Erik Mahowald and Brent Bucci with CHAUVET Professional Dreamstate SoCal 2025

	"We chose Chauvet COLORado Solo Battens primarily for scenic illumination," Mahowald says. "As we were curating the lighting design for this stage, we knew we needed something that not only provides high-quality light but also high output as well.

Insomniac's Dreamstate SoCal trance music festival was held at the Queen Mary's waterfront park in Long Beach, California, on November 21-22. The lineup of EDM heavy hitters included Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Aly & Fila, Lilly Palmer, Ferry Corsten, Giuseppe Ottaviani, and more.

Keeping pace with it all and amplifying the power of music on stage was a lighting and video design that challenged the senses and expanded the mind with dynamic visuals created by production lighting designer Erik Mahowald, of Bending Lite Productions, and creative content visual operations director Brent Bucci, of VJCLA.

With five massive, curved LED cylinders stepped out in front of a towering back wall, the 84' by 160' main stage, the lighting supported the videos with brilliant colors that served as a background one moment, only to erupt the next and project intense beams and lasers across the entire waterfront.

Contributing to the lighting panorama were CHAUVET Professional COLORado Solo Batten fixtures, which, like the rest of the rig, were supplied by Felix Lighting. "We chose Chauvet COLORado Solo Battens primarily for scenic illumination," Mahowald says. "As we were curating the lighting design for this stage, we knew we needed something that not only provides high-quality light but also high output as well. The COLORado Solo Battens also gave us huge relief through a stormy load-in, which, having IP65-rated fixtures, kept us moving forward for our programming."

"Dreamstate was born from a deep love of trance, and over the past decade, it's grown into a global movement with shows in eight countries and our SoCal flagship event that brings tens of thousands of trance music fans together in North America," says Jeff Ryan, director at Dreamstate. "The Dream Stage isn't just our mainstage. It's a manifestation of everything the brand stands for: emotional storytelling, future-forward production, and a community that shows up ready to lose themselves in sound, light, and connection. For year ten, we wanted to give them a space that felt worthy of that energy."

Though relatively new to Dreamstate, Bucci has wholeheartedly embraced this vision. "This was the second year that I was given complete creative control over all of the animation across all four stages at Dreamstate," he says. "The Dream Stage was designed to celebrate all that the Dreamstate brand has achieved over ten years, growing to become the largest trance festival in North America. The crowd that comes to Dreamstate is incredibly passionate, and our mission was to give them an experience that felt both massive and personal, delivering one of the most technically immersive shows they'll see anywhere in the world. Jeff Ryan from Insomniac has a huge vision for this, and every year we strive to push the envelope with bigger and better productions."

Bucci worked closely with Ryan to develop 20 fully built show looks, with custom intro animations for every single artist on the Dream Stage lineup. Wolves Visuals provided the animation content, translating his creative direction into world-class visuals designed specifically for the event's unique architecture.

"Spinning planets and cyberpunk-inspired futuristic looks were two new themes that we experimented with this year, enabling us to lean more into a neon color palette that really pops in photos," says Bucci. "From day one, we designed directly into the geometry. We built everything natively for the 7K-wide canvas, treating the cylinders and back wall as one integrated structure. We used Unreal Engine to previsualize every angle to make sure the content landed cleanly, no matter where you were in the room. Whether you were front and center, in the back, or tucked into the corners, the story still translated."

Stage producer Andrew Jocson, from Insomniac, was responsible for keeping every phase of production in sync in a four-stage festival that brought together over 300 crew members, including key players like LD/programmers Josh Gregoire and Aaron Attarzadeh and TD/drafter Collyns Stenzel, all from Bending Lite.

Looking back on this effort, Jocson says: "What sets Insomniac apart isn't just the size of the show, it's the discipline and purpose behind every element. From rigging to media systems to effects, every department works with precision. That level of care isn't just how we do things -- it's part of the company's DNA."