NEW YORK – Even before the matchup between the Seahawks and Broncos on Feb. 2, 2014 became dubbed the “not-so-Super Bowl” due to the lopsided performance on the field, the Super Bowl party sponsored by Heineken, Esquire and All In magazine at Canoe Studios here had already planned a “game free” party area for those who, for whatever reason, just weren’t that into the game. And the space was anything but dull. Canal Sound and Light added to the visual energy with PVP S7 panels from Chauvet Professional.
More details from Chauvet Professional (www.chauvetlighting.com):
Rising 14 stories above the Hudson, Manhattan’s Canoe Studios offers some classic New York views. On Super Bowl Sunday, the famous video studio and event venue also hosted one of the city’s most unique Super Bowl parties. Sponsored by Heineken, Esquire and All In magazine, the jam-packed event had the requisite large screen TVs showing football, but it also offered something you weren’t likely to see at other Super Bowl gatherings: a spacious “game free” party area where the only videos running were those on some eye-popping PVP S7 panels from Chauvet Professional.
“This was a non-football room sponsored by Heineken,” said Jeffrey Kwan of Canal Sound and Light (New York), which did the lighting and audio for the event. “The other sponsors had other rooms in Canoe Studios where you could watch the game, but the Heineken room was party center, where people came to dance. So everything about this room had to say ‘party;’ and yes, the Chauvet PVP panels were a big part of projecting that image.”
Kwan and his team used 14 PVP S7 panels to create the party atmosphere in the Heineken room, which measured about 2,500 square feet. A solid high-definition video panel with black face SMD LEDs and a tight pixel pitch of 7.8 millimeters, the PVP S7 provides high-resolution graphics and live-action videos, making it ideal for an application like the Heineken party.
“We used six panels behind the DJ booth and eight in front,” said Kwan. “The idea was to cover the entire booth with panels, no truss showing — so we could make a powerful visual impression on people as soon as they walked in. It worked too; the DJ said ‘wow!’ and the guests were impressed. I love these PVP panels for the whole package: their intense output, their colors, and their easy set-up and tear down; plus they’re easy to transport. I put all the panels for this event in my SUV; that’s how compact they are, and look at the amazing results we got!”
Although party goers were often close to the DJ booth, pixilation was not issue with the PVP S7 video panels, according to Kwan. “The contrast rate is so good on these panels, plus we were using them for visuals and Heineken logos so they looked good even from close range,” he said.
Kwan and his team showed Heineken commercials on one section of the panels and images that supported the commercial – like bottle caps being opened — on other panels. “It created a nice effect, showing multiple images that supported each on different video panels,” he said. “We used the CHAUVET Professional VIP™ Media Server to feed images to the panels. It was powerful, user friendly and a pleasure to work with.”
The brightness of the panels also played a key role in creating a party atmosphere in the Heineken room, as Kwan used them to saturate a large area with intensely bright colors. “The PVP panels are amazingly bright – so much so that we had to run them at 60% at a previous project we did at Canoe for a charitable event,” he said. “But here at the Super Bowl party we went all out at full brightness to energize the crowd.”
In actuality, the Canoe crowd got energized before they even set foot in the Heineken room, thanks to a “football tunnel entrance” that Kwan and his team created leading into the facility. Made up of trussing and fabric with corporate sponsor logos on the floor, the structure resembled a “players’ tunnel” at a football stadium.
Kwan gave the tunnel an extra intense look by illuminating it with six COLORband™ PiX bars. High output tri-color LED linear effects with pixel mapping, the linkable COLORband PiX units ran the entire length of the tunnel.
“We wanted to create a sense of excitement as soon as people entered, and to keep that excitement going throughout the evening, beyond the game,” said Kwan. “This event went from 4 PM with a poker tournament until 1 AM, so we couldn’t just rely on the Super Bowl game itself for excitement; we had to energize the party atmosphere throughout the evening and Chauvet certainly helped us achieve this goal.”
