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These appearances and events are listed in reverse chronological order. Some may be upcoming events. Oct. 31, 2007 Dr. MegaVolt will appear on Wired Science at 8pm on PBS. Check www.pbs.org for the PBS channel in your area. The appearance consists of an interview and a demonstration of DR. MegaVolt's suit using a small Tesla Coil that makes a 24 inch arc. August 28-Sept. 5, 2006 Dr. MegaVolt returned to the playa for Burning Man 2006 and had a very good year! We had the two 9 foot Tesla Coils running on the roof of a large box truck. There is quite a bit of footage of the shows on www.youtube.com. Keywords are Dr. MegaVolt and Burning Man. Here is a particularly good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH17nt1FEbs July 14th and 15th, 2006 Dr. Megavolt, the Bride of MegaVolt and Mistress Megavolt performed at the Crucible's "Fire Arts Festival" in Oakland. This is the link to the event's website: http://thecrucible.org/fireartsfestival/index.html We performed with twin 9-foot Tesla Coils. The show was a test of our equipment for the Burning Man festival. August 12-14, 2005 Austin performed at the Telluride Tech Festival in Telluride, CO. The coil was provided by Bill Wysock, who has demonstrated his excellent coil at the festival several times before. Tech Festival June, 2005 Burning Flipside was fun. We brought the medium sized Tesla Coil and performed a show. Rain prevented more appearances. March 2005 We have been getting a lot of inquires about shows in the last few months. Dr. MegaVolt is planning an appearance at the Burning Flipside festival in Austin, Texas. We need a break from the dust and the overwhelming law enforcement and drunken frat boy presence at Burning Man, thus we are taking a year off from the event and going to this much smaller regional event, which has a size cap of 1200 people. So are lots of other artists. There are two kinds of people that go to Burning Man: Producers and Consumers. When the output of the producers is exceeded by the consumption rate of the consumers, the event quality diminishes. I think this has been the case since 2001 or so. 2004 We all went to Burning Man, but chose to spend our time goofing off instead of working. Austin set up his solar power gear on the roof of his big truck and made electricity to run the camp. August/Sept. 2003 Dr. MegaVolt brings a large Tesla Coil to Burning Man and sets up an art installation called the Cult of St. Elmo. The cult is dedicated to St. Elmo and his fire, Elmo from Sesame Street and the movie St. Elmo's Fire starring the faux brat pack led by Jud Nelson. Participants enter a metal cage which is then zapped by the Tesla Coil. The event is operated by austin, John, Will and Victoria, with terrific help by JD Petras and his friend Billy. We run about 200 people through the event, including my mother. April 12, 2003 The Clan Destino hosts the Fur Ball at Muddy Waters Cafe in Santa Barbara. Dr. MegaVolt again performs with his medium-sized Tesla Coil, yet this time he wears his suit minus the helmet! March 21, 2003 Dr. MegaVolt performs with the mutaytor at Xara Dulzura: Rite of Spring, a small Burningman-style event held in a monastery near the Mexican border. Dr. MegaVolt performs with his medium-sized Tesla Coil, which can send sparks about 24 inches. For some strange reason, he performs without a suit. This is quite painful, although the pain is mitigated by standing on an insulating plastic milk crate and holding a metal rod that takes the brunt of the electron bombardment! January 2003 Dr. MegaVolt is filmed by Granada Television for a Discovery Channel show called Extraordinary People. He appears in the program, which is still airing on Discovery in 2005. October 2002 Dr. MegaVolt goes to Munich to film a segment for the "Grosse Knopf-Hopf" show for the network ZDF Germany. Now we know that Teslatrafo is the german name for Tesla coils! Great pictures and description of the filming process at William Keller's website. August 2002 Dr. MegaVolt returns to Burning Man and performs with the Mutaytor. Two Doctors, one real, the other an impostor, battle it out on Saturday night after the Burn. July 2002 Dr. MegaVolt plays a party called Metropolis in the parking lot of 3Com park in San Francisco with the Mutaytor and Christian Ristow's robot show. 8/25/2001 - 9/3/2001 Dr. MegaVolt rocks the playa for the fourth year in a row! The SINdicate hosts us at Burning Man 2001. We perform on three different nights in conjunction with Matty the Mutaytor and topless go-go dancers in wire fence cages! Matty, a solo drummer from LA who later founded the Mutaytor, controls the Tesla Coil with an air tube in his mouth. Like a one-man band, he pulses the coil in time to his drumming. The Doctor jumps on a trampoline while drawing arcs to a burning piece of lumber. The constant dust causes some short-circuiting in the secondary winding which we are able to repair with relative ease. 8/11/2001 The Dr. MegaVolt team takes the coil and suit out to El Mirage with the SINdicate folks for a shakedown test. Extensive repair and modification of the spark gap on the Berkeley 8.5 foot coil results in much more robust operation. We also gain a much better understanding of grounding issues and how they affect the coil in a desert environment. 9/21/2000 - 9/25/2000 John Behrens and Will Keller take Dr. MegaVolt to Paris for the taping of a segment of Le Web Fait Son, a show featuring the most interesting things on the Web. The new Tesla Coil debuts on television, featuring a commercial 56" diameter toroid. Great pictures and description of the filming process at William Keller's website. 8/28/2000 - 9/4/2000 Dr. MegaVolt returns to Burning Man with TWO 25 kW Tesla coils. One is brand new, the other is Austin's old coil upgraded to 25 kW. Both are equipped with matching purple secondary windings and 56" diameter toroids from O.W. Landergren. The coils are mounted on a 24-foot box truck and powered by a 125 kW generator towed behind. In spite of severe weather, the crew manages to perform on three nights, culminating in a sunday performance with both coils working perfectly. 1/8/2000 Dr. MegaVolt goes to St. Augustine, Florida to shoot a segment for Ripley's Believe It or Not, a revival of the original television show narrated by Jack Palance. The suspension trick tested in Oakland is tried again, this time from an 80-foot boom crane. A replica of the Empire State Building loaded with pyro effects is destroyed as it is zapped with arcs streaming from the doctor's hands. We now own a special harness for hanging safely while wearing the suit. 12/29/99 Dr. MegaVolt is filmed standing on the top of his Tesla Coil, with 9 foot arcs streaming out from his hands and head. He is suspended from the ceiling by ropes in his Oakland, CA studio/workshop. The harness we use is designed for rock climbing, and anyone in the suit tends to hang horizontally because of the weight of the helmet and shoulder armor! 12/23/99 Megavolt blows a current-limiting resistor that is realized to be a legacy of the early Berkeley days, when we were very conservative in our engineering. The replacement of this resistive current limiter with an inductive device results in an increase in power consumption from 15 kW to 25 kW and much longer arcs. We now routinely measure point-to-point discharges that are 13 feet long. The coil also becomes much louder and brighter. Richard Cossel debuts his three-phase Jacob's Ladder, which produces a strange Y-shaped arc. 11/23/99 MegaVolt returns to the United States and takes up residency in Oakland, California. 11/7/1999 Dr. MegaVolt flies to London to appear on "Don't Try This at home", a television show that is remiscent of That's Incredible. 11/1/99 Dr. MegaVolt officially moves into his new Digs at www.DrMegaVolt.com. 10/15/99 Television Campaign for Sizzler Steak House featuring Dr. MegaVolt premiers. The commercial plays in New York, Los Angeles and the Bay Area for about 6 months. 9/26/99 The German television show Explosiv films a Dr. MegaVolt performance in Santa Barbara, CA. The program airs in western Europe a month later. 9/6/99 NPR story on Burning Man mentions Dr. Megavolt. 9/6/99 San Francisco Chronicle Datebook cover story on Burning Man features a color photograph of Dr. MegaVolt. 9/2/99-9/6/99 Dr. Megavolt electrifies Burning Man with a mobile Tesla Coil and stage raised 11 feet off the desert floor. Over 20,000 people see Dr. Megavolt ignite pyro powder, burn wood, Barbie Dolls and other offerings. The Cult of MegaVolt emerges as thousands of pilgrims follow the shining beacon across the Playa. 8/1999 Ray Gun magazine interviews Dr. Austin Richards, AKA Dr. Megavolt. The magazine features picture of his portable Tesla Coil backpack. 8/22/99 Dr. Megavolt is the centerfold in the National Examiner. 8/15/99 Dr. MegaVolt's National Television debut on NBC's "You Asked for it". 8/8/99 Sizzler Steakhouse hires ad agency Evans, Hardy and Young to film a commercial. Dr. Megavolt to appear as "The Sizzler" in a major national advertising campaign beginning in October. 7/3/99 The Dr. MegaVolt Tesla Coil appears in a machine performance put on by Christian Ristow's machines at the Brewery in Los Angeles. 4/18/99 Dr. Megavolt pictures and interview appear on Page A1 of the Santa Barbara News-Press. 3/1999 New Series produced by Nash Entertainment: "You Asked For It" films Dr. Megavolt for NBC in Burbank. Another contractor supplies a second Tesla Coil. Dr. MegaVolt is struck simultaneously with two 10-foot arcs! 12/1998 Carpenteria, CA photo shoot for Stern magazine and Robot book by lightning photographer Peter Menzel. 8/1998 Dr. Megavolt performs at Burning Man for the first time. 12/1997 RealTV quick clip of Dr. Megavolt airs on national TV. 7/1997 Dr. MegaVolt's picture appears in National Geographic in cover story on robots. 4/1997 Christian Ristow's big party south of market to mark the migration of the Subjugator and its companions to Los Angeles. Hundreds jam into a small warehouse to witness Dr. MegaVolt do battle with a 2.5 ton war machine.. 6/1996 Dr. MegaVolt erupts into the public spotlight at Christian Ristow's party and get zapped by a Tesla Coil owned by Greg Leyh, the creator of the world's largest Tesla Coil and the world's expert on Tesla Coils. Check out Greg's terrific site at www.lod.org |
WARNING! Do not try
this at home! GALLERY / HIRE/ HISTORY/ LAB/ APPEARANCES Copyright 1999-2006 by Dr. MegaVolt ®. May be reproduced online or in print publications with permission which is liberally granted, provided that a link is given to Dr. Megavolt ®. |