“On a night out to hear the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Fla., earlier this year, Michael Phelan and his friends never actually entered the concert hall,” writes Arian Campo-Flores in Sunday’s (10/20) Wall Street Journal (subscription required). “Instead, they camped on a lawn outside… On a 7,000-square-foot facade of the building before them, the performance was projected live, in what’s known as a wallcast…. These wallcasts routinely draw more than 2,000 people…. The New World Symphony is one of a growing number of arts institutions experimenting with outdoor projections of performances…. Last month, the Kennedy Center in Washington opened … the Reach [which] includes an outdoor video wall.” Wallcasts are also in use at the new Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville, the new McKnight Center for the Performing Arts at Oklahoma State University, Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, Calif., and outside the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Orchestra Hall. “Orchestra audiences declined 11% between 2010 and 2014, according to a 2016 study commissioned by the League of American Orchestras…. But arts institutions are hoping to convert some newcomers outside into paying patrons inside, and to create a community benefit that can attract public and private funding.”
Posted October 23, 2019
In photo: At a wallcast on Oct. 12, Miami Beach, Fla.’s New World Symphony debuted a new ultrahigh-definition system of projectors and cameras. Photo: Rui Dias-Aidos
