Best Lighting System
| D-Fab for 1015 Circe Lounge, San Francisco | |
 |
The oh-so-happy marriage of video and LED lighting has worked wonders for many a club interior, and the unique lighting solution developed by Scot Peterson and 2007 CWA nominee Andris Kasparovics of D-Fab demonstrates yet another one of its fascinating applications. Merely look up to the circular ceiling and you'll see 1,200 Color Kinetics iColor Flex SLX strips, broadcasting a low-res video image fed to them from a Mac mini computer. It's all synched up to the DJ's music, eliminating the need for an LJ. Best of all, the LEDs on the ceiling and throughout the room runs off one 20 Amp circuit, giving it that fashionably sustainable sheen. -JH |
| Focus Lighing and Neu Visions for Aura, The Bahamas | |
 |
The system at single-room Pure Management club Aura - a shared effort by Focus Lighting (architectural) and Neu Visions (dancefloor) - is both subtle and awesome. Nearly every wall is embedded with Color Kinetics iColor Coves or lined with iColor Flex strands, all programmed in timed sequences. Four "motion grids" serve as dancefloor trussing, and bear over two-dozen moving lights (Robe and Martin Professional) and strobes. They also host the club's "crown jewels": two High End Systems DL.2 digital lights, which project logos in the early evening, and full, fantastical aerial landscapes as the party intensifies. -KLM |
| iDesign for Sullivan Room, New York | |
 |
Previously nominated iDesign Productions out of Miami Beach, Florida goes for its first Best Lighting win with a top-to-bottom revamp of two-time Nightstalker Award-winning Sullivan Room. Michael Meacham's sophisticated designs have blessed most of Miami's world-class clubs, including Space, Crobar, Pawn Shop and the Shelbourne Hotel. For his first New York install, Meacham took a previously dungeon-like room and filled it with color, via 20 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 wall washers, and a Behringer BCF 2000 MIDI controller running FX, cues, and pan/tilt macros. It's the first install of its kind in NYC. -RL |
| Lighting Methods for Cameo, Miami | |
 |
Avoiding the in-your-face light bombardment, Cameo's design instead offers a warm embrace, in both its architectural and dancefloor elements. The LED-illuminated Chase Poles, designed by Lighting Methods' Joe Zamore, mimic those in the original Studio 54, complete with police beacons at the bottom. Behind the DJ booth - a halved-disco ball centerpiece - is a wall of illuminated images of Marilyn Monroe, a la Andy Warhol. But when switched from front- to back-lit, Marilyn is replaced by "Scarface's" Tony Montana, brandishing that famous machine gun. On the dancefloor, Martin Professional MAC 550 and MAC 250 Wash moving heads, Atomic Strobes and Wizard effect lights keep the vibe clubby and sexy. -CM |
| Ohm Productions for Lotus Lounge, Washington D.C. | |
 |
Boldly marrying lighting and video together for Michael Romeo's latest nightlife vision, Ohm Productions' Ryan Rafferty brought a Vegas-style wow factor to D.C. by constructing a 50-foot long, six-foot tall Element Labs VersaPIXEL wall in the club's "cellular" room. The largest of its kind in North America, the wall runs low-resolution images from a central server that give only the slightest impression of the object they're screening. Rafferty combined this spectacle with tastefully placed washes and spots by Robe, showing how imaginative lighting can submerge clubgoers in an otherworldly environment. -JH |
| SJ Lighting & CD+M Lighting, The Dome, Princess Cruise Line | |
 |
Steve Lieberman took his nightclub expertise to the high seas this year, designing and installing a technicolor venue for Princess Cruise Line's 70,000-ton Regal Princess. The soup-to-nuts system included the usual SJ signatures: custom, movable trussing, lined with Acclaim X-Stick 12 LED strips; control via an MA Lighting grandMA (the rack-mountable Replay Unit, ideal for hands-off operation); a full complement of moving heads (Martin Professional MAC 250 Kryptons), strobes (Atomic 3000's), and conventionals. But the pièce de résistance is the three-foot centerpiece sphere: Made out of 480 Acclaim X-Dome Dot and Strobe LED pixels, it raises and lowers on a ribbon lift, just like a mini Times Square New Year's ball. -KLM |
| « back to nominees index | |
