Meet the Team behind amazing stages of Miss Universe & Miss USA!

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Joe Stewart and John Shaffner
If you ask any pageant fanatic about the pageant which has the greatest production value, without a second thought they will answer “Miss Universe” and It is true! The amount of effort Miss Universe Organization puts in making sure the finale night a spectacular event is commendable .One of the important aspects of the production is the stage itself. The contribution of Art direction and set decoration plays a huge role in the Visual Extravaganza MUO brings! Let’s have a look the team behind the stage design. The production designer of Miss USA and Miss Universe is Joe Stewart of the design firm Shaffner/Stewart.

Consider the Miss USA 2017 stage: The grand set consisted of seven massive LED screens that were built with more than 1,200 digiled MK 7 mm LED video Modules, provided by PBTVs, with the entire video solution package for the pageant. The seven 32-foot high screens were arranged with a single center screen flanked by upstage, mid-stage, and downstage pairs of screens in an overlapping arrangement. There were also large panels with mirrors on the sides to reflect the content, which made the stage appear that much larger. The arrangement of the screens, the selection of the digiled MK 7 mm video modules and the dynamic content, provided by The Zinman Company, all combined to evoke a wonderful sense of immense scale and gave a sense of fluid movement, though there was no automation of the screens themselves

While Stewart’s extravaganzas include the Miss USA and Universe pageants, SAG Awards and many more, Shaffner’s work includes the hit shows “Two and a Half Men,” “Big Bang Theory” and “Mike and Molly” among others. Together, Shaffner/Stewart have been awarded four Daytime and Primetime Emmys and received 29 nominations.

Author: Robin Verma