Look Solutions’ Unique haze machines are adding atmosphere under the Big Top during the 29th season of the non-profit Big Apple Circus, New York’s original one-ring circus famous for presenting world-class circus artists in a venue where families sit less than 50 feet from the ring. The circus’s new show, Step Right Up!, is currently playing its annual Damrosch Park engagement at Lincoln Center. The show recreates the sights and sounds of a Gilded Age amusement resort by the sea with its rollicking rides and awesome arcades, boisterous barker and surprising sideshows, beachcombers and bathing beauties, ragtime tunes, novelty numbers, and circus carousels of electrifying splendor.
“We’ve had Unique hazers for two years. We use them during the entire two-hour program to haze the Big Top for atmosphere,” explains Big Apple Circus' John Batz. “I like them a lot; they’re one of the better hazers I’ve worked with.”
Batz likes the water-based operation of the Unique hazers whose minimal fluid consumption makes for maximal impact. “The fluid lasts a long time: I don’t have to change it out every other day,” he reports. “The bottle size is easy to transfer in and out.” Each Unique fluid canister guarantees up to 50 hours of continuous output.
“The temperatures under the Big Top and the weather conditions outside affect how much I have to push the hazers,” Batz continues. “Because we’re in a tent, the moisture in the air dictates how much I have to use them. When it rains, I don’t have to use the Uniques a lot. When it’s dry I do. In either case, they work great. There are no problems with either extreme.”
The Unique hazers offer minimal warm up time, variable output, minimal sound, and DMX 512 control. The haze machines are equipped with an internal timer, efficient fan, and a Haze-Density Control System, which enables an individual profile for a show to be programmed.
The artistic and creative directors for The Big Apple Circus are Paul Binder and Michael Christensen, with lighting designer Guy Simard, and scenic designer Todd Rosenthal.
The circus’s Lincoln Center engagement is the second stop on its 11-month, 11-city tour, following its world premiere engagement in Washington, DC and including stops in Atlanta, Boston, and other venues on the East Coast.
