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The Cloud Room at Electric Forest Music Festival

The Cloud Room at Electric Forest Music Festival

Aug 14, 2025 Posted by: Aaron Oppenheimer
Today we wanted to do a deep dive of our recently Cloud Room installation, which was a part of the famed Dream Emporium at Electric Music Forest Music Festival in Michigan back in June.
 
The concept was an LED Cloud room - with the entire ceiling and ground covered by clouds, making someone feel like they had just stepped into the sky. All of the clouds on the ceiling are laced with addressable LED lights, allowing them to shimmer and sparkle with mesmerizing lighting animations and effects.
 
We wanted the audience to feel a sense of wonder and calmness when spending time in the room, and stay for a while as they relax and connect with each other.
 

Festival go-ers enjoying the Cloud Room

Getting to the Cloud Room was no small feat. It's a secret space nestled inside a gigantic maze of rooms constructed inside an old Aircraft Hanger transformed into a multi hour immersive experience. To enter the room, you have to climb up a small ladder on top of the bed of a Monsters' Inc. inspired bedroom, somewhere inside the Emporium.

The entryway to the Cloud Room. You entered by climbing up one of the two ladders in the back up into the room.

Here's how we built it:
 
We broke the installation down into individual "cloud panels" that were about 6 feet by 3 feet wide. Each panel was made from a chicken wire mesh frame, which natural cotton polyester filling was attached to, which made up the cloud and the cloud's internal structure. On the inside of the cloud were LED strips, which were pressed up against the cloud so they could shine through the surface. 

The guts of a single LED Cloud. Notice the chicken wire mesh that gives the cloud it's shape, and the LED strips ziptied to the mesh.

All of the cloud panels were built on the ground, then lifted up and stapled to the ceiling one by one.

Installing the individual "Cloud Panels" onto the ceiling

After the physical installation was complete, the lighting programming was done - a process we call "designing the experience."
 
The vision was to have a 30 minute, looping audiovisual experience that mimicked an entire day, starting from Sunrise and Morning time, to Afternoon, a Thunderstorm, to Sunset and then finally Night Time. The soundscapes for each phase would match the lighting programming directly, really making the audience feel wholly immersed in a world of clouds.

Cameron, working on programming for the 30 minute audiovisual experience

Thousands of festival go-ers came through the room over the 4 day festival - we loved seeing their reactions, joy, and amazing connections they made while in the room.
 
It's always a bummer to have to tear down temporary installations we put so much time and energy into, but we're excited to have it back up at next year's festival!

The finished experience!