kVA Effects & Microsoft

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jeff W. Parisse by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jparisse-at-teslacoil-dot-com>

TCML,

As usual, you guys get advance notice of our press releases and
this time... it's a big one!

We just got back from Miami and the Microsoft Global Briefing 2001
(you may remember our call for PAs i.e. Production Assistants) .
The MGB2001 was Microsoft's largest (over 13,000 employees)
in the company's history and featured the unveiling of the
Windows XP Operating System and speeches by Rick Belluzo,
Orlando Ayala, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.

kVA Effects designed and implemented the electrical effects for
the opening sequence and the Steve Ballmer stunt that concluded the
show. I've posted three new photos (Home Page, Extreme Stunts and
Arena Events) and a video that will blow you away (I hope to get the
Broadband version uploaded tonight... but for now, only the dial-up
is available)!

The show used a new coil: the Model 10J. We've redesigned the
Model 9J gap for better heat dissipation and added a ten foot tall
secondary. We used a ten foot long transmission line to pipe
the HV to the Microsoft X logo.

The stunt involved a *very expensive* (good thing Microsoft won
it's court case... how else could they afford it?) set of "electric
underwear" that can not be seen in the video (that's the point).
As always, I suggest that you do NOT try this one at home. There
is MUCH more than meets the eye on this stunt... more so than
usual. More so than what you'll see at Burning Man... for sure.

Enjoy! On-Topic comments and questions are welcome.


Jeff W. Parisse
Director, kVA Effects
www.teslacoil-dot-com

p.s. One of the fire extinguisher crew was a PA. It looked like
a fun job...squirting a CO2 extinguisher at the Microsoft CEO!
Next time we run a call for PAs and we're in your area, send
in an application... you never know what you might end up doing!