Anyone who has ever attended a concert of the last tour of the band Coldplay remembers it fondly. Those who go to The Weeknd concerts this summer* will also be amazed (and ears): each spectator creates light during the show ! For the magic to work, a connected bracelet is given to him free of charge at the entrance to the stadium. All you have to do is wear it on your wrist during the show… and wait for the surprises! 20 minutes was able to meet Vincent Leclerc, their inventor and co-founder of Pixmobwhich, with its lsightshowsmakes each spectator an element of the show.
Like a giant remote control
No need to use the flashlight of your smartphone to add a little glow in the heart of the pit or in the stands during a concert: the famous Pixmob bracelet takes care of it. Attached to the wrist, the small accessory can light up in different colors, flash… and more, at any time during the show. And with brilliance! Behind the scenes, the Quebec company Pixmod is at work. But how does it all work?
“We use a really old technology, which is that of infrared, as with the remote controls of televisions, explains to 20 minutes Vincent Leclerc, co-founder of Pixmob. Imagine giant remote controls that are installed in stadiums and that will simultaneously control tens of thousands of wristbands. Knowing that each bracelet incorporates two to six LED bulbs and an electronic chip that will receive the information transmitted in infrared and interpret it, the wow effect is guaranteed!
After Coldplay, The Weeknd…
“Coldplay was the first band to adopt our wristbands in the crowd. But we also worked with Indochine, with Bad Bunny in Latin America, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, The Spice Girls. We also participated in several Eurovision, Superball, the last Olympic Games, ”recalls Vincent Leclerc. And each show is unique, since it is possible to orchestrate a particular luminous choreography.
“Each artist manages to appropriate our medium in their own way and we work hand in hand to stage their creative ideas: Coldplay has its own aesthetic, it’s explosive and very colorful. When we did Lady Gaga at the Stade de France, it was different, more monochrome. The Weeknd, it will be different again, you will see, ”warns Vincent Leclerc.
Vincent Leclerc who, not content with lighting up and flashing his bracelets of different colors at specific times, also manages to create huge patterns in the heart of the crowd. “That’s the beauty of the system: you don’t have to ask people to sit in a specific place to create a pattern. To draw a heart, for example, one of the emitters will filter the infrared with a metallic mask which will recreate the shape of the heart. It’s a bit like with a stencil. We can enlarge this pattern, reduce it, move it. It’s motorized,” says the Quebec inventor.
Only four people to manage the whole device
If it seems rudimentary, the technology used also requires little labor. A concert like those at Coldplay requires only four people on site: two to install the two types of transmitters (about twenty at the Stade de France, between those for the single lights and those for the patterns); and two people for the distribution and recycling of wristbands.
Because it is also a point on which Vincent Leclerc and his teams pay all their attention. The bracelets, which are collected at the end of each show, can be used hundreds of times. With a battery life of five hours, and rechargeable, they will be disassembled at the end of their life. Their shell, made from sugar cane, will even be composted!
Inevitably, some spectators discreetly leave with their bracelet as a souvenir. Bracelet they can’t do anything about. “Instead of playing wristband police, we encourage people to give us back the products. On Coldplay, we are at 83% recovery. It depends on the cultures. France is situated rather well”, notes Vincent Leclerc, specifying that it is necessary to count around two euros per bracelet. “At this price, we manage to become more democratic, even with more confidential artists. No need to work with billionaire stars for it to work”, specifies the co-founder of Pixmob! Who is already developing a new generation of bracelets. Confidence of Vincent Leclerc to 20 minutes “We will soon be able to control the wristband of each person in a crowd in real time. We will thus be able to project video images into the crowd, as if each spectator were a pixel on a television screen”.
*July 22 & 23 at the Allianz Riviera in Nice, July 29 & 30 at the Stade de France in Paris, and August 1 at the Matmut Atlantique in Bordeaux.