We’re putting the finishing touches on converting our theater to a 4K digital fulldome system from SkySkan. As far as I know, we’re now the largest fulldome theater in the Southeast US. We’ve been waiting for this day since I started working here three years ago. And it’s been talked about for over 10 years! In fact, it’s been so long that the guy who started talking about 10 years ago, Holden Thorp, was then the director of the Planetarium. Now he’s the Chancelor of the entire school of UNC-Chapel Hill.

Our official reopening is going to be February 5th. On the docket is “Astronaut” from NSC and “Black Holes: Journey into the Unknown” from Museum Victoria. We’ll also be playing our own homegrown show, “Earth, Moon and Sun” and a live show called Carolina Skies. We’ve also got the Domefest 2009 shorts that we’re going to play during special occasions AND we’re weeks away from finishing our second show, “Magic Tree House: Space Mission” and a domefest short entitled “Jeepers Creepers.”  Yeah, it’s a bit busy, but we’re pretty psyched.

We just entered our first production, Earth, Moon and Sun, into the 2009 Fulldome Festival at the Zeiss Planetarium in Jena, Germany. This year, they’re allowing full length shows to be entered into the competition. Previously, the competition was limited to shorts under five minutes, just like DomeFest. I seriously doubt our show will dovetail into their theme this year, “Bauhaus-in-the-Stars,” but we’ll give it a shot anyway.

The english version of the site is a bit confusing and has some dated material, so the best place to get clear info about the festival is actually on the Zeiss website here.

The full schedule for this year’s DomeFest is up on the ArtsLab website:

http://artslab.blogspot.com/2009/08/domefest-returns-to-new-mexico-925-27.html

September 25-27 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. We’re going to miss it this year due to budget cuts, but we’re already in the planning stages for Morehead’s first entry into the competition the year after.

David Benning over at the ARTS Lab at University of New Mexico just announced that DomeFest 2009, which had been postponed from June to an undetermined date, will happen after all. The dates set are September 25-27 2009 and it will be located at UNM in Albuquerque. Similar to previous years, there will a Juried Show, full show screenings, technical and production talks.

Here are some dates to keep in mind:
+ 06 July: Registration opens
+ 24 July: Papers, Talks & “Making of…” Proposals Due
+ 04 August: Juried Show Submissions Due
+ 18 August: Accepted “Making of…” content due

We’re hoping to go, but with the current North Carolina state gov budget cuts, it’s not looking so good…