Erik Mahowald and Brent Bucci Transcend at Insomniac’s Dreamstate SoCal 2025 with CHAUVET Professional

It was impossible for anyone not to get caught up in the moment at this intensely immersive festival that featured a galaxy of EDM heavy hitters like Tiësto, Paul van Dyk, Aly & Fila, Lilly Palmer, Ferry Corsten, Giuseppe Ottaviani, and more. Spreading its creative arms wide, Insomniac’s two-day Dreamstate SoCal event embraced virtually every facet of trance music from psytrance to the more melodic.

Keeping pace with it all and amplifying the power of music on stage was a transcendent lighting and video design that challenged the senses and expanded the mind with dynamic visuals created by production lighting designer Erik Mahowald of Bending Lite Productions and creative content visual operations director Brent Bucci of VJCLA.

Featuring five massive curved LED cylinders stepped out in front of a towering back wall, the 84-foot by 160-foot main stage presented an awe-inspiring image. The design team turned this impressive stage into a giant canvas. The towers became video screens displaying deeply engaging images that changed with the music. The lighting supported the videos with brilliant colours that served as a background one moment, only to erupt the next and project intense beams and lasers across the entire waterfront.

Contributing to the powerful lighting panorama were CHAUVET Professional COLORado Solo Batten fixtures, which, like the rest of the rig, were supplied by Felix Lighting. “We chose Chauvet COLORado Solo Battens primarily for scenic illumination,” said Erik. “As we were curating the lighting design for this stage, we knew we needed something that not only provides high-quality light but also high output as well. The COLORado Solo Battens also gave us huge relief through a stormy load in which having IP65-rated fixtures kept us moving forward for our programming.”

Of course, creating this stunning panorama on the Long Beach waterfront involved far more than excellent gear and superbly talented creatives. On a more intangible level, the memorable design was driven by passion and a belief in what the festival means on the part of the designers and the entire Insomniac team.

“Dreamstate was born from a deep love of trance, and over the past decade, it’s grown into a global movement with shows in eight countries and our SoCal flagship event that brings tens of thousands of trance music fans together in North America,” said Jeff Ryan, the Director at Dreamstate. “The Dream Stage isn’t just our mainstage. It’s a manifestation of everything the brand stands for: emotional storytelling, future-forward production, and a community that shows up ready to lose themselves in sound, light, and connection. For year ten, we wanted to give them a space that felt worthy of that energy.”

Though relatively new to Dreamstate, Brent has wholeheartedly embraced this vision. “This was the second year that I was given complete creative control over all of the animation across all four stages at Dreamstate,” he detailed. “The “Dream” stage (AKA Mainstage) was designed to celebrate all that the Dreamstate brand has achieved over ten years, growing to become the largest trance festival in North America. The crowd that comes to Dreamstate is incredibly passionate, and our mission was to give them an experience that felt both massive and personal, delivering one of the most technically immersive shows they’ll see anywhere in the world. Jeff Ryan from Insomniac has a huge vision for this, and every year we strive to push the envelope with bigger and better productions.”

Brent worked closely with Jeff to develop twenty fully built show looks, with custom intro animations for every single artist on the Dream Stage lineup. Wolves Visuals provided the animation content, translating his creative direction into world-class visuals designed specifically for the event’s unique architecture.

“Spinning planets and cyberpunk-inspired futuristic looks were two new themes that we experimented with this year, enabling us to lean more into a neon colour palette that really pops in photos,” said Brent. “From day one, we designed directly into the geometry. We built everything natively for the 7K-wide canvas, treating the cylinders and back wall as one integrated structure. We used Unreal Engine to previsualize every angle to make sure the content landed cleanly, no matter where you were in the room. Whether you were front and centre, in the back, or tucked into the corners, the story still translated.”

Stage producer, Andrew Jocson from Insomniac, was responsible for keeping every phase of production in sync in a four-stage festival that brought together over 300 crew members, including key players like Josh Gregoire (Bending Lite), LD-programmer,  Aaron Attarzadeh (Bending Lite), LD-programmer and  Collyns Stenzel (Bending Lite) – TD-drafter.

Looking back on this effort, Andrew said: “What sets Insomniac apart isn’t just the size of the show, it’s the discipline and purpose behind every element. From rigging to media systems to FX, every department works with precision. That level of care isn’t just how we do things— it’s part of the company’s DNA.”