BALLANTYNE, NC — When Cosmos, a restaurant in downtown Charlotte, N.C., opened a second branch in suburban Ballantyne, the owners were counting on the reputation of their French fusion-style cuisine to jump-start the new location. What they didn’t expect was that after the anticipated dinner rush cleared around 9 p.m., the new Cosmos Café would get a second wind, transmuting into a popular nightspot.
One reason for Cosmos’ after-hours viability is its color-changing LED lighting effects from Acclaim Lighting, which compelled a local food reviewer to note that “Even the lighting is neat — the lights fade from green, to blue, to red…When you go to visit, be sure to ask about the décor.”
Jack Kelly of Charlotte-based Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound used 235 Acclaim X-Stick-12RGB strip LED fixtures to create Cosmos’ color-changing effects. The X-Sticks were installed in the restaurant’s ceiling panels as well as in a large, overhead spear-like scenic element called the “comet,” which hangs from the ceiling.
Nearly 60 feet long and made of white Plexiglas, the comet is the visual centerpiece of Cosmos. Abstractly designed with a taller front section that tapers down to a tail, it is a declaration of the establishment’s cosmic theme. The owners “wanted the comet to glow,” said Kelly. “The other thing they wanted to accent were rows of ceiling panels that go off to the side of the comet.”
Kelly said the X-Stick, a DMX-controllable strip containing 12 SMD LEDs, helped him achieve an even spread of lighting throughout the comet and ceiling panels. One issue he had to address was the presence of ceiling wood blocks that could cast shadows on the comet. “When we looked inside the comet, we were like, ‘How do we get around those wood block shadows,’” said Kelly. “The way we got around it was by having multiple lights inside it, instead of one powerful light.”
Measuring 13.6 by 0.9 by 0.9 inches, the X-Stick was small enough to be configured in a way to eliminate shadows. Kelly also used different-size runs of X-Sticks to fit the comet’s tapered shape.
“We did four runs of X-Sticks in the first 17 feet of the comet, three runs of X-Sticks in the next 17 feet, and two runs in the next 17 feet,” Kelly said. “Then we filled in with a few X-Sticks in the tail section. This was how we got a nice, even spread throughout the whole thing.”
Cosmos’ plexiglass panels had similar issues with ceiling wood blocks, again solved with X-Sticks. On the 8-foot-wide panel, the wider of the two, Kelly was initially going to install one line of X-Sticks down the length of each side and have them “shooting across the middle.” But here again, the wood blocks would have produced shadows in the panel’s mid-section. So Kelly wound up installing some “filler” X-Sticks in the wood blocks themselves, which created a shadow-free wash on the panel.
Another feature of Cosmos’ décor are pictures on the wall that change colors. Kelly created this color-changing effect by framing the pictures with an LED product from Acclaim’s sister company Elation Professional — Flex LED RGB WP Tape. A thin, high-output DMX-compatible LED circuit strip that comes in spools, Flex RGB Tape has three SMD LEDs every two inches and can be cut to desired length.
“We just wrapped the Flex Tape around on the inside of each picture,” said Kelly. “They kept changing the dimension and shape of the pictures, so we weren’t sure what we would need. Flex Tape is so flexible and easy to install that it allowed us to be ready for anything.”
With its LED lighting, Cosmos, too, is ready for anything — from early-evening laid-back dining, to a more ramped-up nightlife atmosphere. “Early in the night we typically pick a color theme such as red and do some slow, subtle color changes into maybe shades of orange within each block of the comet,” said Kelly. “Then once the bar gets kicking in, we have much more intense programs with faster color changes, strobing and things that are a little more interesting.”
Along with its flexibility, the lighting gear “gave us everything we needed at the price point we needed to reach,” Kelly said.
For more information, visit www.elationlighting.com and www.eyedialogue.com.
