High-Tech Projection Design: From Music Festivals to the Broadway Stage
A creative talent behind major theater productions and live acts, Olivia Sebesky shares with InformationWeek how graphic design programs and media servers bring complex visual displays to life.
In 2023, the entertainment industry saw some of the most eye-popping displays ever, from the immersive round screens at U2’s The Sphere shows in Las Vegas to the widely popular tours of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Meanwhile, over her career projection designer Olivia Sebesky has designed a wide range of shows, from an Aerosmith tour and Carrie Underwood Stagecoach performance to most recently the visual designs of Broadway’s "Melissa Etheridge: My Window." In fact, Sebesky has been nominated for Media Content Creator of the Year at tonight’s Parnelli Awards for the live event industry for video content on country star Lainey Wilson’s tour. She’s up against the content creators for Beyoncé, Erykah Badu, P!nk, SZA, and U2 at the Sphere.
Sebesky started as a painter and then developed into a projection and video designer, which allowed her to experiment with gestures on a large scale. Her career progressed from the paint easel to an electronic production board at high-profile entertainment events. She’s seen productions move from 1080p to 8K video presentations.