Update: This article has been revised with new information that came to light after the article was first posted.
TORONTO — Fans at a music festival in Scotland were supposed to be mesmerized during Coldplay’s concert Saturday night by thousands of flashing stars falling from the sky — and it was all supposed to be thanks to a Canadian company.
The plan was for Montreal-based PixMob to fill the sky over the crowd at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Glasgow with 10,000 blinking stars during a performance of — what else — “A Sky Full of Stars.”
Immediately after the show, the company tweeted: “A Sky Full of Stars performance by #Coldplay, literally full of #glowing stars with #PixMob helicos.”
The tweet was later deleted.
YouTube video of Coldplay performing the song does not show glowing stars descending on the crowd.
A spokesperson for PixMob said late Sunday the company “successfully dropped 10,000 Helicos into the crowd during Coldplay’s set at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend” but “the results were not quite as expected due to a technical problem with the Helicos lighting system.”
Prior to the show, PixMob said it studied wind patterns at the site over the last five years to ensure the lightweight stars would fall perfectly into the hands of fans.
The company has created LED effects for other groups — including Montreal’s Arcade Fire — and for a number of major music events, including the half-time show at this year’s Super Bowl.
Stars or no stars, fans reacted to Coldplay’s set on Twitter with words like “amazing” and “unbelievable.”
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