How can you transform your stage to WOW your audience? Selecting the perfect stage backdrops can make all the difference for your production! We went to St. Louis a few weeks ago to showcase our theatrical stage backdrops at USITT 2017! We had an incredible time delving deep into all aspects of Theater and Technology! Check out what we were up to below.
We featured our fun Mad Hatters Tea Party inspired backdrop in the ‘Not So Central Park’ area of the USITT Expo. The Mini Golf stations, the small café, a myriad of benches, and light posts added to the exciting vibe of the area. Our colorful backdrop served as a great background for this park. With its landscape of colorful mushrooms and enchanted trees, this most beautiful whimsical garden brings a fairytale elegance to the scene. Our Alice in Wonderland series features magical and mystical forest with larger than life mushrooms, a fantastical castle courtyard, animated wonderland flowers, and a giant garden.
At our booth, we showcased our brand new Umbrellas 4 Rain backdrop. The large rain drops amongst the colorful umbrellas and soft cumulus clouds added a unique element to the background. It almost looks as if you are looking out of a rain-covered window to floating umbrellas in the distance.
Our Beach Board Backdrop adorned the booth of our friends from ENTTEC. After discussing the beach theme of their booth, we designed and painted a brand new backdrop to meet their needs! It truly transformed their booth and added an extra WOW factor to engage the attendees!
Will you be at USITT 2018 in Ft. Lauderdale next year? We are always offering FREE passes to each show, so reach out to us if you want to be involved in this incredible show! What stage backdrops should we feature next year? We’d love to hear your feedback!
We traveled to Salt Lake City to be a part of one of our favorite theater trade shows, USITT. We loved meeting so many students with passionate aspirations and talented theater directors and stage managers. The heartbeat of the theater industry can be felt through the many USITT Sessions and, of course, on the stage expo floor.
For the backdrop showcase, we chose to highlight our Paris Opera House backdrop. It showcases the high-detail and intricate work of our designers and artists. This backdrop is truly a show stopper. We were so excited that our hand-painted backdrop was next to the Electronic Theatre Controls booth. We loved the student session ETC held, which educated those passionate about following their dreams of being in the theater industry. Check out the short video showcasing our backdrop on our Facebook page.
Our Haunted House backdrop was an awesome theatrical background to feature at USITT. We had so much fun with featuring this backdrop. So many of the attendees could not believe that it was hand-painted. It is such an inviting, spooky, and colorful backdrop that instantly caught the eye of onlookers. We loved talking to so many lighting designers that provided such positive feedback on how their techniques could enhance our backdrop. It’s so fun to see how the different color lighting can completely transform the look of the backdrop. With one backdrop, you can create multiple different moods depending on the lighting and what is focused on.
We may have even gotten a little silly in front our our backdrop with OSF Costume Rentals. Check out how fabulous their seriously awesome costumes look in front of our hand-painted background.
It was an amazing experience to be surrounded by the best in the theater industry. We’re already looking forward to next year’s USITT show.
This past week we had the honor of being a continuing supporter and exhibitor at the 2015 USITT Conference and Stage Expo. USITT which stands for the United States Institute of Theater and Technology, is the premier annual event for the theatre industry. We were so excited to highlight our beautiful backdrops to such a multi faceted industry. It was such a pleasure meeting and learning with individuals and companies throughout the three days of the #USITT Stage Expo. We highlighted the intricate detail of our hand painted backdrops by showcasing our 40’ x 20’ Palace Interior 3B Gold backdrop along the wall of the Stage Expo and our smaller 10’ by 10’ Palace Interior 6 Gold backdrop at our booth. All our hand painted backdrops utilize brush and airbrush techniques.
Our hand painted backdrops (available in many sizes) are the perfect complement to any theatrical production, no matter the size of the theater. Utilizing the ideal hand painted backdrop for your production provides and creates the visual imagery that makes the scene come to life. In our opinion, there is nothing that compares to the sight of your actors in front of our hand painted, highly detailed backdrops! For those of you interested in different themes for shows, we are more than happy to work with you to provide you a listing of all of our beautiful backdrops that will transform your theatrical production.
Our Palace Interior Gold backdrop is an extraordinary example of our custom backdrop rental services in action. A valued customer wanted to create their own unique custom backdrop to transform their wedding reception, which in time has become a popular rental among many of our customers. We view you as the trendsetters and the innovators and are always looking to accommodate your needs with our custom backdrop rental services.
Interested in our custom rental services? We have in-house graphic designers and artists ready to make your dreams come to life. Give us a call at 858-300-2100 or send us an email!
If you own a local business with a physical location that your clients can shop and haven’t claimed your place on Facebook, you are missing out on a great opportunity to promote your business. In addition to Places, Facebook has now launched a new service called Deals and it is currently available for free. Similar to Groupon, you can create special offers for your customers. Having recently learned about Deals myself, I was inspired to show everyone just how to do it.
To do so, you first have to check in via your mobile device through Facebook app. (If your smart phone is not equipped with the Facebook App you can download it from your smart phone app store or simply use touch.facebook.com) Similar to Foursquare, you need to check in via your mobile device.
Open your Facebook App
Choose Places
Choose Check-In
Do a search for your business to see if it’s been added. If your business is present move on to step 6. If not, you will need to “Add” it.
Add Your Full Business Name and include a business description and press the add button. Your business will now be visible to anyone that visits your business.
Your business will now be in Places and is ready for you to check in. You may check in alone, or check in with your friends by tagging them.
You must now login your Facebook account via the web. Click on your profile tab and locate your business check in.
Once your business has a Facebook Place, you will see the following screen. There is a link at the bottom left side that states “Is this your business?” Click on the link to begin the verification process.
You will now get the following pop up:
Upon certifying that you are an official rep of your business you will need to complete the next step/form. Please note that claiming your Place on Facebook does require some supporting evidence including document verification to prevent from strangers trying to claim your business. (Unfortunately, there will be a waiting period of about a week before you receive an approval email from Facebook.)
Once your claim has been reviewed and approved your page will look like this and you will be able to add a photo, edit your details and create deals for your customers. Click on “Create a Deal”
You will get the following box:
You are now ready to create you Deal on Facebook Places.
Click on “Create a Deal for this Page”
You have 4 different types of deals you can offer: (deal descriptions via Facebook Help Center)
Individual Deal: Reward individual customers when they check in at your business. Best for simple discounts or gifts with purchase.
Friend Deal: Reward individual customers when they check in at your business. Best for simple discounts or gifts with purchase.
Loyalty Deal: Reward customers for visiting your business a certain number of times, similar to a traditional punch card.
Charity Deal: Pledge to donate to a charity of your choice when customers check in at your business. A win-win for everyone!
For demonstration purposes I will walk you through the steps in creating an individual deal.
For an individual deal you will need to define your offer, explain how to redeem, enter the dates you plan on running your promo, maximum number of redemptions if applicable and the number of times it can be claimed by the customer. Proceed to clicking on Save.
You will then be prompted with the following screen. You have now successfully submitted your deal to Facebook and it will take an approximate 48 hours for them to review and approve. Please note that your page may have only 1 active deal at a time.
When your customers now check-in via Places on Facebook your deal will display in the following manner:
I hope this “How To” post helps you on improving your business presence on Facebook. Even if you decide not to participate on Facebook Deals, it is imperative to at least clean up your listing on Facebook Places with a proper description and photo so that it is branded properly.
I define social media as the essence of communication. It provides a playground for creativity and non-conventional methods of self expression. It motivates individuals to reinvent themselves and move past traditional approaches. It is new media without boundaries.
My educational background at UCSD consists of Sociology and Visual Arts with an emphasis on Studio Art. I love to create things that are abstract and sometimes have no reference to anything but my mind. I am bilingual; I can speak and write both in English and Spanish. I am misunderstood for a lot reasons, but my top 3 favorite are: I have an accent, I speak super fast, and sometimes I just don’t make any sense, but it doesn’t stop me from being creative and producing new things. Just as I speak fast, I am thinking twice as fast, which sometimes hinders me from being able to put my thoughts down on paper. By the time I’ve thought of it, I’m already on my next idea.
This is where social media has helped me capture my thoughts a bit more accurately and allowed me to communicate more effectively. I am not limited by social media. On the contrary, I am challenged to be more inventive in putting my point of view out there. For example, twitter allows us to micro blog 140 characters at a time. What’s the point? The point is that we have been given a social network platform to be artistic with the way we communicate. I was once challenged in one of my art classes to create a table from wire referencing my personality. Yes, the medium was wire. The message here is that I was able to show who I am artistically without having to say a single word. My assignment and twitter are similar; we are given 140 characters to express ourselves whether it is a quote, a comment, a re-tweet, or a link referencing something that we think is news worthy.
Social media facilitates communication at all levels and provides new ways to reach your community. How has social media challenged you to communicate more effectively?
(image by frozenchipmunk via Flickr Creative Commons License)
Over 2 millions iPad’s have been sold already. No contract is needed with AT&T and the user experience this time will be consistent worldwide with much reduced dependency on a mobile provider such as AT&T or some other international wireless provider. So think of the global potential of the iPad. THINK GLOBAL.
People tell me that the iPad is stupid because it’s just a bigger iPhone. And I agree! It’s a bigger iPhone; which means more screen space and a faster processor. That means more potential for apps to do a lot more. Don’t think of the iPad in terms of technology. Think of it in terms of a platform, think of it in terms of potential market penetration and think of it in terms of an apple product. It is going to sell a lot, it is going to have a ton of apps which are only going to get better with time and it is going to create its own consumer market, people that will train themselves to use it just like they did with the iPhone.
I’ve been using my iPad as my primary computer at home. In fact, I have not even gotten on my laptop in over a week now. I can browse (even though I do prefer apps rather than the browser), read my books, watch movies, create presentations and I can reply to all my emails. I am super excited to see all the apps that are coming down the pipeline. They are only going to get better. So whether you are an early adopter or a late one, I assure that most of you at some point will get one, because the apps are only going to get better and are going to give you a more customized experience, one that is rarely provided through the browser. The iPad has a lot of potential and it will be up to the consumer and app developers to continue to explore the capabilities of this new platform.
Some of my current favorite apps are: Evernote, Dragon, iWorks, Tweetings, Barnes & Noble eReader, Analytics HD, Netflix, Scrabble and Wired Magazine.
How are you using your iPad? Do you see iPad as a niche product?
