River City Scenic Inc.

2010 – Year In Review: Allure of the Seas

By far, the biggest project of 2010 was our work for Royal Caribbean International’s new vessel, Allure of the Seas.  Here’s an overview of our involvement in the major entertainment venues.

Amber Theatre

For this venue we provided scenery and props for the productions of CHICAGO and Blue Planet along with the facility’s permanent drapery, masking, and fiber optic package.  Scenically, the production of CHICAGO is an adaptation of the John Lee Beatty design that is currently playing on Broadway.  Two of the elements added to this adaptation are a large lighted CHICAGO logo sign for the show finale and the requirement of the bandstand unit to traverse up and down stage during the show.

Blue Planet is an original production of aerial and acrobatic scenes.  From a rainforest with a tree full of performers to a moving mountain unit containing trampolines, this spectacle was quite the scenic contrast to CHICAGO and heavily utilized our sculpting, coatings, and fiberglass capabilities.  In order to rehearse this show prior to it’s delivery to the ship, we sent the Tree unit and a full size rehearsal version of the Mountain unit to  Royal Caribbean’s rehearsal facility in Florida.

Studio B

Royal Caribbean’s signature ice skating venue, Studio B, is home to two production ice  shows, Ice Games and How To Train Your Dragon™ On Ice (HTTYD).  We provided scenery for both productions as well as the permanent masking and fiber optic package for the venue.  Ice Games is an original production that combines the board game Monopoly with a number of locations onboard Allure to create the show’s concept.  The HTTYD production is one component of a ship-wide entertainment package that was developed from a partnership between Royal Caribbean and DreamWorks® Animation.  This is a live action version of the recently released animated film.

Aqua Theatre

One of the most unique performance venues at sea is the Aqua Theatre which presents high-dive and pool based production shows.  The pool itself is outfitted with three large elevators and the whole area has an elaborate fountain system that is programmed for self-contained fountain shows is also choreographed into the production shows.  The two shows we provided scenery and props for are titled OceanAria and Let Me Entertain You.  A variety of digital printing solutions were used here as well as sculpting and fiberglass fabrication.  This facility also has a permanent set of drapery and masking that we provided and installed.

Royal Promenade

The main item we provided for this venue is a set of five rolling boxes that are used as elevated satellite stages for performers during two large parade events.  These boxes contain battery operated fans and confetti cannons.  The fans are used to deploy large inflatables that are preset inside the boxes.  The boxes are also utilized in other Promenade events and can be arranged in a variety of configurations.

Installation

Our team began the installation at the shipyard in Turku, Finland on September 27th.  We had someone onboard throughout the entire rehearsal process until the final show opened.  Our last installer disembarked the ship on December 19th with the opening of the last Aqua Theatre show that week.  Members of the installation crew were:

Kyle Wichman: Lead Project Installer, Lead Installer – Amber Theatre
Joel Slanker: Lead Installer – Studio B
David Spencer: Lead Installer – Aqua Theatre
Cheryl Earls: Lead Scenic Artist

Installers: Is Austin, William Blankenship, Todd Burgun, Wesley Craig, Chad Engleman, James Harrington, Mark Rapach, Nick Sico, Andy Williams
Scenic Artist: Meghan Urbanski

Thank You!

We’d also like to thank Royal Caribbean and especially the staff at Royal Caribbean Productions for their continued trust and support for our work on their Newbuild and retro-fit projects.  Allure of the Seas was our 19th Newbuild project for Royal Caribbean and marks our 24th ship of theirs on which we have installed scenery.