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Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater sparkled with music luminaries—including Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars—during the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, but the massive white fabric stage setting blasted with LED lights held up to the glittering competition. The set design, consisting of 70-by-50-foot tensioned fabric petals covering the walls, ceiling and floor, offset huge video screens showing a feast of film and music delights. The sleek mid-century-modern-inspired staging won Moss Inc., Elk Grove Village, Ill., a 2011 BizBash West Event Style Award of Excellence in the Best Staging and Set Design category. It also received an IAA Award of Excellence from the Industrial Fabrics Association International in 2011.
German designer Florian Wieder specified stark white fabric for the sweeping fabric “petals,” which became a canvas for LED lights that changed for each performance and presenter. Fabric wrapped the entire frame, held in place with zippers, and required only minor adjustments after the first fit. The frame can be taken apart and reassembled, but took four days to install and required the theater to remove 2,600 seats. “What I tried to do was create a kind of three-dimensional space, where the entire space is part of the show,” said Wieder. “We use it all … the whole ceiling, the floor, the walls. It’s really an impressive thing.”