Digital decor

Large-format projection provides 360 degrees of customization.

A backdrop used to be a piece of fabric hung to create background scene or environment. Today, large-format projection technology combined with the blank canvas of a tent can turn an entire structure into a backdrop, with multiple custom images projected over the course of an event.

One company creating these digital backdrops is Firefly LA, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based multimedia design house that produces immersive audiovisual environments for corporate and private events. The company’s “canvases” include building facades, outdoor landscapes, inflatable structures and waterscapes. In the last year, Firefly LA has applied the technology to tent interiors and exteriors, and owner Effi Shoua says that this kind of projection can change the way people look at tents.

“Everything is possible, it’s just a matter of who’s the client,” Shoua says.

The technology’s software offers shaping, blending and wrapping of images into almost any format. The software also compensates for off-angle projections and linearity adjustments, making it possible to project a full 360 degrees onto any surface.

“Basically what I do is to cover the whole surface of the tent by multiplying the projectors and syncing all of them into one computer,” Shoua says.

The projection technology can be applied to tents of any size or style, but clearspans have the nicest look, he says.

“What I like to do is make custom designs for the needs of every company,” he says. “I could have generic imagery, but it’s always the case that when corporate clients come to me it is to customize a look for them. Every event is a different client, every event is a different tent, a different size of tent.”

Shoua says that while this kind of projection has been available for a number of years, the corporate push for branding and customization has brought on the demand for it.

“What is unique is how we pull it together and execute it,” he says.