PORTAL Dome

Portal had the vision of bringing an immersive projection dome to Denver during the Psychedelic Science conference. In 2 short months SPOTLAB designed, planned, and sourced all of the necessary components for the event from the dome itself and location to build it to all of the production and decor elements.

We landed on the Holly Lot of Auraria Campus in Downtown Denver due to it's quiet, pleasant surroundings and walkability to the convention center where the conference was being held. Once the site was secured, our first step was to create a detailed site plan to ideate on transforming the parking lot into an oasis where attendees felt at home. This included a large "front yard" area with ample seating, refreshments, a picket fence and turf, and a 30x100 lobby tent featuring sponsors and art activations.

Once the site plan was established, we got to work sourcing the hundreds of elements necessary for this scale of production from dozens of vendors. We aimed to upcycle as much as possible both for budget and environmental reasons. 

SPOTLAB arrived on site on June 3 to begin the build process, first erecting the dome with a 105 ton crane and then transforming the area within and surrounding it. The doors opened on June 10 to a full crowd and the shows ran through the 22nd of June - a jam-packed 40 show run.

The programming consisted of a wide variety of psychedelics oriented talks, films, movement, meditation, and music from artists like LSDream, East Forest, Snow Raven, and many more. We brought in over 30 VJs including some fan favorites such as Android Jones and Glass Crane. SPOTLAB oversaw the video engineering, lighting, and audio teams to bring the artists vision's to life - many of whom were performing in a dome for the first time.