Director of Entertainment Design Technology
VAI Resort · Glendale, Arizona, United States
The Director of Entertainment Design Technology is a creative technology leader and trusted consultant within VAI’s Entertainment organization, responsible for helping transform big ideas into extraordinary guest experiences.
This role brings deep expertise in entertainment technology, production design, and immersive experiences to the creative process—challenging what’s possible, identifying the right technologies, and helping creative teams understand how technology can elevate storytelling, emotion, interaction, and the overall VAI experience.
This is not simply a technology role. You are the person who asks, “What if?” and then knows enough about technology to help make the answer possible.
You will help ensure that technology at VAI feels intentional—not technology for technology’s sake. Every screen, light, sound, projection, interactive element, control system, and emerging technology should have a purpose and contribute to the story we are telling.
VAI is looking for someone who doesn't simply understand entertainment technology—they understand what it can make people feel.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
Creative Technology & Experience Design
- Serve as a design consultant and technology thought partner to the Entertainment organization, bringing ideas, possibilities, and technical expertise into the creative process.
- Help translate creative concepts into technology strategies that are immersive, emotionally resonant, memorable, and achievable.
- Explore how technology can enhance storytelling, guest interaction, spectacle, atmosphere, and entertainment across the resort.
- Identify emerging technologies, creative applications, and new approaches that could create unexpected and differentiated guest experiences.
- Guide the creative application of audio, lighting, video, LED, projection, media servers, show control, automation, interactive technology, networking, special effects, and other entertainment technologies.
- Help the Entertainment team understand not only what technology can do, but what it should do to make the experience better.
- Oversee or advise on immersive media, experiential installations, interactive guest touchpoints, and technology-driven entertainment environments.
Design Consultation & Creative Development
- Participate early in the creative process to influence concepts before they become difficult or expensive to change.
- Review concepts, designs, drawings, renderings, mockups, previsualizations, and technology approaches and provide informed recommendations.
- Ask the questions others may not be asking: Can we do it? Should we do it? Is there a better way? What will the guest experience? What will it take to operate?
- Help creative teams understand the technical implications, opportunities, limitations, and tradeoffs associated with their ideas.
- Help establish a cohesive technology language across venues, attractions, public spaces, shows, activations, and seasonal experiences.
From Big Idea to Reality
- Stay connected to projects as they move from concept and schematic design through detailed design, fabrication, installation, programming, testing, rehearsals, commissioning, and opening.
- Provide creative and technical oversight to ensure the experience delivered reflects the original vision.
- Participate in design reviews, technical reviews, mockups, rehearsals, previsualization sessions, show tuning, and commissioning activities.
- Work alongside programming and technical teams to refine experiences and solve issues that arise during testing and live operation.
- Identify opportunities to simplify, improve, or value-engineer solutions without compromising the guest experience.
- Help anticipate operational challenges before they become guest-facing problems.
- Ensure technology solutions are reliable, maintainable, scalable, and appropriate for a high-volume, guest-facing entertainment environment.
VAI Experience & Innovation
- Help ensure that every technology-driven experience feels unmistakably VAI—bold, unexpected, immersive, elevated, and fun.
- Protect the connection between technology, storytelling, brand, and the overall guest journey.
- Look beyond today's technology to anticipate what guests will expect tomorrow.
- Continuously bring new ideas, technologies, vendors, partners, and possibilities to the conversation.
- Support future refreshes, new experiences, and expansions by maintaining a cohesive creative and technology vision.
WHAT YOU BRING
Experience & Expertise
- 10+ years of experience in entertainment production design, entertainment technology, experiential design, or a related field, with significant experience in large-scale audio, video, lighting, and entertainment systems.
- Proven experience designing or leading technology solutions for live entertainment, immersive experiences, attractions, resorts, casinos, theme parks, cruise entertainment, festivals, touring productions, or similarly complex environments.
- Demonstrated experience taking entertainment experiences from concept through execution, commissioning, and operation.
- Deep understanding of live production, show programming, cueing, rehearsals, commissioning, and performance workflows.
- Strong working knowledge of entertainment technologies including:
- Professional audio
- Theatrical and architectural lighting
- LED displays
- Projection
- Media servers
- Show control
- Automation
- Networking
- Interactive technologies
- Special effects
- Emerging entertainment technologies
- Ability to read and interpret architectural plans, technical drawings, signal-flow diagrams, lighting plots, system documentation, and related design materials.
- Familiarity with visualization, drafting, media, and production software and other creative or technical design tools.
Creative & Strategic Mindset
- You are equally comfortable talking about storytelling and signal flow.
- You naturally think beyond the obvious and are energized by the question, “What could this become?”
- You understand that great entertainment technology is experienced emotionally before it is understood technically.
- You know how to protect a creative idea while still being honest about feasibility, cost, schedule, reliability, and operations.
- You are curious about emerging technology and know how to distinguish a meaningful innovation from a shiny new toy.
- You have strong visual communication, presentation, storytelling, and concept-development skills.
- You can take a complex technical idea and explain it in a way that gets a creative team excited about what is possible.
The VAI Way
- Collaboration: You bring people together across disciplines to create something greater than any one team could create alone.
- Ownership: You see something that could be better and take action—even when it isn't technically “your job.”
- Resiliency: You know great experiences rarely arrive perfectly on the first try. You stay curious, solve problems, and keep moving.
- Enthusiasm: You genuinely love entertainment, technology, and creating moments people remember.
- Vision: You can see what VAI could become before everyone else can see it—and help turn that vision into reality.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS
- Ability to regularly walk throughout large resort and entertainment environments, including construction and back-of-house areas.
- Ability to stand and walk for extended periods during site visits, rehearsals, installations, commissioning, and operational reviews.
- Ability to safely navigate stairs, uneven surfaces, active construction areas, backstage environments, and other areas where entertainment systems are being installed or operated.
- Ability to wear required personal protective equipment (PPE) when visiting construction or operational areas.
- Ability to work in environments with varying levels of noise, lighting, temperature, and other conditions associated with live entertainment and production environments