The Observer Effect

Observer effect is what me and many of my Gen Z cohorts would call a "Mega Brain" Show. As usual with the bluecoats design team, every visual aspect of this show is incredibly well thought out and refined. The idea of the observer effect being that we can only observe a moment of an event and not the entire totality, also that our act of observation causes an effect on the event. Speaking to how important our engagement and spectator experience of the marching art form is so integral to the activity. The designers love to play with your idea of perception. In the opener the drill and props set up the ensemble to resemble the Double-Slit experiment. In quantum mechanics this experiment demonstrates the observer effect. As the drumline approaches front field, they are separated and playing the same figures but with timing differences. You can only really listen in on one group to understand what you're hearing, forcing you to observe them independently and only really getting a decent read on that one event. The sidechaining effect used in the closer was really neat when utilized and will be interesting to see in the future. As we have seen in the past the bluecoats are always on the cutting edge of design and always spawn groups using the similar ideas in the years after. The use of live mixing and looping is pretty revolutionary as well. The ensemble has done similar effects in past shows (notably 2015,2019, and 2021) of having multiple small ensembles playing in a sequence or using samples. With the advent of recorded brass not being permitted the music team was able to find a loophole in this with using live sampling and looping. How they are able to line things up musically with this is impressive but the musical effect is powerful. Overall, this is an extremely progressive and cutting-edge show. It unfortunately stepped on its own feet a few times in execution but was still easily the strongest show design of the year.

The show is overall great. The closer did seem like they were struggling to fit the sidechain gimmick + the Son Lux original song though.

great show. seems like designers struggled a little bit with finishing the show, but that doesn't bring the overall product down much.

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