Staged at London’s famous Old Billingsgate market, the event concept was inspired by the Budweiser King of Beers’ commercial, and King of Clubs was the culmination of a point-of-sale campaign by the company. Re-igniting the spontaneous party spirit of the late 1980’s rave scene, over 3,000 invited guests met at a central London location, before being whisked away by boat to Billingsgate - the first time the venue has been used as a club.
Blackout’s Project Manager, Chris Brain collaborated with Paul-Ant Viollet of PAV Productions, to realise his design, which took references from the ad campaign. Blackout provided massive quantities of scarlet velour material to theme the two main rooms and chill-out zones in Budweiser’s red corporate colour. Blackout’s team ruched the fabric around the perimeters of the main dancefloor and chill-out areas on the upper level, enhancing the venue’s naturally splendid architectural backdrop. The entrance was framed with a stunning starcloth for additional ‘sparkle’ as guests arrived. The company also supplied and rigged huge quantities of black drape, used to mask off specific areas and to create the cloakrooms, as well as rigging eight giant acrylic Budweiser branded banners in the two main rooms.
In Room One, DJ’s included Richard Fearless, Unkle Sounds and Ali B, who played a heady mix of hard beats, bass lines and uplifting anthemic intros. Centrestage was a revolving DJ booth, designed and supplied by scenery maestros Blackfriars. This was constructed from fibreglass, painted gold and designed as an inverted bottle top - again echoing the theme of the advert.
The dramatic lighting equipment for the event was supplied by VLPS and designed by Rich Gorrod, who combined VL5 wash lights to illuminate the venue’s architecture, with VL6Cs for the main effects lighting, all with custom Budweiser gobos, plus over 20 Diversitronic strobes. The building’s exterior also became a canvas for Budweiser branding. Gorrod utilized eight Studio Due City Colors, eight VL2416s and four Robert Juliat HMI profile projectors to transform Billingsgate into a myriad of colours, overlaid with Budweiser logos.
The ballsy sound system was designed by Roland Oliver and supplied by Britannia Row. It comprised eight stacks of cabinets - each with four Turbosound Flashlight highs and nine Flashlight 21" lows, for very smooth, high-end coverage. Concern over between-room noise spillage - these are separated only by a catwalk - was resolved by careful angling and positioning of the stacks.
(Ruth Rossington)
