ELE instantly distinguished itself by offering what one reviewer described as "a classy alternative" to the typical late night club. At the same time, though, the club sizzles with EDM energy, featuring world class DJs and appearances by celebrities like Lady Gaga. Meacham's lighting design manages to highlight the elegance of the two-story club's architecture as well as its gold and silver decorating scheme, while also serving up a healthy dose of EDM attitude to its custom-designed DJ booth and dance floor.
"I designed the lighting so it became part of the club's architecture," said Meacham. "The lights work with the building's high-end features by doing things like wrapping the columns and creating bursts on the ceiling. The angle of space here is unique - it's not the typical symmetrical square or rectangle; our lighting design takes advantage of this feature.
"However, at the same time that we accented the club's architectural features to project a sense of elegance, we also created some EDM festival looks," he continued. "For example, I really loved designing the mini festival stage with the large DJ booth, video panel backdrops and video staircase risers on either side."
The geometric effects created by the lighting are essential to the design at ELE, according to Meacham. To illustrate this point, he describes how he utilized the Rogue R1 Beams. "I created two custom LED circle bursts, putting eight Rogue R1 Beams in the center circle and eight of the units on the outer circle. This created some interesting looks," he said.
"I also placedLegend 412Z washes close to the mid-point of the circle bursts and had them programmed as key lights for the DJ and dancers. With the zoom feature of the Legends, we can focus on a single performer or use the wash feature to cover the entire back stage."
Meacham's gear at ELE includes 16 Rogue R1 Beams, two Legend 412Z washes and six Strike 882 strobe panels ("perfect blinders in a club environment") from Chauvet Professional, as well as custom-made 14mm pitch LED bars, custom 10mm LED stair risers and custom 6mm LED tiles, all controlled by a GrandMA playback/programming wing.
Pixel mapping played a key role in the club's lighting design. "Scott Chmielewski and the DMD S7 Studio team excelled at doing complicated patching and UV mapping for the media server," said Meacham. "There are over a thousand LED strips pixel mapped at the club.Really, there's a lot of mapping to unify the columns, ceiling bursts, stairs, and video wall behind the DJ booth. While all these areas have individual outputs, the video can either run independent or seamlessly as one image."
(Jim Evans)
