Mega Domo

The Mega Domo is a 60m-diameter, 30m-high, 2,000-capacity inflatable immersive theatre which transformed the Brazilian town of Canela over the festive season with its spectacular, immersive visuals.

Inaugurated on 6 October, the Mega Domo is the venue for the world’s largest immersive Christmas show, Viagem de Natal (Christmas Voyage), which combines music, live theatre, and projection mapping delivered by VIOSO and its local partner Hoffman Technology.

Created by Edson Erdmann of Histórias Incríveis, the hour-and-20-minute show was made possible thanks to VIOSO’s industry-leading projection technology, which was used to create a seamless 360º projection onto the interior walls of the dome.

The 2,000-capacity dome is the largest inflatable structure in Latin America, standing as high as a ten-storey building, with an internal space of 57,000m³, and kept inflated by fans blowing air at up to 100km per hour (62mph).

Over the festive period, the Mega Domo hosted Viagem de Natal (Christmas Voyage), which combined projection mapping, theatre and music to tell the story of Miguel, a young photographer spending Christmas away from his family for the first time.

Commenting on the Mega Domo’s technological innovation, Erdmann praised the “gigantic projection” and spatial sound (via Dolby Atmos), explaining that the venue features “a level of technology never done at this scale” in Brazil.

As well as breaking new ground in terms of scale, the Mega Domo adheres to strict environmental standards, with a novel water treatment system able to purify wastewater up to 93% on-site and the dome’s design optimises drainage into the land on which it’s built.

Taking on the challenge of mapping the 30m by 60m dome was VIOSO’s local partner, Hoffmann Technology, which used 20 Panasonic projectors paired with VIOSO Anystation Media servers and software to produce the spectacular visuals for Viagem de Natal, the world’s largest immersive Christmas show, which inaugurated the new venue.

Alan Leitão, technical manager for Hoffmann Technology, specified four VIOSO Anystation Media 12, configured in two systems (hot spare master/client) for full redundancy, for the installation, which took just a week to complete.

While the media servers, which come with PIXERA VIOSO Edition software, handled the demanding high-resolution timecode-based playback for the Viagem de Natal show, VIOSO’s software took care of the complex calibration (camera-based warp and blend) needed for perfect projection over the dome’s more than 5,600 sq m surface.

In addition to the servers, the Mega Domo is equipped with 20 Panasonic PT-DZ21K projectors, installed at various heights between 2.5m and 5.5m from the floor following the projector placement and lens design provided by VIOSO, connected to the video signal with nearly 3km of fibre-optic cables and an HDMI matrix.