SAN ANTONIO, TX – The owners of the Ziquid Lounge in San Antonio wanted to create an international-style club that appealed to clientele on both sides of the border. Event Ignition chose American DJ and Elation lighting for the club’s interior and exterior, including the Nucleus LED, a tri-color LED with six scanning heads used as a centerpiece on the dance floor.
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SAN ANTONIO, TX – The owners of Ziquid Lounge had a definite vision in mind when they set out to transform a former cigar bar in the city’s Stone Oak area into an upscale food, drink, dance and live entertainment venue. Their goal was to create an international nightspot that would draw clientele from both sides of the US-Mexico border with a variety of different musical genres. As high-profile performing artists themselves, they also wanted to make sure the entertainers who appeared on the club’s stage would be showcased in the best possible light.
To turn this vision into a reality, the club owners engaged Event Ignition (San Antonio) to design the lighting, sound and video for Ziquid. “They told us what they wanted, which was to create an international-style club that would cater to upscale Mexican nationals, with A-list entertainment coming from across the border,” said Frank Burton of Event Ignition. “On other nights, they planned to have more local flavor-type entertainment that would draw a younger crowd. They specifically wanted to use lighting as a centerpiece to make the club a real showplace. The venue itself isn’t extremely huge, but it was designed like a big Vegas club.”
Grand-scale ambitions aside, economy was also a major concern of Ziquid’s owners. “Some of the owners are well-known international artists – musicians and comics — but in this economy everybody’s trying to be frugal,” said Burton. “So even though there were some heavy-hitters, they wanted to maximize their budget.”
To achieve stunning lighting effects and be able to accommodate the club’s eclectic entertainment mix, while keeping the price tag in check, Burton chose LED fixtures from American DJ and Elation Professional.
The lighting gear list for Ziquid’s interior includes: 18 x American DJ Flat Par TRI7 low-profile RGB par cans; 6 x American DJ Vizi LED Spot moving heads; 1 x American DJ Nucleus LED centerpiece effect; 1 x American DJ 64B LED Pro RGB par can; and 64 x Elation/Alkalite Octopod RGB LEDs; along with an Antari X-310 Pro Fazer from Elation.
Burton also used an Elation ELAR 216 Panel RGBW outdoor linear color wash on Ziquid’s front exterior. Rated at IP65, the ELAR 216 Panel contains 72 3-watt LEDs (18 each red, green, blue and white), producing a bright color display that can be seen from the highway, a block away. “The owners wanted to light up the exterior so it would attract attention from the highway and make them easy to find,” said Burton.
Inside the club, the ceiling was left open when the building was originally gutted to provide greater height for the lighting, per the advice of Burton. “The ceiling is about 14 feet high now, whereas before it was closer to 8 or 9 feet. By opening it up we gained 5 feet. It makes all the difference to have that longer throw distance,” said Burton, who was involved in the project from day one.
On Ziquid’s relatively small stage, which is shaped like a half circle, Flat Par TRI7s were used to light the performers. “Because of the shape of the stage, we had to essentially create a horseshoe of lighting to make sure that no matter what angle someone was looking from, the talent was lit nicely,” said Burton. “The Flat Pars worked out great, because with their wide 40° beam spread we get a lot of coverage from a short distance. And because they use Tri-Color RGB LEDs, there are no color shadows.”
Also in the stage area are the Vizi LED Spots, four of which are used as backlights for the band. Powered by a 22-watt white LED source, and featuring 7 rotating gobos and a Prism Wheel, the Vizi LED Spots “allow us to do all kinds of effects and coolness. They have custom gobos with the name of the club, which we can rotate around the walls and dance floor for a nice personalized touch,” said Burton.
The remaining two Vizi LED Spots are used as front lights, illuminating the dance floor and doubling as followspots. Because of the club’s small size, it wasn’t practical to sacrifice seating to put an actual followspot in that position, Burton explained, but the versatile Vizi LED Spot can handle this function. “If somebody’s singing downstage center, we have a position program to pick them up (with the Vizi LED Spots), and we can also do solos for each of the musicians on stage.”
Ziquid’s owners were also adamant about having a centerpiece light on the dance floor – a trend that seems to be making a resurgence of late, according to Burton. The Nucleus LED, a Tri-Color LED with six scanning heads, filled this role nicely. “That one light really fills up the entire club,” commented Burton. “You can program it with a DMX controller, but it’s also got some amazing built-in programming. So you can just set it in Sound Active mode and it’ll do some really incredible looking stuff.”
Another request from one of the artist-owners was for a special backlight that could be used to highlight his own vocal performances on stage. Burton mounted a 64B LED Pro par can “at the perfect angle to do some nice silhouettes. It was effective from that distance and doesn’t have as wide a throw as the Flat Pars, so it was the perfect light for that function.”
The club’s seating areas are illuminated with Elation’s Alkalite Octopod pod-style RGB LED fixtures. In addition to serving as downlighting on each individual table, the Octopods light up the draperies that line the club’s walls. Their color-changing capabilities provide the ability to dramatically alter the look of the entire club.
“We can go from a hot color for a real ‘up’ number, to something more laid back — not just with the stage lighting, but with the downlighting, too,” said Burton. “This is a bit of a departure, because typically the band lighting had been contained to what was happening onstage. But we designed it so that we can change the lighting of the entire club. We incorporate the downlighting when we’re designing lighting cues for the band. That way, the entire club can be a reflection of what’s going on.” This chameleon-like ability is ideal for a venue like Ziquid, which not only features a variety of musical genres, but also other types of entertainment such as comedy and fashion shows.
Ziquid’s lighting design has gotten some terrific feedback, reported Burton. “Everybody’s been wow-ed!” he commented. “Many people compare this venue to the huge Vegas clubs.”
What’s more, Burton added, Event Ignition was able to provide this stellar lighting at an economical price, because of the choice of equipment. “What was really nice was at the end of the day, everybody got exactly what they wanted. And thanks to the value of American DJ and Elation products, they paid what they wanted for it. Nobody had to sacrifice anything to stay within budget.”
For more information about Event Ignition, call 210.379.8517 or visit www.eventignition.com.
