Articles by Encore

Behind the Curtains: Modern Theatres and Perfect Acoustics

The first time you hear an unamplified voice travel cleanly to the last row, it feels like a magic trick. But in modern theatre design, the “trick” is a carefully choreographed duet between architecture and engineering. Almost everything you see, from the ceiling curves to the seat cushions, is...

Best Seats at the Opera

The first time you buy opera tickets, the seating chart can feel like an ornate puzzle: tiers, boxes, “dress circle,” “grand tier,” “family circle,” and a price map that suggests a balcony seat might cost as much as a small, sensible car payment. Here is the good news: there is rarely a single...

Wheelchair-Friendly Theatre Night Out

I am the person who reads the entire playbill before the first cue and stays for the very last bow. I am also the person who wants everyone in the room to be able to do the same without having to treat basic access like an impossible scavenger hunt. A great night at the theatre should feel like...

Must-Attend Global Theatre Festivals in 2024

If you have ever finished a show and immediately wanted to call someone to say, “You have to see this,” theatre festivals are your natural habitat. They concentrate risk, talent, and late-night conversations into a few electric weeks where a storefront stage can feel as consequential as an opera...

Film Festival Venues: Sundance, Cannes, and TIFF

Film festivals are a little like theater district nights on fast-forward: you’re juggling showtimes, weather, crowds, and that one friend who insists “we can totally make it” across town in seven minutes. You can, but only if you understand the venues as a living map, not a list of addresses. Below...

Designing Iconic Movie Posters: 7 Rules from the Pros

There is a special kind of alchemy to a great movie poster. It has to flirt, pitch, and promise, all while you are walking past it with a pretzel in one hand and your phone in the other. In marketing meetings, this is often called “the glance test.” On the street, we call it love at first sight....

7 Documentary Film Festivals to Follow

There is a particular electricity to a great documentary festival lobby. It is part reunion, part group therapy session, part sprint. You will overhear a director explaining how they gained trust in a closed community, a programmer hunting for a missing link, and an audience member wiping their...

Top 8 Immersive Digital Art Venues to Visit This Year

There is a particular thrill to walking into a room and realizing the room is about to notice you back. Immersive digital art at its best is not just “pretty projections” or a maximalist selfie stop. It is choreography for light, sound, and your own curiosity, built by teams who understand timing...

Stage Lighting vs. Cinematic Lighting

There is a moment every lighting person recognizes: you walk into a space and your body instantly starts doing math. Where are the pipes? Where is the grid? Where is the sun going to be at 4 p.m.? Where can I hide a unit so the audience never thinks about it? The difference between stage lighting...

Iconic Red Carpet Venues in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has plenty of places where celebrities show up looking like a thousand-watt idea, but only a handful of venues have that unmistakable red carpet electricity. The kind where the flashbulbs feel like percussion, the crowd noise rises like an overture, and the building itself seems to know...

Immersive Entertainment’s Next Act: 5 Venues Redefining Live Theater

There is a moment in every truly great live performance when you stop watching and start belonging . Immersive entertainment has been chasing that feeling for years, but lately it has evolved from a niche thrill into a full-blown design philosophy, especially in cities where dedicated spaces and...

Indoor Arenas vs. Outdoor Amphitheaters

I love a concert the way I love a great play. I want the room to feel in on the secret, the lighting to tell a story, and the sound to hit like a well-timed punchline. But before you ever scan a ticket, one choice quietly shapes everything: indoor arena or outdoor amphitheater . Both can deliver a...

Networking at Film and TV Festivals

Festival networking has a reputation problem. Somewhere between the lanyards, the late screenings, and the seventh “let’s grab coffee” that never happens, it can start to feel like you are speed dating with a résumé. But when it works, it works because it is simple: you show up prepared, you talk...

10 Visually Stunning Documentaries

If you have ever left a theater with your brain buzzing, not from plot twists but from light , you know the particular power of a visually ravishing documentary. The best ones do not just show reality. They compose it, shaping color, texture, movement, and rhythm until the world feels freshly...

How Production Designers Build Red Carpet Venues

The red carpet is supposed to feel effortless. Like the venue simply is : a clean sweep of glamour, a perfectly framed logo moment, a staircase that flatters every silhouette, and lighting that makes sequins behave. But if you have ever spent time backstage, you know the truth. That “effortless”...

Traditional Radio vs. Vodcasting

There is a particular romance to traditional radio: the red ON AIR sign, the choreography of faders, the host who can paint a whole city with a sentence. Audio alone asks listeners to co-create the scene in their heads. But the business has shifted under that booth window. Audiences now discover...

12 Historical TV Dramas That Changed Storytelling

Historical TV dramas used to arrive like museum tours: respectable, carefully lit, and faintly scented with homework. Then a handful of shows kicked open the soundstage door and proved the past could be as tense as a thriller, as intimate as a chamber play, and as visually ambitious as cinema. More...

Streaming vs. Theatrical: Film Distribution’s New Rules

Not long ago, movie distribution had the comforting predictability of a well-run stage manager: wide theatrical release, a long exclusive run, then home video, then premium cable, then maybe streaming. Today, the call sheet looks different every week. A film might premiere at a festival , pop into...

Opera and Ballet Sets Go Digital

There is a particular hush that falls over a theater right before the first note or the first arabesque. For generations, set design met that hush with painted flats, sculpted arches, and the glorious heft of real scenery rolling into place. Now, more and more productions are answering it with...

Edinburgh Fringe: Venues, Tickets, and Tips

Edinburgh in August is a beautiful, stone-built fever dream where every close (alleyway) is a stage door and every café table has a playwright rewriting Act Two between sips. The Fringe is thrilling, yes. It is also a logistical sport. If you want to laugh hard, cry responsibly, and still catch...