The Mean Green

To welcome the University of North Texas' newest Eagles into the "nest", UNT brought in epic video and event producer Five Stone Creative to lead the creation of an updated new student orientation. Five Stone Creative, in turn, brought in Muse Lighting Design to design the look and energetic feel needed to craft a powerful and memorable orientation event. We want these new Eagles to SOAR.

Held inside UNT's own Coliseum (aka the "Super Pit"), we had an awesome arena with a few rules. No haze. No rigging from above. Oh! And we have to load in in under six hours - and strike in less than three.

Challenge accepted.

How to bring a 70's era arena into the 21st century

To help foster some school spirit (and because we're literally in a sports arena), we wanted to mimic the modern "sportsy" truss look some teams produce when their players run onto the field at the beginning of a game. So, we used seven truss towers with lighting on them to create a semi-backdrop.

Because of the IMMENSE scale of the arena, we we wanted to fill up as much space as possible. Think of it this way... You don't want a single 5"x7" photo hung on a wall that's 40' wide and 20' tall. To do this, we placed lighting throughout the empty half of the arena - all the way up to the nose-bleed sections.

We also introduced our media-controlled pixel fixtures which show movement and patterns - which allow us to inject even more energy into the presentation that isn't reliant on haze to be effective.

We did this "show" seven times over the course of about six weeks. UNT graciously allowed us to store everything on site (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) and we devised a plan to keep a good deal of fixtures and their cables together in storage - which lead to an easier load in each show.

While we mixed it up quite a bit - the primary choice in color was (you guessed it) green!

So, here's to the UNT class of 2023. May your talons be sharp - and your flights be epic!