The XiteLabs team recently created a new visual art show for major music artist Kid Cudi in less than two weeks. The dynamic visual masterpiece was programmed to cover fourteen of Cudi’s greatest songs. It was then featured at Hard Summer Festival 2019.

Xite’s in-house producer Anders Rahm first brought this opportunity to the team. Anders had previously worked with Kid Cudi on Notch IMAG effects and multimedia content for his live shows.  Herein the challenge for the XiteLabs creative team was to design an entirely new visual show which incorporated Notch, enhanced live camera effects, high end animation, live visual performances, and d3 programming. The team used the perfect combination of forward-thinking technologies to create the ideal workflow. It was programmed to have a live VJ feel despite being pre-programmed. By introducing a 4k recording system with the help of Jay Spriggs, our team was able to capture Notch, Resolume, and Crescent Sun live.

Those files were programmed into Disguise along with more Notch effects by Eric May. The motto of the team, mainly Vello, was “Put a block on it!” During the performance you could see a palpable connection to the music and energy of the visuals as tens of thousands hummed along to Kid Cudi’s Saturday night headlining set. For an artist well into his second decade in music, it was a humbling moment for Cudi, and he was all smiles throughout the set.  The crowd justified him belting, “I can still feel the love!” the moment he queued up the song.

Hard Summer had a record setting 170,000 dance music fans gather in the middle of the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for their 12th annual edition.  Kid Cudi closed out the main stage with a mixture of his recent work with Kanye West on last year’s Kids See Ghost, and what many in the crowd seemed to consider formative music from his early career. Fans also got treated to a special surprise “Erase Me” unreleased remix by Steve Aoki.

Here is what Billboard had to say about the Kid Cudi show which featured our work @Hard Summer:

“Kid Cudi closed out the main stage” Billboard.com Show Recap

“Hard Summer 2019 Best Moments” Billboard.com Dance

Client: Kid Cudi

Creative Director / VJ: Vello Virkhaus

Touring Account Manager: Darcy Khan

Producer: Anders Rahm

Notch: Tanner Thompson, Richard De Souza, Patrick Defasten

d3 Server tech: Jay Spriggs

Animation Companies: Optical Animal, Wolves Visuals

Animators: Andrew Williams, Fezz Stenton, Kyle Gordon, Aurelian Ionus, Brady Bothwell

VJ/Resolume Artists: Tanner Thompson, Vello Virkhaus

Big Thanks to our whole team and everyone involved!