What happens when you combine a planetarium, spectacular night-sky imagery and a brand-new album?
Grand Rapids gets an out-of-this-world way to spend an hour this week.
Beginning Monday, Aug. 10, the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium at the Grand Rapids Public Museum will host the Lost Weekend Planetarium Experience, a series of album listening sessions that pair music with visuals projected across the planetarium dome.
The experience gives audiences an opportunity to hear Phoebe Bridgers’ new album, Lost Weekend, in full ahead of its worldwide release Friday, Aug. 14. Bridgers is a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter known for her indie rock and folk-influenced music. She has won four Grammy Awards, including three as a member of the group boygenius.
This is not a concert, and Bridgers will not be in attendance. Instead, the focus is on the album — and the visuals surrounding it.
Guests will sit beneath the planetarium dome as the music plays alongside one of two visual presentations: a night-sky film created by photographer Babak Tafreshi or an original laser show by Laser Fantasy.
Tafreshi’s presentation draws from two decades of photographing the night sky around the world. The footage travels from the star-filled skies of Madagascar and the Northern Lights above Iceland’s glaciers to powerful storms over Texas.
Filmed in nearly 20 countries, the presentation uses no computer-generated imagery. Instead, it showcases real night skies and landscapes, creating a visual backdrop that moves between stars, weather and some of the planet’s most dramatic natural scenes.
The second option, created by Laser Fantasy, takes a different approach, using lasers to create an atmospheric visual accompaniment to the album.
The planetarium experience is being presented in partnership with Spotify and COSM as part of a worldwide series of listening events taking place in planetariums across the globe.
A phone-free hour
There is one important difference between this listening session and putting on a new album at home: Your phone is staying out of the dome.
Bridgers has requested that the events be phone- and camera-free. Upon entering the planetarium, guests will have their phones, smartwatches and other recording devices secured in Yondr pouches.
Guests keep the pouches with them throughout the show, but the devices can be accessed once they leave the planetarium dome.
Anyone who uses a recording device during the event may be escorted out.
The organizers say the goal is to create a listening experience without the distractions — or screens — that typically accompany a modern album release.
When to go
The Grand Rapids shows are scheduled for Monday, Aug. 10, through Friday, Aug. 14, with three sessions each day at 4, 6 and 8 p.m.
Tickets are $15.
The show runs approximately one hour.
For anyone looking for something different from the usual concert or movie outing, the Chaffee Planetarium is offering a pretty simple proposition: Sit back, look up and listen to an entire new album while the night sky unfolds overhead.
Lost Weekend Planetarium Experience
Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium at the Grand Rapids Public Museum
Aug. 10-14
4, 6 and 8 p.m.
$15
Tickets are available through the Grand Rapids Public Museum.
