Adirondack Studios

Adirondack Scenic, Inc. was incorporated in February 1975 in New York State as a fabrication and production resource outside of New York City. The three owners – myself, Chris Detmer and Watler Blake – were versed in theatre, opera, special event and corporate theatre staging.

The move from New York City to Warrensburg, New York State was for better production space and exploration of new frontiers outside the NYC rat race. It was also due to a love for the Adirondack Mountains, originating with a 1960s connection to the summer Lake George Opera Festival.

Early projects were few and far between, but in 1977 we were connected to two breakthrough projects, the Bugs Bunny Follies (a touring arena kids’ show) and GE 100 (a touring celebration of General Electric’s first 100 years). Both were immensely successful and led to multiple productions of Bugs Bunny and over 30 years of GE’s corporate events worldwide. These projects opened the doors to expansion into rock and roll, ice shows, magic shows, theme park attractions and a global clientele.

that we always “do what we say we will do”. Our corporate philosophy has always been to care for our employees while encouraging creativity throughout the organisation, to behave ethically and appropriately in all cultural and business relations, to follow all regulatory requirements in the production and delivery of our creations, and to always pay our bills. Entertainment is the unifying criteria for all our endeavours. We thrive on storytelling and focus on the essence of the guest experience. To this day, all our projects are still called ‘shows’.

We began working for Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 1977, primarily for their live entertainment venues. We worked occasionally for Charley Wood at his Storytown Park here in Lake George, NY tuning up his UV effects, and occasionally repainting ride systems. Some of our GE work took us to EPCOT and their Horizons attraction, as well as to many of the Disney resorts in Orlando, but it wasn’t until Universal Studios decided to move to Florida and needed qualified vendors in 1988 that we fully engaged in rides and attractions. We ended up with seven projects for the initial opening in 1990, and more than 50 for Universal globally since then. It set us on a course toward the attractions business becoming one of our four anchor entertainment sectors, the other three being live entertainment and special events, museums and interactive exhibits / public art, and real property development (resorts, casinos, restaurants, retail, and performance venues).

Disney was a tough nut to crack; however, once they hired us and spent time with us developing their projects, we have grown the relationship to be mutually interdependent. They have become a stalwart of our amusement attraction portfolio. The sense of collaboration and pragmatism that we demonstrate in our projects together has contributed to this longevity.

At a time when consolidation and corporate mergers seem to be in fashion, we have chosen to remain independent. It was the closely held ownership spirit that kept us focused and motivated over the years, and we feel particularly proud of our partnership. It has helped us to survive and maintain our personality.

Adirondack Studios

ADKS is a company that consistently looks for projects that fill our creative souls. If it doesn’t excite us, we will most often disqualify it. When we become emotionally engaged in the storytelling and placemaking, we do our best work and deliver the highest level of care and service to our clients.

I’d say making it to 50 years has been a pretty spectacular achievement. It’s been so fun celebrating with our clients, partners and team all over the world. We started our celebrations in upstate New York where it all began, and we’ve since hosted two anniversary events in Dubai, a party in Shanghai at IAAPA Expo Asia, a happy hour in Pasadena and a closing celebration in Orlando.

We continue to produce scenic elements for Thea Award-winning location-based entertainment provider Level99, and 2025 marks our fourth year designing and producing haunted houses and scare zones for Hersheypark Dark Nights. Never forgetting our theatrical roots, we’re designing scenic drops for South Carolina Ballet and renovating the orchestra pit at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

In the Middle East, we’re transforming the Candylicious store at Dubai Mall with a fresh new look in partnership with Retail is Detail. Meanwhile, ADKS ME is collaborating with the SEVEN team to bring Saudi Arabia’s vision to life, aiming to make it a global entertainment and leisure hub through signing a new contract with MBL and Al Ramsat to deliver themed spaces within the Makkah entertainment complex. And our strong relationship with ALEC Fitout continues as we near completion on scenic works for the Natural History Museum of Abu Dhabi and Aquarabia Qiddiya City.

There are lots of other projects with top brands and top theme parks worldwide in the pipeline, but unfortunately top projects means top secret.

Make A Scene was the brainchild of our director of global marketing, Clara Rice. At its core it’s a company culture initiative.

We realized that after 49 years, being a ‘best kept secret’ was probably not the smartest long-term growth strategy. So, to get the word out about our projects and processes, we decided to leverage our greatest asset, which is our people. We’ve produced over 100 employee spotlight and behind-the-scenes videos in the last 18 months, and we’re constantly creating more content for our new YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/@wemakeascene). Beyond that, it means having craftspeople like Lara Brunelle [see following page] contribute to articles like these instead of just Tom Lloyd and I all the time. It also means introducing new faces at tradeshows and conferences.

Our graphic designer, Jason Ortega, used to work in marketing for a professional basketball team. Once a year, the team do a media day with their players – where they interview the players about the season, get footage of them in action, and take their headshots. We thought, what a fun concept to bring to our Adirondack Studios. So, in April 2025, we launched our own media day in our Dubai shop. Everyone, regardless of title or role, was invited to be star for a day. We have 17 nationalities represented in that location, so we even agreed to shoot their interviews in their native language and have translated captions. The shop team loved it. You should have seen how dressed up they got for their headshots. We’ve since done a media day in Orlando and will eventually host one in each of our worldwide locations.

Adirondack Studios

I joined ADKS in 2009 when a Universal Studios art director happened to see a large painting of mine at a local art show. He suggested that I submit my portfolio to ADKS. Since then, my role has progressed from the paint shop to onsite scenic painter to scenic paint lead for the Little Mermaid Attraction at Walt Disney World. That led from me running the paint shop to serving as the creative director for scenic paint for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Diagon Alley.

After completing Potter in 2014, I came back to upstate New York as production art director. In this role, I am ultimately responsible for every scenic finish on every job we create in our upstate New York shop. Projects and clients include Pandora: The World of Avatar, Citrovia Brookfield Lemon Garden, Meow Wolf Convergence Station, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Aulani Resort, The Metropolitan Opera, Transformers: The Ride and more than 300 other projects over the last 12 years.

In my role as production art director, I am responsible for leading the painters and scenic artists of the ADKS scenic art department, establishing all character paint and sculpting techniques, and providing creative direction to execute 2D and 3D art for all ADKS project deliverables in the US. I closely collaborate with the design and project delivery departments, as well as the client, to understand what is important to the show and to deliver the best possible aesthetic quality within the allotted time and budget.

We are typically involved in anywhere from 6-20 shows at any given time, ranging in size from a single prop cart to $40 million bi-coastal theme park attractions. It’s a lot!

The best part is the people: the enjoyment of working with passionate, creative individuals as well as with clients and end customers – the theatre audience and theme park guests who clearly enjoy the imaginative and magical environments that we create for them.

The year I led 40 painters to paint every square inch, inside and out, of Diagon Alley at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resort was truly magical. We were everywhere – from the chimneys on the rooftops to the darkest corners of Knockturn Alley, and it was the most chaotic fun with the best team of people for a solid year.

I got to be there when it opened, and watching people come into the attraction for the first time and seeing actual tears of happiness on their faces made all those long hours on a sweltering construction site worthwhile. A core group of that team of painters still works together for ADKS in Orlando to this day, and I am super proud of all they have achieved in the past 10 years.

I love all the black light paint projects that glow in the dark. Pandora: The World of Avatar gave us a chance to grow our sculptural skills as well as truly master the art of integrating glow-in-the-dark paint with sculptural plants that were illuminated from within, so that was a solid contender, but I am also a big enough nerd to have really enjoyed working on the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge project.

There is a generational gap for skilled artisans who can take an idea and turn it into a real, physical object, artfully done and utterly believable, no matter how fantastic the subject matter. A wave of old-school scenery designers, carpenters, welders and artists is aging out of the business, and a good number of younger people coming into the industry have terrific computer design and modelling skills but have minimal experience with the real-world tools and techniques with which we build these worlds of entertainment. Companies like ADKS, with our 50-year, multi-generational history of experience, are increasingly rare and valuable to keep the world of themed entertainment vibrant and exciting.

Adirondack Studios collaborated with The Franklin Institute and MDSX on the new Body Odyssey exhibit – an immersive journey through the human body.

ADKS was brought in as a consultant to work with MDSX during the schematic design phase of Body Odyssey to assist with practical solutions for creating three new galleries, one of which includes new exhibits and interactives designed to complement TFI’s popular walk-through heart exhibit.

Opened in March 2025, this new waterpark was designed and constructed by Aquatic Development Group. Adirondack Studios provided creative design, sampling and mock ups, fabrication, installation and project delivery services.

Adirondack Studios collaborated with the Luna Entertainment Group and Universal Orlando Resort to create immersive attraction Wicked: The Experience, which opened in November 2024.

Non-profit Florida resort Give Kids the World Village offers free week-long vacations to children with critical illnesses and their families from around the world. ADKS acted as general contractor for the creation of Mayor Clayton’s WonderLab, a hands-on, immersive STEAM activity centre designed to inspire curiosity and foster collaboration. ADKS collaborated with specialist lighting designers and other artisans and builders, and created a range of activities and exhibits for the centre, which opened in July 2025.