THE TRUMP TAJ MAHAL EVENT, JULY 26TH 2003
MUSIC BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Art Director, Light & Pyro Design Gert Hof
Produced by Asteris Koutoulas for the Donald Trump Organization
A Light Monuments Production
Event Coordination Michael B. Sladden
Programming & Operator Jens Probst
Production Management Ed Puntin
Light Equipment Syncrolite, LP Dallas
Pyro & Fireworks by Grucci, Inc.
Lights of Freedom Event, Atlantic City
Client: Donald Trump Organization
Location: Trump Taj Mahal
Live Audience: 500,000 spectators
Media Coverage: 5.5 million TV viewers (coverage by Fox, ABC, CBL, UPN, CBS, WB etc.)
On July 26th, 2003, Gert Hof made his debut with a major lightshow in the USA: The Donald Trump Organization engaged him to create "The Trump Mega Event". On the premises of the hotel-casino-resort Trump Taj Mahal, which is located directly at the Atlantic Ocean, Gert Hof staged a gigantic show out of light and fire to the music of Bruce Springsteen. Thus he was the first German to realize a show of this dimension in the United States. At the climax of the event Hof projected the world's largest American flag on the hotel building. By doing so he built a virtual bridge between Germany and the USA. For his fascinating lightshow, Hof again operated with technical superlatives: Innumerable pyro effects and fireworks, large projections measuring a height of 70 meters, and hundred 70.000 watt spotlights fed by approx. 25 kilometers of power cable caused limitless amazement. Having turned into "Light City", Atlantic City shone with "Lights of Freedom" for a week. An audience of 500.000 attended the premiere of the event.
*****
The Millennium Event in Berlin on December 31st 1999 was a premiere that represented the birth of a new aesthetic and philosophical concept of outdoor multi-media mega-events.
The ideas behind the concept are the result of the director, Gert Hof's, twenty
years of creativity and experience. For the first time ever, a mega-event was
staged with the most powerful light equipment in the world, using 250 high-
powered floodlights, with approx. 30-kilometre beams.
Gert Hof's mega-events can be considered unique total works of art, in two
significant ways. Firstly, they are a melting-pot for countless genres of art
(different music cultures, fire, pyro, theatre, light, balloons, neon and laser),
creating a totality, which is best described as an extraordinary architectural
choreography. Secondly, they combine elements of the relevant country's
customs, traditions, nature, history and music, as well as of the architecture of
the location.
The unique about these multi-media events is the fusion of various art forms
with high-end technical equipment and the world's most powerful light
equipment. Gert Hof unites these elements into an overwhelming totality. Each
of his events is distinguished by a different appearance, a different vision and
different music, appropriate to the country where the event is taking place, and
its culture. The imposing light equipment and the unique architecture and
choreography of the various elements, confirm Gert Hof's productions as the
most extraordinary outdoor events of the present-day.
Asteris Koutoulas
*****
It was a pleasure...
welcoming Berlin director Gert Hof and his producer Asteris Koutoulas to the USA. Gert used 80 SS/SX7Ks with Pigis from Fourth Phase and some pyro from Gucci. The show was visible for 20 miles around Atlantic City and created quite a stir among the blasé Americans who believe they have seen it all.
Gert Hof is part 21st century technologist and part P.T. Barnum whose main goal is to create a lasting and remembered impression on the mind. These pictures you can see here captured not only the moment at Trump Taj Mahal, but Gert. With a background in Brechtian theatre, a life lived in Berlin under East German domination behind the Berlin Wall and imprisonment under the communist government, Gert Hof developed an explosive style that is uniquely qualified to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. His show explodes with light, pyro, sound, colour and grand images. He is obsessed with the power of light as are those of us who make the tools of his trade.
Jack Calmes & Jimmy Page Henderson, Syncrolite
© der hier abgebildeten Fotos bei Sabine Wenzel (1), Jens Roetzsch (2 & 3), Guido Karp (4 & 5)
Zu Gert Hof
Danksagung ans Team
Zu den Events: Akropolis-Millenniums-Event, Berlin-Millenniums-Event, Budapest-Millenniums-Event (1.000 Jahre Ungarn), Ferropolis-Event (EXPO 2.000), China-Millenniums-Event, Dresden-Benefiz-Event, Holocaust Museum Washington, 1.200-Jahr-Feier Magdeburgs, Nürnberg-Event (Indoor-Show)