Road Trip 2007

LAS VEGAS--If you're involved in the technical side of the Cirque du Soleil, like Keith Wright and David Dovell are, then the scarcity of available radio frequencies poses a potential headache for you.

That's because Wright--the operations production manager for the Cirque's show, Ka, and Dovell, the technical director for its LOVE show, are both in charge of productions that depend heavily on wireless radio transmissions between hundreds of crew members.

And they face different, but equally challenging, problems.

For Dovell--and, actually, for Wright as well, come to think of it--the problem is political. He told me Thursday, as he helped lead me on a backstage tour of LOVE, that his show and many others in Vegas are facing a potential shortage of radio frequencies due to the Federal Communication Commission's interest in auctioning blocks of spectrum to digital television networks.

"The whole town is writing congressman after congressman," Dovell said, "trying to get them to change that. Every now and then, they'll test one, and knock (a bunch) of our radios out."

For Wright, there's a different problem.

The communications control room at the Cirque du Soleil's Ka.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Because Ka is at the MGM Grand, which also houses a concert arena, radio transmissions from visiting-concert technicians frequently pose interference problems.

So, Wright has in his employ a full-time technician whose sole job is negotiating those situations and resolving conflicts.

Unfettered wireless transmissions are crucial for both Wright and Dovell because, they told me, Ka and LOVE have the two largest sets of wireless needs of the Cirque's 13 shows.

And if you love the Cirque, as I do, then you're just as interested in making sure these technicians are able to do their job without interference from other shows or political agendas.

LAS VEGAS--I just got back from a backstage tour of Cirque du Soleil's Ka theater, and I'm still a little dumbstruck by the technology that's built into the show and the infrastructure that runs it.

The servers that control the lighting systems at Cirque du Soleil's Ka show in Las Vegas.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

I'll write much more about this--as well as some of the tech behind the Cirque's Love, as part of my Road Trip 2007 coverage--but one of the things that came out of my tour that I thought warranted a quick blog was when Keith Wright, the operations production manager for Ka, mentioned to me in an aside that he's in need of some new network-savvy technicians.

Ka is a pretty advanced show--and it should be, given that the theater alone cost $165 million to create. Behind it all are lots of different systems, many of which work together in some way.

But in particular, Wright said he needs folks who can come in and understand and work with the network systems that run the show's lighting. After all, this is a huge theater--the second-largest of all the Cirque theaters, I was told--and it has 3,400 stationary lights and 47 moving lights. All to make it so the 1,951 guests can see exactly what they're supposed to see.

And running it all is an advanced computer system that controls everything and ensures that--usually--everything goes off exactly as it's supposed to.

A lighting console that is used to control the lighting effects during Ka.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Now, I'm not saying Wright suggested I tell you, my dear readers, to send in their resumes. But he sounded pretty sincere about needing more help. So, if you're in Vegas or interested in being here, and you're a network guru, I would think a discreet inquiry into what jobs are open with Ka might well be worthwhile. Just don't tell them I sent you.