ATLANTIC CITY, NJ — They’re mixing more than drinks these days at 32 Degrees, a European-style bottle-service lounge in The Quarter shopping-entertainment complex at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino. Since undergoing a renovation in Summer 2007, the popular club can mix and change the colors of its lighting at the touch of a button to modify its atmosphere with new color-mixing LEDs from Elation Professional.
Premium liquor, served by the bottle for patrons to mix at their tables, along with VIP treatment and high-energy music, keep crowds packed into this compact space (under 1,600 square feet). Still, 32 Degrees Co-Owner Barry Gutin wanted to stay a jump ahead of the city’s fierce competition, so he commissioned Scott Kemly of Powerhouse Sound (Cherry Hill, N.J.) to give the lounge a lighting makeover.
Having done the original installation, Kemly had ideas on not only how to update the room, but how to do so with minimal structural modification and expense. Previously, there had been a huge sphere in the center of the ceiling, lit by purple neon. Surrounding the sphere were dangling strands of glass beads, interlaced with a fiber optic lighting system. Around the sphere, in the ceiling itself, were recessed lights that were used during the daytime for down lighting.
Kemly removed the sphere and neon and recessed lights, replacing them with Elation’s Alkalite Riva 80 color-mixing LEDs. Three Riva 80 systems, consisting of eight recessed LED pods each, were installed in the ceiling holes where the recessed lighting had been. Each of the 24 pods features 80 red, green and blue LEDs, providing full 100% additive color mixing.
The original glass bead strands remain, only now instead of being lit with neon, they reflect the ever-changing rich colors of the LEDs. “Typically, lot of people used neon together with rope lights, but the problem with the old lights was that they were stuck with a single color — purple,” said Kemly. “I told them that Elation made this recessed LED light that gives you the ability to change the room’s colors, which would look great reflecting off the glass strands.”
The Riva units fit into the existing ceiling holes, requiring no costly construction work. “We didn’t have to cut or reconstruct anything,” Kemly said. “We just ripped out the old cans and put the Rivas in.” Most of the lighting renovation was done in a single day when the club was not normally open, so there was no interruption to business.
In addition to the Rivas, Kemly added eight Elation Design Spot 250 hybrid wash-spot moving head fixtures, which provide motion and gobo patterns. Among the reasons this 250-watt fixture was chosen were its compact size and “the Design Spot’s internal colors, which are rich, vibrant colors that go well with the LEDs,” Kemly explained.
Elation’s Alkalite PZ-720A color-changing LED flat panel was installed on a platform in the center of the room, where a dancer performs. The panel fits into the existing platform without complicated construction work.
Between the recessed Riva LEDs, Design Spot’s moving lights and gobos and color-changing dance panel, “there’s a lot going on for a small room,” said Kemly. The Elation Show Designer 2CF DMX console controls the entire lighting ensemble, including the club’s original fiber optic strands.
The controller has “banks and banks of presets which we’ve recorded, but they can also go into manual,” noted Kemly. “But if they don’t feel like messing with the lights, they can just push a button and go with the presets, which will take them through different color changes and moods all night long. For instance, they may start out early with darker reds and blues and subtle, slow-motion gobos, then heat things up later on.”
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For more information, please visit www.elationlighting.com.
