This year the Brussels Planetarium celebrates the semicentennial anniversary of Pink Floyd's legendary album The Dark Side Of The Moon with a 360° film.
The 45-minute film accompanies the record and was produced in collaboration with Aubrey Powell, one of the co-founders of Hipgnosis, the British graphic design company that created the album's cover and was responsible for much of the band's distinctive artwork.
The tracks are played chronologically, each with a different theme, including some with a nod to the band's past, and "all relating to a time and space experience," Powell explains on Pink Floyd's website. The film will run throughout the summer and into the autumn, including 16 August, 20 September and 5 October. Reservations are required and several screenings have already sold out.
The Brussels site is one of 100 planetariums worldwide showing the film in celebration of the album's release. When launched in 1973 the album was first revealed to critics in the London Planetarium.
Brussels Planetarium. Credit: Belga / Herwig Vergult
An anticipated album debut
By the seventies, Pink Floyd had already earned the title of Britain's foremost psychedelic rock band and rumours had started to spread that their new album would be a decisive moment in the band's development.
Press invitations to the 1973 press conference organised on 27 February at the London Planetarium displayed a photograph of the Pyramids of Giza, which furthered the feeling of intrigue and mystery.
But the band was less keen on their "psychedelic space rock" categorisation and defied their record label EMI Records by not showing up to the album release. Instead, audience members were greeted by four cardboard cutouts of the band members.
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But the music needed little promo effort, with the album so compelling that it broke sales records. It was 14 times platinum in the UK, was the best-selling album of the 1970s, and is the fourth-best selling album ever. In half a century, the album has sold over 45 million copies.
50 years later, audience members will once again be greeted by cardboard cutouts of the famous band at the Brussels Planetarium's showing of the anniversary film.
