOBO's Creative Director: "We played with a lot of physical effects in this scene. At first, nature shows itself at its most beautiful, letting the audience feel the warmth of the sun through a 60 kW heat curtain. Suddenly, ominous clouds appear, the room increasingly darkens, vaguely recognizable mountain ranges emerge from the ground, strong wind generators blow cold air into the audience's faces and water dispensers in the ceiling cause a humid room climate. Finally, over 20 strobe lights pull the audience into the middle of a raging thunderstorm. After the storm has settled, a new day begins.The visitor travels towards the rising sun, with nature once more displaying all of its beauty and variety.In the final scene, the alien visitors leave the blue planet and a skyline of a city, illuminated by fireworks and laser effects, serves as the celebratory finale of the spectacle.

 

The Production:

The production team was confronted with various problems in the design process of the show. The Creative Director recalls: "Not only did we have to equip six different theaters with a harmonious mixture of media equipment, we also had to figure out a solution to how to embellish the 25-second revolving phases between individual scenes. We strived for strategically enhancing or diminishing the effects of physical movement of the audience area with laser and video projections."

Another problem was posed by the fact that the soundtracks of all six scenes played simultaneously in six adjacent rooms. This enforced a fixed duration for every scene and prevented us from combining extremely loud passages of sound in one scene with the quieter soundscape of a neighboring scene. For that reason, the audio for all scenes had to be developed in parallel on a hard disk recording system. This forced the composer to figure out a method in constant interplay with the complete mix to express the desired emotional range in the framework of a synchronized volume level across all scenes. After four weeks of on-site adjustments and significant test runs, the attraction eventually opened its doors in March.

 

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