Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the show. You may notice a different setting today. Normally, I'm in my studio, but today, I'm actually in my home studio and kicking off a series where we're gonna be doing the show on the road a few more times. Excited to see some different faces and places in different areas, and it's going to be, fantastic to see some new folks out there. But wanted to spend some time today talking a little bit about the world of, live entertainment and how the technology side of things and the creative side of things really are are starting to blend together on a much more granular level. And and if you've been kinda following the AV news cycle lately, you've seen that Epson and Cirque du Soleil have partnered together, officially as, Epson having Epson as the official projection provider, for the CERT team. We'll dig into to to that a little bit more today, talk about some of the implications, not only of that partnership specifically, but how partnerships in general in our industry continue to, impact things like innovation, creativity, but also long term things like sustainability, and industry influence and impact today. So wanted to bring on a couple of folks to dig in a little bit deeper in that partnership specifically today. And that's Jason Meyer from Epson and Christopher Whelan from Cirque du Soleil. Gentlemen, thanks so much for coming on. Alright. You're welcome. Thank you, Ben. Well, Christopher, I wanna have you kick us off here because I know, you know, folks may be kinda curious why we're having a conversation with with Cirque du Soleil and and talking specifically about granular technology and hardware providers. So I gotta ask, you know, obviously, working with with folks like Epson are are are incredible partners, but what kind of started the conversation for this partnership? Was it a need for more reliable, sustainable, robust technology? And how did that conversation even start? You know, Cirque, when we we create shows, I mean, we start, you know, we start years in advance sometimes. And, you know, technology is obviously is very important. It's, it's an important, storytelling tool. And our sort of direct access to the manufacturers, that's like that's paramount. It's, it's, we can always go and leverage and just kinda learn about what's coming up. You know, we may we may get some insight into what may be coming out a few years down the road. That really helps us sort of shape how we develop the system and just try to get the best that we can and not just kind of, you know, place an order when the when the times come to place an order. I mean, we're we're we're designing very early. So that's that's where I think a relationship with, with, a manufacturer like Epson is, is really key and, really beneficial to, to show design and show production. Well, and Jason, kind of the same question to you. Right? Coming from the obviously, Epson serves a million different markets. It seems like live entertainment being one of those those core markets. You know, why is it so important to to partner with some of those entertainment companies directly, especially as a manufacturer? Yeah. I mean, for us, when when, the opportunity arose, to enter into this partnership, we, we've spent a tremendous amount of resources in in the last decade developing, you know, world class, high brightness projection systems. And we wanna be partnered with, you know, a global, leader in live events. And I don't I can't think of another brand, that has a stronger, presence globally in live events than Cirque du Soleil. So that's that's really for for Epson, that's what what drove our decision to to, you know, enter into this partnership. Well, Jason, I tend to agree with you and Christopher. I think that's a testament really to not only the name that Cirque du Soleil brings, but the impact that it brings far beyond just places like Vegas. Right? There's touring shows. There's different IPs, all sorts of different properties kind of baked into that world of Cirque du Soleil. But I wanted to ask. Right? I wanna get a little bit more technical. You know, when we talk about projection and creativity, I I I think it's you know, people talk about projection mapping and all sorts of different applications. But what are some practical use cases now, especially, you know, stepping into all the the back half of the twenty twenties here? What are some of the practical applications and use cases where you're seeing projection being leveraged in a lot of these live entertainment spaces and shows? I mean, for us at Cirque, I mean, you know, you you go to see a show and and you see you can see projection. But sometimes there's the projection that you don't immediately see. And that may not seem like something very practical, but, you know, we're we're sometimes we're really using it to to enhance scenery. I mean, there's the obvious mapping stuff, and and that's all great. I mean, you can take a costume, you can take a piece of scenery, you can take a piece of property, whether it be hard or soft, you can you can bring it to life. You know? You can give it a whole other character. And, you know, being a digital art form, you're always allowed to kinda like change these things sort of like on the fly. But sometimes it's just these little bells and whistles. We're taking scenery that's been, you know, hand painted or it's digital printed, and and these are beautiful. But sometimes there's just these these layers that are are just kinda laid over top, and and they're little pops or little enhancements or just changing how, you know, how it looks if it's lit from a different direction or you know, those are the sort of, like, the subtle ways that we use it. And and they're not immediately obvious, but I think it's part of sort of like the what has our guests leave the shows and go, wow. You know, they're just the the it just takes the amazement, I think, to another level, and they they can't exactly pinpoint why or how. I think that's that's one of the and maybe the best case use I could could describe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to see. And and, obviously, kinda being in the world of live entertainment, I get to see a lot of different use cases and applications. But what's cool about projection technology is is it feels like it's being treated more, kinda like you mentioned, as a light source than just kind of an overlay. Right? What can you do creatively with a projector? Well, okay. You can manipulate the light. You can change the shadows. You can, in some cases, create your own shadows. And there's all sorts of different things that you can do with it. And and, Jason, I wanna ask from a a technological perspective. Right? You know, obviously, you know, luminance values and increases in technology and cost and efficiency and, you know, power effectiveness and things like that are are driving some of this. But what are some of those main technological drivers and capabilities that are allowing people like Cirque to really better leverage it as a as a light source in general than just maybe just a static toss something on a projection screen and call it a day? Yeah. I mean, the the biggest change in in projection technology, was the move from so traditional UHP lamp based. You know, these are the the, you know, kind of think light bulb, right, for those aren't that aren't in the industry. Right? The traditional lamp based to laser based technology. It was a huge, you know, shift in in technology and innovation in the projection space. And it enabled us to get more power efficient. And over time, the laser diodes themselves have gotten smaller and smaller. So we we spend a a lot of, time and resources innovating around, the technology. So our whether it's our panel technology getting, more efficient, being able to get higher resolution out of our panel technologies to the the the backlight technology, which is now laser, is much more power efficient. It's about a fifty percent power savings over lamp. And then, even, as we've iterated to smaller and smaller laser diode packages. So the actual diodes themselves that are creating the light have gotten more efficient. So we've seen over the last few years, like, a thirty percent, efficiency gain in in just in the laser diodes themselves. So we had a a big shift from lamp to laser, but then now even the lasers are getting more efficient. So it it there's a lot of changes going on, and then laser laser enables you to do a lot enables you to do more things with the technology than you could with lamp based, primarily because, it doesn't generate nearly as much heat. So we can make we've been able to shrink the size of the overall, projector dramatically over the last few years. So the projector's gotten much, much smaller, which enables guys like Christopher to integrate them into their shows more seamlessly that where people cannot see the projector. I mean, even a few years ago, a twenty thousand lumen projector could weigh in excess of a hundred pounds. Now we're, you know, fifty percent of that weight. Right? Or more. Depends on what you're which Lumen band you're talking about. But there's all sorts of efficiencies that came with shifting to laser. Jason, I wanna ask, you know, obviously, you've got entertainment providers, whether it's, you know, folks like CERC or touring providers or, you know, rental houses across the world. Right? Trying to really embrace a lot of these standards because, you know, transparently, there's cost savings in it, but there's also, climate potential savings in in there as well. How do you take on that burden as a manufacturer? Right? Or is it something that that is almost a natural byproduct of technological innovation, or is it something really that's core focus from the product design standpoint? Yeah. Well, both, really. Right? So, you know, the innovation allows us to become more efficient, but, you know, as the housings get smaller, we don't use as much plastic. Right? We're and we're looking, Epson is a Japanese company. We've been around, for a long time, and Epson's a leader in sustainability globally. We're we're, frequently recognized as a leader in global sustainability for manufacturers. And, you know, so we're constantly looking at ways to improve our sustainable footprint, whether it be in our facilities, using you know, shifting to more recycled content in our, in our products themselves, shifting away from like, on the printer side, shifting away from traditional ink cartridges to ink tanks so you're not throwing as much plastic away. I mean, across all of our product lines, we're constantly looking for ways to become a more sustainable company. Well, Christopher, you know, that it hearing that almost excites me. Right? And I'm not even officially the partner of, with Epson yet. But, you know, what's cool about having a partner that is that is having those conversations and is is thinking ahead is it actually makes your life easier. It allows you to think further ahead. And I wanna ask kinda from that creative standpoint, you know, obviously, folks like Epson continue to invest heavily in in the r and d side of things and the capability side of things. But, you know, when it comes to maybe designing a show or maybe retrofitting or redesigning maybe some existing elements in shows, do you typically work from the idea or the the kind of design side backwards? Or do you start with the technology? Right? Since you have a partner like Epson, do you say, hey. This is a capability that we can expect to see. Let's see what we can do with it. Or is it more, hey. We need to try and mold the technology to meet a need that we're trying to execute on. Or maybe it's both. Yeah. I would say, it could be both. You know, at Cirque, we, you know, obviously, we're we're leveraging all sorts of technology. It is all I would say it's is generally born from the idea. What is the experience that we're trying to offer, offer our guests? And technology becomes sort of like a participant in that. We will rarely, I'd say, use technology for tech to showcase technology. Right? We want to we want to, you know, sort of embed it and integrate it in ways that maybe people might not have thought of. And sometimes they're very sort of subtle, invisible ways. And then and people are left guessing how did, you know, how how did this happen? How how did he create this image? Or, so, sometimes a little bit of both, I'd say, you know, as projection became, you know, I mean, I started in this business like thirty years ago and I saw, you know, projection go from, you know, film scrolls and acetates and people masking physically with black tape. And, you know, when digital came in, it was like, oh, wow. Things are getting easier now. And then quickly, things became much, much more complex because our human nature is just to just to expand and bring in three d computing. And now the projector is just is just like a toolset to create all kinds of stuff, you know, from from effects to storytelling to, you know, you name it. So of course, it's very important, you know, as I said before, for us to to kinda know what's coming up. And we have worked, you know, we will sure work with Epson and and kind of provoke and and ask and try to, you know, maybe, influence some some, evolution in the technology. Absolutely. But generally, we're we're born from the idea. The the show creation is sort of like key, and we're not trying to let it be swayed by by technology, but it's it's obviously a very, very important player. You know, without it, we wouldn't have the shows that we we we have today for sure. Well, that that's a great point, Christopher. And I appreciate you you you kinda sharing that context. And and Jason, I wanna ask too as a manufacturer. Right? Obviously, it's it's I don't know that rare is the right word but it's not super common for a projector to be the only piece of technology to show. Right? Whether it's, you know, all of your RF frequencies, your audio, your visual. Heck, even sometimes you're competing with an LED wall. Right? How important is that, especially from a feedback standpoint where you have a partner like SIR, to learn how the projector is being used in an ecosystem standpoint instead of just, hey. How are you using this specific projector? How does that give you some larger context into the larger use case? Well, for us, it's the most important thing. I mean, I I think what Christopher says encapsulates exactly why Epson wants to partner with Cirque du Soleil because, for for Epson for Seco Epson Corporation, we voice of the customer is everything. I could give you a laundry list of features that are in a lot of our product lines that are a direct result of, customer feedback. And so by partnering as we grow our our footprint in live events, I mean, we're the we're the leading, projector manufacturer in the world today, but we want to continue to grow our our footprint in live events. And to do that, we need to be partnered with a world class, partner in live events that can give us that feedback. You know, it's the little things that make a difference to guys like, Christopher, because if we, you know, if we can't provide the right contrast ratio or the or the you know, our lens selection isn't broad enough or whatever. Right? Though it's those things that make a difference to people who are, producing these live events. It's not, you know, what, you know, what's the latest color of your projector or, you you know, it's the it's the features, and refining the features, of these, of this hardware that is super important to us in the live events market. Agreed. Well and and Christopher, you know, and Jason mentioned as well. Obviously, Cirque is very well known for its excellence. But I think, in my opinion, as somebody who's kind of been in the live events and broadcast and touring and concerts world, Cirque is well known, especially within the AV and kind of crew community for its level of technical excellence. Right? Because, you know, you can go on a cruise ship and you can go on a number of different places and see something that works. Right? And seventy five percent of the audience, maybe even eighty percent of the audience will never know the difference. But you go into a search show and you see that level of technical excellence, execution, claimliness, that that level of value in there. And that's one of the things that I've always really respected about the CERC product as as well. And, you know, you talk about partnerships with manufacturers. You talk about, always I don't know. I I know that always innovating technology is the right way to describe it, but always making sure that that there's excellence in technology. You know, and I wanna ask too as as as both a fan and an advocate, you know, what are some of the ways that people can expect to see technologies, whether it's projection or whether it's something else, continue to be leveraged in the CERT portfolio moving forward? And and how can some of those folks like myself go watch a show like KA or Michael Jackson one and embrace some of those just fantastic technical excellence, capabilities in there? Yeah. That was a good question. I'm trying to see into the future. I mean, if we look at, you know, the the projector, as I mentioned before, is becoming, you know, you you can just do more with it because of all the associated technology, and that in turn kind of provokes, you know, more innovation of the projector. But definitely, you know, computing computing power, you know, real time processing, the demand for immersive, you know, I don't want to use the buzzwords, but the sort of like the experiential events, the user input. Right? More and more, the audience is becoming a user. They're becoming a participant, in in the story. And and and more and more, they they wanna sort of, like, choose their own story. So to have, you know, projectors, everything that we talked about, to have, you know, to have them compact and low heat, we can hide them. We can we can do all kinds of sort of trickery with the projector. It's gonna give us the toolset to sort of deliver those experiences. And and I think there's just gonna be more and more demand for that, that that media layer. I mean, unlike anything else, you can really you can shape a space, you can morph it. You know, we can we can take a square room, make it round. We can, you know, you can throw light at a far distance on a mountain, on a building. You can do so much with the projector that you can't do with a TV or an LED screen. The projector is is it really it's it's like set apart from, I think, any other shuttle technology out there. It really is. And and, Jason, you know, I wanna ask. Obviously, you see things like the Sphere and you see a lot of these structural things like LED walls and and, all sorts of different applications happening. And and, Christopher, to your point, there's something about a projector a projector because of its ability really to just manipulate light. Right? It is really all it is. But that gives you a certain layer of flexibility and, capability that you that that you can't structurally otherwise get. You know, Jason, and I'll land the plane kinda with this. You know, what how how does that continue to to factor into your kind of design process specifically when it comes to the live event side of things and finding out ways to best serve some of those capabilities in live, live entertainment providers? Yeah. I think, well, it's interesting that you brought up the sphere, because I get asked often about the sphere actually. And and As do we all. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you do. And and, because, you know, this the the inside of the sphere is all d v LED. Right? And but to me, I I think the sphere is great for us. It's great for our industry. It's great for live events in general because it it highlights, like Cirque is doing, it highlights the power of this sort of immersive audio, video, visual experience. Right? And so for us, whether Cirque Cirque is using, DV LED or projection or most people use a combination of both or other AV technologies, to us, it's all good because it's it's driving this, the public's need for this type of entertainment. And and as far as we go, looking into the future, we continue to we have this principle in Japanese. It's called shou shou sei. So it's compact, precise, efficient. That's what drives all of our innovation. So that's why you're seeing everything getting smaller and more efficient and more precise. And the precise part of it is really resolution. Right? So now we're able to put eight million pixels on screen. That's that's four k, which is super important for, you know, large screen experiences, because the you know, guys like Christopher, they want pixel density. Right? You got have a huge screen. You need to deliver very high resolution to do that. And projection technology can do that. And it's, another thing I get asked is like, what's the latest technology in, in, you know, AV and it's actually projection. Yes. Because I would agree. The, you know, the ability to put four million or eight million pixels on screen using a projector with a one inch panel is much, much harder to do than putting eight million pixels on a eighty inch LCD TV, for example. It's incredibly difficult to achieve from a technology perspective. So that's what we're focused on, is continuing to drive resolution for it, continuing to to get the, hardware smaller and smaller and more efficient. Well, I'll tell you what. It it's been great to have both of you on, and I love the way that you put it, Jason. We, as a community, are all benefiting from things like Sphere and and immersive experiences and all these different applications of technology because it it really has intrigued and peaked a lot of interest from people who historically probably wouldn't have been, you know, Christopher, I like it as you said, wouldn't be users or or consumers of our technologies or shows or entertainment. And it's really opened up a brand new world for us where technology has been showcased, to really tell a meaningful story and wow people and inspire people in a really new way. And and I think that this partnership is gonna be the first step in that. And I'll tell you what, I would love to have you both on a future episode because I can tell you this is this is the precipice of some great work that's coming down the pipeline. But, Jason and Christopher, thanks so much for coming on the show today, and we look forward to having you on soon. Thank you, Ben. Thank you very much, Ben. And thank you to those listeners out there. We appreciate you tuning in. Can't wait to, to see you next time. Join us again on ProAV Today.
