In celebration of 20 years, The Tribeca Festival (formerly the Tribeca Film Festival) returned to New York on 9-20 June 2021 with WorldStage providing technical support for numerous in-person event venues. Longtime WorldStage client Overland Entertainment Company produced the festival.
WorldStage supplied a combination of LED video walls, audio packages, lighting and video switching for five of the main venues: Empire Outlets, The Battery, Pier 76, Waterfront Plaza at Brookfield Place and Brooklyn Commons at MetroTech. WorldStage also supported two trucks that presented roving screenings in all five boroughs, the “AT&T Presents: Untold Stories” competition at WarnerMedia Innovation Lab, an event hosted by Art Awards curator Vito Schnabel and closing night at Radio City Music Hall.
“Organising and coordinating our support for the Tribeca Festival required a great deal of attention to detail, extensive site surveys, being very creative with budgets since the outdoor events had free ticketing this year, scheduling labor and equipment, and dealing with weather challenges, including a three-day mini heat wave with thunderstorms,” said Account Executive Andy Muller, who led the WorldStage team.
ROE CB5 LED video tiles formed the building blocks for all of the main venues’ video walls supplied by WorldStage. BNW Rigging provided the rigging for the video walls rated to withstand 50mph winds. Audio packages included assorted mics, d&b line arrays, Yamaha consoles, and intercom and wireless communications.
For the festival’s premier venue at The Battery WorldStage provided a complete package with a 53ft by 29ft LED video wall with Barco video processor, an audio kit, video switching and an extensive range of lighting fixtures, including Elation, CHAUVET Professional, Astera, Kino Flo, Robe lighting, Claypaky and an MA Lighting grandMA2 full console.
The location not only presented film screenings but also featured live performances by rock-n-roll icons KISS and Blondie that accompanied documentaries about the bands.
For the main locations of Waterfront Plaza, Pier 76, Empire Outlets and MetroTech WorldStage furnished custom packages featuring LED videowalls, video switching, audio and lighting.
The roving borough-to-borough trucks, which visited public parks and screened films for workers daily at the FreshDirect warehouse, were equipped with audio packages. WorldStage also supplied studio lighting for the panel at WarnerMedia Innovation Lab for the livestream “AT&T Presents: Untold Stories” competition designed to give access to stories from underrepresented filmmakers.
The festival’s closing night event marked the reopening of the iconic Radio City Music Hall for a special surprise concert featuring Dave Chappelle and his documentary, This Time This Place. Radio City was packed to capacity with a live audience while WorldStage provided a three-camera shoot that fed graphics and live video to IMAG screens on stage and to the archival record.
“It’s great to be back producing large-scale, live events throughout the New York area like the Tribeca Festival,” noted Overland Entertainment Company President, Leane Romeo. “We all really felt the energy, excitement and camaraderie of being together again at the show sites. And WorldStage came through for us as always!”
At WorldStage Tommy Boyd was the overall Project Manager for the festival. Susanna Harris-Rea was in charge of lighting for many of the festival’s outdoor locations. Project Managers for the individual venues were Armando Acevedo, Tom Whipple, Peter Smith, Chris DeMott, Joe Solari and Matt Talman. Kate Brown was the Audio Designer and Paige Pinckney the head of the LED department.
